I've always wanted to see the fall (autumn) colour in New England. I'm a knitter and there are wool festivals 🧶 that take place there in autumn that make me yearn to go and sigh with envy.
But what am I thinking? I HAVE already seen the fall in America. I was there in 1988. I was in my second year of college and that first term of the second year of my American Studies degree was in Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. It was stunning.
It's hard to remember. It was before my brother died and I have trouble remembering things before then. Real trouble. Google tells me it may be 'trauma blocking' but I'm not sure I'm ready to investigate that rabbithole (sounds like a therapy money pit). There is SO much I don't remember. I blocked it all, so much so that I couldn't go to my secondary school reunion because I genuinely couldn't remember people and what we did.
Image: autumn leaves strewn across a path, and an orange Mary Jane shoe stepping into them.
I've been watching a TV series called New Amsterdam recently (I'll be honest here, it's taken over my life and I've been enjoying the certainty of watching it every night and binging it, I'm not sure what I'll do when it's finished - suggestions welcome). The finale episode of series 3, which showcased the autumn moving into winter trees in upstate New York, suddenly reminded me of that teenage time and of how much I have always loved autumn colours.
I loved autumn until my brother died on 4th October 1993 then that really buggered up the autumnal joy for me (his birthday was 15th October which didn't help).
Image: the white cover, with gold wavy lines, of the book Storm Pegs by Jen Hadfield. It says ‘A Life Made in Shetland’ at bottom right.
My recent reading, of Jen Hadfield's Storm Pegs, stopped me short when she described being at Shetland Folk Festival in 2016, she was catching up with folk and listening to local group, Vair. Their cajón, mandolins and guitar make tears 'sheet silently' down her cheeks.
"Our bodies archive emotions, which gather in our muscles like silt until we can make the room and headspace to process them: sometimes a tune is all it takes to smooth out the grief that has collected in the seventy or so muscles in the face and to wring out the anger from your brow."
My ‘tune’ is Kiss From a Rose by Seal. It makes my heart bleed. I listened to this song, and the album it came from, a lot after Philip died. So much so that it became associated with grief and sadness. I couldn't listen to it for years. I'd avoid it. Switch it off. Wish it would go away. Every now and then it would blindside me.
Music has a way of doing that. Especially live music. I had a lovely time last year going to small local gigs and listening to live music (until I had to stop so I didn't run into a man I really liked, but wasn't allowed to love).
I think next year I should listen to more music outside my home (or car), let it make me emotional and allow me to feel my feelings.
Maybe it'll help with the ‘trauma blocking’ 🤔.
Maybe it'll help me meet a man I can love…😘
Let me know if you have songs that you associate with joy, grief, emotions.
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