Minos

 

The months of Spring were months of recovery for M, and the last months of Minos's life. Towards the end of April, he suddenly became extremely ill, having developed blood clots in both hind legs and lungs; a condition we had been advised about, and had medicated him against. There was no hope for our suffering cat, even though I had wished that he could slip away there in the garden, we were obliged to take him to the vetinary surgeon, where the dose to bring about the end of his life was administered. 

We buried him in a cardboard coffin beside his brother, Silas, whom he had survived by seven months, in the garden, and planted pansies over his grave. The garden, despite the presence of the multitude of bees, and gatherings of little birds, seems almost unbearably quiet without him. 

I remind myself that both he and Silas lived long, full lives, lives began at the lodge in Hampshire, continued in my mother's garden in Hampshire, and concluded after many years with M and I in Somserset. I remember, also, the game Minos played with an empty snail shell in the days before his death; leaping and diving, and pouncing like a kitten despite his fifteen years. A chapter has closed. I feel intense grief for our beloved cats, but above all, an overwhelming gratitude for their having lived with us in mutual companionship and, it is not too fanciful to say, love.

 

temporality

 

Hard on the heels of Silas's death , an exquisite torture overtakes me; a truly fathomless panic. I am made acutely aware of the relentless march of time and although I had somehow expected my dear little household to persist forever, I am all of a sudden persuaded that it is extremely perishable, vulnerable to the ravages of the passing years. I ask my partner to look up the definition of temporality, a word that impinges painfully upon my conciousness; we find that it is the word that describes our ultimate lack of defence in the face of changing circumstance, that it describes the condition of all that lives. All will die; we ourselves shall return to the dust from which we are contrived, the very stars will wink out and a profound darkness will prevail. I am at the mercy of this realisation for the whole of the day, although yesterday, the day when I committed Silas's obituary to print, the pit of despair yawned deeper. 

Today, despite the closing words of the journal that I keep alongside this online diary, which conveyed a desire to relinquish for good the notion of being a visual artist, I gather together a fresh palette of coloured pencils, I take up my notebook of squared paper, and I make a grid drawing, the first for days for which I have any regard. As yet untitled, it is not reflective of my state of mind, rather it suggests a lighter mood, being rendered in spiritual blues, luminescent orange and pink, dark violet, light ochre, crimson lake and turquoise.

After having coloured in one hundred and sixty nine little squares, I repair to the garden with notebook and graphite pencil, and, in the company of Minos, ambassadorial Minos, proceed to overlay each square with the graphite pencil, until a delicate veil shimmers across the colours. The completed drawing hangs in my mind like a screen; the relief I feel is immeasurable; I am convinced that the grid drawings represent the straight forward path, a path I had somehow lost sight of during my wanderings in the forest dark. 

remnants September 2020

 

It is hard enough to work at present. I am aware of the presence of a depressed mood, dulling my mind, rendering my hand inactive. Am I depressed, or is the lowering of my mood the sadness of grief? I need to be watchful, for I sense the winding sheet of depression about to enfold me. Nevertheless I find within me the resources to capture images of recent drawings with my camera. The above drawings were made, with the exception of the fourth, before the death of Silas. The fourth, the following day. There have been two others, but they do not please my eye. 

It is a day of still air and great heat. Minos seeks shelter beneath the cotoneaster; a rambling shrub that grows alongside the wall separating us from our neighbour. I sit with him for a while in quiet companionship, then repair indoors to photograph the remnant drawings made during this month. The act of photographing the drawings is helpful; satisfies my need to be active, engaged, even if I feel something amounting to horror at the hours yet to pass before my partner returns from his place of work. 

 A poet once wrote something along these lines; 'what keeps you from your work becomes your work'. I ponder this whilst I sit on the bench with Minos. I feel no inclination to work in visual terms, although did make a fresh beginning in my notebook a couple of evenings ago. I am reading 'Daybook' by Anne Truitt, which  is deeply satisfying and illuminating. I know that I could never write as she did, yet reading through some of the notes made earlier in the year I sense a voice, timorous in places, yet nevertheless a voice distinguished by it's uniqueness. My youngest sister tells me that she is keeping a journal; I resolve to do the same, to chronicle my life as I live it from day to day, jotting down thoughts, ideas, should they come, chart my emotional responses to life events as they unfold around me.

I write in different places; I haven't a consistent , dedicated repository for my words. Perhaps that does not matter at this stage. I am aware that the words I commit to this online diary are different from the words that I commit to my notebook. The very act of setting down words is different; sometimes I feel that although I cherish the idea of writing longhand in a journal with a fine black pen, I am, despite my lack of fluency at the keyboard, a better thinker when I type. Perhaps it is the question of audience that influences me and my thought processes. I know that when I publish words here, I am writing for an audience; that necessarily shapes one's thoughts in a way perhaps not utilised or appropriate when one writes in a journal. 

During the seven long years in which I was unable to make visual work, I yet found myself able to write; this means of communication has never deserted me in the way that my capacity to organise my thoughts and ideas in visual terms has, leaving a fathomless void in my life. At least there was something, a vestige of the facility to communicate; I held fast to that ability, using it to scribe my deepest fears and and insecurities about being an artist. For, despite these ephemeral drawings, and my love of the sooty black paper on which they are made, I still do not consider myself an artist; I do not believe making visual art to be my first love, despite my training and background, my years of practice.

What then? How do I then define myself? Am I a writer, despite having failed to complete written assignments on time, if at all, owing to an inability to organise my thoughts in coherent sequences? I remember the piece of written work that I submitted as part  of my undergraduate degree; I described the condition of not being able to project a presence in literary terms, the utter collapse of my thinking and ability to complete even simple sentences, my fear at making an appearence in terms of textual discourse.  It seems significant that that piece of work gained me the marks of a first class degree, even though my visual work did not.

I am moved to write at present, not to make visual work; the lack of desire in this respect is an indicator; I need to rest, during this difficult period in my life I need to lay aside any thought of visual work and instead concentrate my efforts elsewhere. Perhaps it is not helpful to worry at the question of how I define myself; it is only profound insecurity that makes me do so, an insecurity that may well be relieved at least in part by the act of commiting words to this diary, and, or, my notebook. 

I am aware of a lightening of my mood, a sense of relief; I can write, even if, for the moment, I cannot draw. I shall end the day with a feeling of accomplishment, a blessed gift that I shall carry with me until I close my eyes in slumber.

Silas

 

My partner and I had been living at Garston's Lodge for two years when the kittens were born of their feral mother whom we came to know as Alice. Their place of birth was a burrow deep beneath the wall of the garage, adjacent to the compost heap, whereon they can be seen in this photograph taken a short while after we discovered them. Silas is the tabby tucked behind his tabby sibling, for whom disaster struck and who one day was absent. This kitten we have named , posthumously, Mimas. Alice disappeared around the same time and I began the long, slow task of accustoming the remaining youngsters, Silas and Minos, to ourselves and our home. Months were spent in quiet care of them, until, one brilliantly frosty morning they came bounding down the path to meet me as I brought their breakfast. From that day they became bolder, gradually venturing into the lodge, until they became dearly loved members of our household, along with Alice, who 'adopted' us for a short while before leaving us when we were obliged to leave the lodge.

Fourteen years have passed . My partner and I no longer live at the lodge, but in a very different house in Frome, Somerset. Until September 2nd, we all; my partner, myself, Minos and Silas lived together in loving accord. On September 2nd, Silas, our gentle tabby, died. I found him in the garden where he had been sleeping. I gathered his dear body in my arms and wept into his fur. My partner and I buried him where I had found him. Days later I plant tiny, beautiful violas over him. My heart is heavy within me, for we have lost a beloved friend.