A blog, unlike a book, is a living thing, requiring tending much the way a garden does. Old links die as pages are moved, old posts are edited when grammar or spelling errors are noticed, and information pages need updating as circumstances change. Sometimes a trial idea doesn’t work, a page is poorly titled and therefore rarely viewed, posts have too few back links (links within them to other posts of useful similar content) and so people struggle to work out the context for the information. Some things need pruning and some feeding up.

This blog is almost one year old now, so with that in mind I’ve been doing a bit of spit and polishing. My About Sarah page is completely fresh with a new photo and the up to date info about me so newcomers don’t have to mine into the blog to work out who I am and where I’m coming from. I’ve clarified some things I’d previously left ambiguous and put in links to posts that expand on important areas.

About this Blog is the new name for the old ‘New Here?’ and ‘FAQ’ pages, condensed into one, simplified, and with expanded suggestions for new readers. The topics make it so much easier to search the blog content specifically once people understand how to use them (and where to find them!).

The old Resources page has been renamed What I Do which is more intuitive, and had the content cleaned up and reordered to make it easier to follow.

Three important tasks remain: to clean up all the old articles that still end with a dead link to the articles page I’ve deleted. To add all my latest artwork in to the Gallery for people to view easily. (urg) And to create a master list of dissociation resources for those new to the topic who need to read helpful articles in order from introductory concepts to more complex or tangential ideas. The reverse structure of a blog (reads from latest entry to earliest) in contrast to a book that reads from the start to finish can have downsides in that new readers are coming into the ‘story’ halfway through as it were, and it can sometimes be difficult to follow.

In the meantime however, enjoy!

I’ve noticed, since moving into my new home, that I rarely sit with the silences. There is always sound here, music, radio, tv, youtube clips, sometimes more than one running at once because when my brain is burning it helps to divide my attention between many things, the only way I can find some peace is the still centre of a complex whirling dance. I noticed I have been filling the silences, living around the empty spaces in my home and I have started to watch them in my life, like shadows I can see out of the corner of my eyes. They are very powerful things these silences, not empty and hollow and desolate, but breathing and alive. Here in the night where night after night I am awake and writing to myself, I feel the silence at my back and the shadows under my nails.

Some nights, when I feel strong, I sit in it. I quiet all the sounds and noise in my head and I listen to my heart beating in my ears, and I feel the shock that this is my life – that after all the plans and dreams and fears, this is the life I am leading. Strange and sad and beautiful, deeply loved, and built from so much loss. So many things I have so deeply feared have not come to pass, I have not aged to a dry husk, an empty adult, a Brian Aldiss adult; the corpse of a child. So many years that fear caught in my throat. I have not foundered on pain. Terrible things have happened and I have survived. It turns out I am strong, exactly as strong as I have needed to be, not one bit more or less, scales that balance perfectly. There is pain here, but not death, not nihilism, not hatred. Nightmares that evaporate in the dawn. And also, that so many things I have so deeply feared have already happened, that I walk with scars, my dreams that will never be sweet nothings, my hands that tremble in the dark.

I’m a little afraid of the dark, of the silence in my house. I’m wise to be, I’ve learned a lot since I was young. I’ve learned not to ask the big questions with such urgency that you tear open upon them. No bleeding out on the bathroom floor. I’ve learned that some truths kill to hold. You have to forget them for a little while, then fall over them in the dark again, discover them anew, remember what hurt again. Day and night, dark and light, memory and loss.

I’m also, perversely, a little relieved. All that time spent in the sun has not sapped the night of its power. The glorious orchestra of sound is still living in the presence of a silence that speaks into my bones. I hear the in-breath before speech and I close my ears. But I’m glad to know it’s there, a voice that speaks below the threshold of hearing, a strength that is not made of light, or day, or sweetness, but is fierce with the unspeakable truths and the hope you find when you walk into the heart of your nightmare and are not consumed by it. Still wings from these shoulders, though you cannot see them, still dreams in a dark heart. Still drinking deeply from that cup, however bitter. I still feel Narnia on the wind, in the night, the song of drains and the sadness of the rain, the empty sky over the sea, where I wait at the edge of my world and remember that all  my life is only this breath and the next, lightning in my brain, blood under skin and memories like shadows.

I remember again that I used to live for more than the day, and I find the night waiting for me, just waiting for me to walk in it, to remember it, to return to it, to find nerves in my skin again and the alien moonlight silver on my skin. When I open my mouth, poems fall like toads or pearls, and something here in the dark speaks my name, restores to myself. For just a few hours I leave behind me the small world we agree to live in where there is no wonder and no gravity, where all is light and glass, no shadows and no mystery, but this is not their life, it is mine, all mine, every minute of it my own and tonight I can smell the grass and the peppercorn tree and see stars through cloud like tiny pearls in silk, and hear the trains far away in the night.

While lying in bed the other night thinking about the universe, I finally thought of an ending for a novel I’ve been wanting to write for many years. I started a new draft seriously last year and put together the first 8,000 words in a few weeks, but illness and caring demands put a stop to the project.

I came up with the novel idea back when I was 15 and I’ve never really been able to end it, but now it’s all fallen into place. It’s so obvious I don’t know why it took me so long to think of it.

I’m going to get to this again. I’m not sure when, at some point it will click internally and be the right time and flow easily. I’ve learned not to force things, I stay with the projects that feel right now and let the others brew. It’s time will come. Here’s an extract for you, it’s about a girl called Leonie, who’s uncle Eric has just died.

She gets home wet and cold and sits in a hot bath for awhile pretending she doesn’t have any homework, doesn’t have to eat tea, and doesn’t have a funeral tomorrow. She spends most of the evening on a geography assignment that makes her brain feel like mud. Her mother bounces around the house, talking loudly and then playing music. When Alistair gets home from cricket, he’s loud too. Neither of them can sit still for long or speak quietly. Leonie and her father are the quiet ones. She closes her door and puts music on her mp3 player to drown it all out. Her music seems inadequate today, she thinks to herself for the first time that she doesn’t own anything sad enough, or angry enough. Nothing to play for those feelings. It never occurred to her before. She gets half of the assignment done, although it took her twice as long as it usually would and left her feeling drained. She turns off her music and can hear the television running, and her mother talking on the phone. It sounds like she’s talking to her sister, Auntie Elsie. She talks about her job and the trouble she’s having with one of the other real estate agents at her office. When she laughs it is loud and sharp. Leonie feels worse now, restless and agitated. It’s dark outside and the rain has stopped. She closes her curtains upon the black mirror of her window. She wants to go somewhere but there’s nowhere to go at this hour. She curls up on her floor and hugs her knees to her chest. In the mirror in her wardrobe door she looks small, like a sad child. She reaches out with one hand and pushes it closed. She’s angry with herself for feeling like this, for being disrupted when no one else is.

The light through her curtains is pale. Inside her room shadows lie half hidden beneath the furniture, black and soft under the bed, behind her dresser. Under her closed door falls a sharp slice of white light. Leonie sits under the window, she presses her face against the cold wall. Her mind is empty and dark. Everything hurts but she doesn’t feel any pain. She closes her eyes and rests her forehead against her dresser where it meets the wall. She inhales shadows. In her mind, Eric is playing his violin. She is looking up at him, light behind him, the frangipani tree visible through his window. His arm swings as he plays. He’s not looking at her. She can’t hear the music, just the memory of the light being shattered through his arms. She wants to disappear. The thought of facing another day is a great weight upon her. Something has to change, it can’t all just be the same.

She pushes the dresser away from the wall and watches the shadow shrink away from her. The wall is bare and white. She wishes for a stupid moment that she could hide behind it. She takes a pencil from her desk and writes on the wall, in tiny letters down by the skirting board.

Eric was here

She takes a breath. The weight on her eases a little. The darkness in her chest goes back to sleep. She looks at the words for a long time. Then she pushes the dresser back against the wall and gets ready for bed. Shower, brushing teeth, saying goodnight, getting a glass of milk from the fridge. She notices all her uneaten dinners stacking up at the back of the shelves. She puts it out of her mind and goes to bed.