Went into a nearby cathedral town, attended a meeting and walked around pedestrian malls in suddenly hot sunshine, early summer in Herefordshire. Sat in an isolated chapel of the cathedral weeping for my father, dying so far away. Coming back on the bus I wondered if I might be having some kind of emotional breakdown, giddiness and a storm of feelings within. The hedgerows alive with blackbirds and finches, the fields shimmering with heat. Such a wicked and sensuous time of year in the border countryside, wild roses blowing down from the branches of the rowans and hawthron, clusters of white elder along every lane.
And then I was ill, a blinding headache and temperature, vomiting and suffering one bout of diarrhoea after another. Unable to keep fluids down, my body flushed with heat in the cold night air. Opened windows, had mouthfuls of water, lay waiting for the gastric virus to pass.
And when it did I was purged, becalmed with not a feeling detectable. A blank. Not unlike the way I used to feel after a bout of drinking. Is there some need for this kind of purgative way? As if living with intensity and crises is too much for the psyche, that some kind of bloodletting is needed?
Watching a woodpecker in the garden and listening to him tapping away at netted peanuts. Staying in the moment and letting the future resolve itself.
Sounds to me like grief and yes it does need to be purged. Having been active when my father passed 10 years ago, I am just processing my grief for his loss now. And I am left with a gift.
My thoughts are with you, and thanks for sharing your story.