So here is a cross section of a day in my life at the moment: mornings are for packing, fretting and barking at my husband (and the occasional Yoga gig) but after lunch the world turns rose petal coloured. I legitimately stop everything and just be. One of the things I enjoy doing while I'm just being is reading. It's as serious a hobby to me as hockey is to 14 year old Canadian boys and their fathers.
I can read a book in an afternoon if it has grabbed me in the right way at the right time. I did that with Carrie Fisher's biography Wishful Drinking - which I highly recommend if you're into sardonic, malignant humour. She has mastered the art of understatement and loves to swear which is a bonus if you're a secret potty mouth like me. Of course, I've read all of her fiction too - one after the other. I go through unhealthy co-dependent periods with the local library where I will literally rock from foot to foot, like a junkie, at the check-out desk until a 'hold' (a reserved book) comes in.
- But you said it would be in today.
- Sorry ma'am I would never have said that - we don't know when holds come in.
- Will it be here tomorrow?
- Ma'am, I really don't know.
- Ok - I'll come back tomorrow.
The Lovely Bones is the story of a girl who watches her family cope with her murder from the 'other side'. It's such a brilliant premise. I can't wait to watch the film. I don't want to spoil it for you so I'm not going to tell you what happens; whether the killer is caught, whether the young girl makes contact with her family from beyond, nothing. I will tell you that it is not a book for someone who has been recently bereaved because the overriding message is that life goes on, the living have to move on and so do the dead.
This was not a big surprise to me since I've had a long time to get to grips with loss, but it did still 'get' me and yet at the same time, it was kind of comforting to have it confirmed (it may be fictional but it read like the truth to me) that yes, the departed do visit - often at first but then not so much and eventually I imagine really never (N.B - I'm starting from the assumption that you believe in an afterlife - if you don't you'll still like the book in more of a Hollywood way) because it means that 'life' goes on for them too.
I don't want to spook you but I know my mum (who I lost 15 years ago) comes and sits next to me every now and again but I also know there are long periods when I don't feel her at all. I've come to accept this though at first it made me a little angry. Yet shortly after she died, I physically begged her never to show herself because I was a big scaredy cat and with the wild imagination of an only child, I envisioned a visit from the dead as being so heart stoppingly horrific, I preferred the alternative - never to see her sweet face or hear her dulcit tones again, but as the years passed, I got braver.
Soon we developed a 'special' friendship - the sort that would no doubt get me locked up in a padded cell under any other circumstances - consisting of unannounced gentle visits. The best way I can explain these visits is to say that the energy in the room changes - she has a unique vibe to me. We'll hug it out or just watch Coronation Street for a minute and then she's gone. I'm afraid these little visits will have to do me until we meet again on the same plane - but as The Gladiator says to his dead wife and son- "Soon, but not just yet".
Anyway, see what good literature can do for a girl? After Alice, I think I might get a little obssessed with knitting as I've just completed a stirrup leg warmer and it really doesn't look that bad. You tell me:
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