Even pebbles cast shadows

What stones do we carry.

Hello Wildlings,

I am late with sending this and I apologise. Sitting here in my office with the sun shining through the window, it is hard to touch and feel the bruise of emotions that caused me to not write a newsletter last week - it seems a tender time ago.

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Not once upon a time, not twice upon a time but a tender time ago, there lived a woman.

This woman lived in a small village, nestled between the sea and the mountains . She had lived there since she was born. It was a tiny village. She had a tiny existence. She yearned and ached for an un-named thing. Her body was a poem of longing. Her mind was a poem of longing. She was a poem of longing.

---

Something happened in my life that made me stop having contact with certain family members. One of these individuals was very toxic - they poured venom into much that they did and they hurt people. They created lies and warned me that everyone in my extended family would know these lies. Lies about me.

I became small.

I became scared.

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This woman so wanted to leave the village and travel over the mountains but everyone in the village knew this was impossible. Nobody travelled through the mountain pass for that was where the monster lay.

The beast.

The demon.

The villagers could hear him at nights, as loud and fierce as the wind, howling and ranting and raving.

The woman heard it too, not just outside but inside, of her, trampling on her gut, squeezing her heart, pounding in her eyes. She could not think. She could not feel.

---

I’m sitting at my desk and I receive a message from my son. He has heard that my uncle has died and the funeral would be the following week. My son says he is sorry to tell me. He hopes I am ok. He says he will go to the funeral as he is in the UK.

I loved that Uncle.

His wife had been my Godmother. She had sung to me as a child. She had let me borrow her clothes. She had been at my mother’s side during the dark, dark years. She and my uncle took us with them on holiday after my dad left - they knew we would never have a holiday otherwise. I had known that uncle as a young man, from when he started dating my aunt. I had taken care of their children whom I had loved. We had all been so close.

Then I had stopped having contact with them.

Just in case they had been told the lies.

---

In the village, the woman is lying in her small house,

tossing 
turning  
yearning

She knows she has to leave. She has to travel up through the mountains. So she tells the villagers and they laugh at her and tell her she will not make it. No one had ever made it. The woman looks each of them in the eye -

‘I will go or die,’ she answers. Her resolve armours her and she turns away from the village, towards the mountain.

---

I knew wanted to go to the funeral. I was really scared that the family member might be there and that there would be a huge scene. Yet something in me, perhaps my Wildling - that small fierce mute yet immutable, elemental me - decided I must go. I needed to go.

I reached out to my cousins, (my uncles daughters,) for the first time in about 8 years. I asked if it would be ok for me to come. ‘Of course,’ they replied. ‘Dad would be really touched.’ I asked who else was coming. They did not mention the venom-pourer. I booked my ticket using some of the savings that my husband and I have. My daughter, who lives in the States paid for an Air BnB for me. (The friends I usually stay with had their own sorrows to sit with.)

Boarding the plane I had so many stories, so many fears of what might happen running through my head - they revolved with a speed that matched the engines .

---

The woman placed one foot in front of the other as the path started to rise up in front of her. The stones pushed through the thin soles of her shoes. The wind tugged and pulled at her worn clothes, forcing her to clench them tightly to her. Then she heard it - the wail, the howl, the moan, yet she continued, one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other. Darkness was flung up, as the creature appeared, blocking out the sun in front of her.

The woman dropped to her knees.

---

It’s the morning of the funeral and I have decided to walk from where I am staying to the crematorium, - 6.5 km. I have a need to see gardens and flowers . A need for listening to bird song. A need to process all my emotions. I walk and walk and walk. It takes an hour and twenty minutes. I arrive way too early and walk around the cemetery.

I weep.

My son texts me that he has arrived and I see him looking so smart and perfect in his suit. He is such a beautiful, decent, kind human. We stand together and then see the cars arriving. I wait with him, standing a little apart from the people who are now gathering. I am unsure of how I will be greeted. I am unsure of whether I will be greeted. I am scared the venom-speaker will turn up.

---

The sharp stones cut her knees, she pushes herself up. Stands. She walks towards the beast, the monster, the demon. He shrieks -

teeth scraping on metal.

He bellows -

a hundred hooves upon the earth.

She does not stop. One foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other. He falls silent, she dares to glance up - he seems smaller.

---

I see my cousins and raise my hand tentatively. They wave back, gesture for me to come over. My son and I head towards them. We all embrace. They say how grateful they are that I am there, that I travelled all that way. Stepping back to give them space to greet others, I see my other cousins, they register me and smile. I exhale a little. We all go in to the crematorium. I hear my uncles daughters weeping.

I do not weep.

I am looking at the Order of Service. On the front is a picture of a lakeside with a fishing rod and net and an empty chair. Above is an insert of my uncle holding a big fish , pride and joy smiling on his face. I open the first page to see him and my aunt on their wedding day. Another page and I see a picture of him and his granddaughter hugging. The last one is of him and my aunt and their two daughters on holiday.

I feel a mixture of love and sorrow and regret. I smile as I think about how we could have fished together in Sweden - he would have loved it.

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The woman is confused. She steps towards him again and once more he seems smaller. With each step she takes, he seems to shrink until she is standing next to him and he is nothing but a pebble on the ground. Lifting it into her hand she asked,

´Who are you?´

Ì am fear,´he whispers back.

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Thank you for reading this and please consider a paid subscription - it really would mean a lot to me.

In courageous fear and fear-filled courage.

Kx