Dear my nameless, faceless Ba

Dear my nameless, faceless Ba,

Can you hear me?

I haven’t spoken to you, or written, in a year. Life feels hard again. What is it about this time of year?

I wish I had known you, your name, your face. In my mind you’re stood still, your sari is catching the breeze. The hem of your skirt licks the dust as you turn away.

I wonder if you’re proud of me. Of my siblings, my cousins, my aunt, my father? What would you make of us? What would you think of this mess we made?

You seem to hold part of that missing piece for me. I’m not sure which piece it is.

I often speak to you, I’ve no idea if you hear me. But it feels good. It feels good to look up into that enormous sky flecked with starlings and I wonder if you once looked up at the same piece of sky when you walked this earth.

– Saffron

Scratching into paper

I must have been thinking about the dark figure over the past few days, images of him bent over, hovering or simply standing behind me keep flashing across my mind. I had an itching feeling this evening that made me grab my biros and my notepad. I had an overwhelming urge to scratch that dark profile into the paper, tearing across his face and puncturing his stomach.

The process was actually very therapeutic. It was as if I had freed part of him from me. The version of him that spilled onto the paper was no longer fixed in the dark web of my mind. I almost expected him to leap from the page itself and dive out the window, plunging into the street below.

Here is one of my scratchings.

– Saffron

April

I haven’t had a dark thought in months. Sometimes I wonder whether the dark figure is lonely without my darkness. At the moment I spend my days reading and writing; Derrida, Foucault and Bourdieu. It’s almost cliché.

I think the running has really helped. There is something inherently mine about it. I run by the river where the pink morning sky hangs behind the April blossom. I often think back to my teens, when I’d climb the hill to the cemetery at home, swing my legs on the bench and let the tears roll down my cheeks, wishing them to empty me of my emptiness.

For now I can’t seem to cry. No matter how much I want to. I can’t seem to indulge myself in my darkness the way I could.

I’m sure there’s a story in here somewhere, but it doesn’t quite feel ready yet.

– Saffron

Bringing back Saffron

I’ve not given Saffron much time lately. I’ve been enjoying temporarily living without her, pretending to just be me, stripped of all the nonsense. But I know that I can neither push Saffron away, nor ignore the nonsense forever…

I’ve managed to find safe places and ways of keeping the dark figure at bay. Quiet corners of the huge university library; drifting slowly beside the river to the sound of the rain; forty minutes on the treadmill; talking with friends for hours. The dark figure does still visit when it’s dark and I’m lonely, but he doesn’t linger as he used to. 

I have a lot of love to give to Xavier, which gives me a lot of strength. Looking to our future is something that keeps me pushing through. But this coming year, I want to be able to focus on the present. I want to savour it and enjoy it as if it were the last moment I have. Rather than instinctively wanting to run from it.

– Saffron

Wishing everyone a peaceful new year. 

– Me

November reflections

I’ve been thinking back over the last two years, in which I spent a lot of time writing on The Secret Life of Saffron. With the distance and the space I have from the darkness now, it’s easier to turn towards it and take it front on.

I remember the pain of trying of hold myself together. The sheer effort felt more tiring than the darkness itself. I’d drag myself around, at work, at home, in the city. It felt like I was clutching at my very flesh as it loosened and fell apart in lumps around me. I’d often see these pieces of flesh around the office at work and home, lying in the kitchen sink, wobbling on the train, waiting at the doorstep. They glistened, their redness burning into my eyes. I would hurriedly try to quickly scoop them up and push them back into my sides and stomach as I went about, hoping no one noticed that I was falling apart.

Now, my sides and my stomach feel more solid than they have done in two years. From this November vantage point, the view looks clearer up ahead. 

– Saffron

Thanks to my therapist

I had my final session with my therapist today.  The most consistent thing about these last two years has been seeing T every Thursday. So unsurprisingly, I’m feeling sad.

It was a strange feeling, walking up to that big black door today. I thought about how it felt the first time I pressed that buzzer. Everything was impossibly dark and heavy then. Even my own limbs felt heavy. But today, I felt clear and light. Sad, but light.

T did more than just help me find my light. She showed me I could conquer my own mountains, I can brighten the darkness and I can find strength in the lowest of places. And all she did was hear me.

I felt like a ghost when we first started our sessions. I felt translucent: like I was watching us from a distance or from deep inside myself. After a while it was the only place in the world where I felt solid. Between those four walls, with the soft beige furnishings and the candles on the mantle piece, was a safe zone.

And now I feel strong, I feel joy, I feel optimism. I feel myself, solidly and completely myself. Without the translucency or the ghostliness. I feel whole. For that, I am forever grateful.

– Saffron

Feeling

I made my first trip back home-home before I started writing about Saffron, and before I had started to come to terms with Saffron’s mental health problems. 

Until I left on my big trip, I hadn’t felt in a while. Hadn’t felt anything. All I felt was heaviness and darkness. In fact I remember very little about that period. I don’t remember whether it was a cold winter, or whether I enjoyed my frequent visits to the river, where I escaped everyday. I just felt numb and strangely round and thick. 

But when I stepped out of that aeroplane, I could feel the intense heat and the burn of the large rising sun still stings my eyes. But I felt. From there, it grew. I wanted to feel more.

I wanted to feel the dust on my skin, I wanted to smell the stench of the dirt on the streets, I wanted to taste the heat in the food, I wanted to feel the burn of the sun. And I felt it all. Every sense tingled and stung. After months and months of not feeling a single thing. Suddenly I could feel everything. I felt alive. I felt real again. 

Now, when I feel numb and vacant. I close my eyes and take myself back. I grip my mind tight in my skull until I can feel the sting in my eyes again.

– Saffron