Seed Upon Seed

I look back upon life, upon my young days, my elementary spell, which isn’t something the uncomplicated do.  I think of the Father son and holy ghost, a refrain from my biblical classes.  The holy trinity.  A pas de trois, like a mum, dad and child, and past presence and future, like my brother, me and my sister, the three-leaf clover, much more fertile than the four leafed variety, that one is much sought after, these being the lucky ones.  I remember looking for them, with my friends, in the playground in the summer when we got learning outdoors.  I loved that.  Being outside, on the grass, fresh with the air, the sun warming our shiny caps.  Headmistress, teacher, child.  Birth, life, death.  Death will come to all was the message I heard when we were educated on The Big Bang Theory, with an additional lesson on how this would happen again, in the future.  ‘Don’t worry girl, it won’t be in your lifetime,’ the teacher said, ‘but what about my children,’ I said, never giving it a second thought that I may not have any, ‘and what about my children’s children.  Are they all going to die?’  I didn’t sleep easy after this lesson.  Dream, followed dream, followed nightmare, followed sleep wanderings, even outdoors.  You don’t believe I could do that?  I don’t blame you.  It’s not natural.  I was freaky.  Everyone else was normal and I thought they must be better than me.  How did I rid myself of these negativities?  The tree helped.  Branches, leaves and roots.  I’d snuggle along a sturdy branch, coated in green, leaves as large as the palm of my hand, the smell of chlorophyll rising.  Or I’d sit amongst the roots, feel the vibration of life, look up at the rebirth of the tree as it turned again from rust to green.  From my perch, I’d place my head in the clouds, and I’d breathe in fantasy.  I would fly over the land, invisible, free as a bird, I’d swoop and I’d swirl, twirl, caressing the breeze.  Seas and rivers would shout up at me and I’d wave and blink and ripple with pleasure.  Foxes, deer, rabbits and squirrels scrambled about, disappearing under canopies of emerald, mint, sage.  The land beneath watched me with baited breath, willing me to soar high.  I felt wild, almost crazy.  As unbalanced as I was, the tree was my stability.  It didn’t move, it didn’t tell scary stories, keening that the end is nigh.  I liked the tree.  I could see it from my bedroom window.  It didn’t judge, it didn’t make me feel small, even though I was, it didn’t scold me, it accepted my weaknesses, and it listened to my fears and my joy.  Grandmother, mother, child.  Seed, upon seed, upon seed.  My grandmother’s fears invisibly laid across my mother’s breast to then be laid across mine.  Would I then lay them across my child’s breast, like folklore, ballads from times gone by?  Songs with a message of love, of hate, of murder, of woe, of a little fish, floundering, eyes, gills and mouth, birth, life, death.  The triangle, the circle, the threesome, the piggy in the middle, me, always me.  Safety in numbers.  It’s safe in the middle, the starlings who dance in the sky are all making for the middle, they all want to keep safe from the birds of prey, so I should take some positivity from being in the middle.  But I’m alone now.  Alone with only my thoughts, thoughts of escape, of release, of failure.  I can’t even find it in myself to urge the bell to ring, so I can run from my history cupboard, as I’m numb in defeat.  I’m not a Suffragette, I’m not brave, I’m not bold, I’m just an ordinary middle child trying to grow up in a closeted, disciplined world.