I knew when I posted this earlier that I was at sea but I needed to stay on it to finish the working day before preparing to head off. I was pleased that I got everything done. Referrals discussed and sent, management supervision negotiated, being met with the news of having to apply for a course (not unlike last year’s ...ugh ...writing a personal statement for it so quickly and to the point with no frills that it might look sarcastic; meeting organised, caseload up to date, appointments done, notes written.
Blimey you’d think I was a normal, functioning widget.

But, having stopped, I have been at sea all night.
Now, after hours of agitation I have got up, made a brew and come to write to see if that disperses some of it, even though I want to spend less screen time.
It’s dark outside and I wonder about just getting in the car now.
All in anticipation of the journey. The Journey.
I don’t even know what that means after having spent hours journeying in and out of my body trying to find ways to settle.
Wishing, dreaming, screaming, for rest.
How our bodies can hold agitation.
I must remember these moments.
Not that they are forgettable, and not that the rest of the time doesn’t feel like a constant hum of low grade agitation.
But these ones are something else, these are the ones that can feel no ease. These are the ones of the mounting Munch-like Scream. Every cell stretching, the tension of wanting to burst, to explode. Trying to take full breaths. Contemplating bursting out the house to run round the block to release the adrenaline. Or just bundling and chucking this seething mass of maggoty self into the lake to sizzle and disperse in the shock. Knowing that this is the point of tension where desperation leads to all the things that can release the feeling... the drink, the drugs, the self harm, the self destruction as the only desperate way out. It’s useful to remember it for work ... and yet whenever you are not in it, it is hard (thankfully) to remember how very desperate it feels.
I try every conceivable imagery that I have worked on nurturing all these years. I try muscle relaxation, breathing relaxation, drawing on a well of compassion - trying to soothe the inexplicably unsoothable.
Then I move to his side of the bed and imagine melting into that feeling. That sense of another body. I can, for a while feel that solidity and recall that feeling of being completely held.
I try to crunch some of the tension out of muscles.
I try the ‘pull yourself together and get adult’ routine which I’ve long since learnt doesn’t wash for this primitive self.
And so now I’ve just decided on the good old, tried and tested, make a brew.
I’ve been nowhere but feel like I’ve done back to back marathons.

So, my brother called today. He’s sold the boat to someone. Would I be able to be around for the guy to come and pick it up?
Simple enough.
I am intending to go down to do more clearing tomorrow.
Yep, I’ll be there.

I had already searched out and sent this photo for my brother to post for the advert a while ago.
That’s him pulling the sail down, me walking towards him to help out and dad powering towards us to get the trolley.
When I was very small I was bundled In to the bows of the little dinghy we had before this one, with the canvas rucksack with leather straps, full of sandwiches ... and the Beano, or the Dandy. I’d read to the sound of the water lapping at the bows, clapping and chopping if the wind was brisk. There wasn’t much room for all of us so I stowed in neatly and quietly with the bailer and got wet if we shipped any water. I couldn’t see much but I’d hear the sounds, smell the brine, and feel the movement and the pitch and heel if the wind got up. I’d feel the tension if things got a bit hairy and imagined being trapped if we capsized. At least I’d have the sandwiches I reasoned, although it did occur to me they’d be wet and salty. Even then we would learn to find small ways to reassure ourselves, however unrealistic and impractical they would be if push came to shove.

I had almost completely forgotten that It was me that had discovered this particular boat. I had left home by this time and was living all the way up here, far from the natural home of these clinker built boats that were all designed specifically for these waters. Over the years of our childhood we learnt to love them, tend them, rub them down in winter, varnish them for the new season, take pride in seeing them take their place in amongst the small family and community that had their home here. When I saw this one for sale on a nearby lake I was taken aback. I told my dad and my brother. I went to look at it for them and can still remember feeling unconfident and anxious about the responsibility of making a decision, but they so rarely turn up for sale, most have rotted or languished through lack of care over the years as modern, easier to maintain, faster boats became more popular.
We bought Marieanne and she made her journey back to her birthplace, rejoined her small family on the creek. She has raced, won and lost, leaked quite a lot. I remember my brother and I crossing the harbour as a storm swept through and wondering what we ought to do if the lightening got any closer. I never developed the ease in a boat that my brother did. He soon started to sail on his own and I would always be the trusty crew for dad but the tension that always went with that made for a nervous sailor. Something I’ve never really overcome. My sister dealt with it by jumping out the boat once and vowing never to sail with my father again.
Siblings all dealing with life, the family systems, and their places within it, differently, and learning to chart their own passage.

Right, maybe a bit of rest before heading off to meet a man who has bought her for his dad to sail on a nearby lake, not far from where I live. Who could have guessed that ending to this bit of her voyage?