Monsters under the bed.

Although there have been moments before now, which I think I have hopefully recorded here somewhere when they have occurred, I want to note today as a day when I woke feeling fine. I’m not entirely sure that has happened in the last six and a half years. It was a qualitative thing, not a bouncing out of bed thing. I recall reading Andrew Soloman’s ‘Noonday Demon’ many years ago and him writing something along the lines of knowing the presence of something only after it has departed.

I know it will be a passing moment but one to note nonetheless.

I set to under the bed. Many ghosts to be found there. Diaries that I have no wish to read but can’t quite chuck, old clothes that are no longer wearable but have hot wire links - a clothing genealogy of past selves, blocks of wood covered in newspaper that we used to raise the bed head to help P’s breathing and comfort at night, and the ‘transitional urn’ - a jar that I use to transfer ashes into when I have done occasional scatterings, it originally contained a delicious tapenade from our French adventures. And, of course, time and life accumulated in thick dust. I was reminded whilst I was under there of my old job and thought of the irony of how scrutinised, cleaned and cleansed WW’s bed was of all life and memory; a bed of historical significance. I had spent so much more time under there than under my own. We can only really try to know and tackle what lies under our own.

Some vigorous hoovering whilst crying and wood chopping followed.