Another postcard from the land of grief

There comes a point when living abroad, where to continue sending postcards seems a little odd. After all, you live here now. The tastes, sounds and smells are no longer new. The language and customs may still be a little odd – but you can fit in with them to a degree.  You live here, they live there, and if you want to write it should really be a letter rather than a postcard. I am in the process of writing just such a letter now – and you can find details of it here.

The sun has now risen 365 times without its rays ever falling on her face. I have not made her a cup of tea nor held her hand for 365 days. Suns and moons and stars and mistakes and conversations have all passed by without ever sharing them. I have managed, very falteringly, to live without her. She lives there, I live here and we shall not meet again until I travel to another place more foreign still. It will be foreign to me, I suppose, and yet in the truest sense ever it will be home.

The river dawdles
to hold a mirror for you
where you may see yourself
    as you are, a traveller
          with the moon’s halo
    above him, whom has arrived
    after long journeying where he
          began, catching this
    one truth by surprise 
that there is everything to look forward to.

(R.S Thomas Arrival)

Until that day comes, and today especially – I shall head for the sea.  I shall gaze at its seemingly endless waves. I shall look for its invisible far shore,and I shall choose to believe that on another shore she looks for me.