i just noticed that dad’s rose, the blue moon, is starting to bud out today, after i all but killed it last year. i think it might just make it. his other one, the iceberg, or what i thought was an iceberg, is coming in strong too, so much new growth, and all the buds coated in greenfly, which i suppose is good for the ladybirds or something. one of them is so close to flowering and it’s bright pink, which was a bit of a surprise to be honest, because it’s supposed to be white and i thought for a second it might be another case of the mystery rose showing up, but they sometimes do that from what i learned, so i’m giving it the benefit of the doubt. blue and white, just like every god damn shirt he ever owned.

sharon stayed with me last night, slept in, woke up late and rushed to the bathroom as soon as i had returned to bed, ostensibly to cuddle, and laid there for too long as their alarm, presumably to tell them they are late for work, began to sound, and it took me back to the time i had stayed up all night with lizzie, retired disappointingly to selena’s bedroom, slept for a few hours before, creature of habit, having to get up unreasonably early and, not wishing to just sneak out, hung around in the house for hours, an almost certainly bad decision that intensified when her flatmate’s phone, which was in the living room next to me, began to sound its alarm, and i sat paralysed, not knowing what to do, probably not to switch it off, in case it was quite necessary, yet it seemed to continue on for further hours, and if i’d had any sense i would have just run out the door and never looked back, but i didn’t because i was already now too invested in the series of bad decisions, i was fully committed and it would only get worse from there, and how it got worse . . . .

i want to cry every time i hear the intro to camberwick green . . . not the first bit with the slowly intoned xylophone, but the next part with the sound of the key unwinding and the musical box. i don’t know who today would ever think to make such a thing let alone for a child, to make you wait for a full 30 seconds in anticipation while an inanimate object slowly turns on screen. whatever happens next will only disappoint. had my first flute lesson with alison today. nothing was what i expected. find myself stuttering more than usual today but it didn’t seem to be a problem during the lesson, which is a good sign. i don’t know why my brain seems to get stuck on the easy stuff like . . . what’s your name, phone number, would you like a receipt. it’s like i panic, because who could even imagine screwing that one up.

slightly better today as i guess the b12 goes to work. still felt like death this morning. trying to write but i’m not sure why. i have nothing in me. i can’t even make the words make sense anymore. they don’t stick together. not just writing but reading too. i’ll make the sounds in my head but the meaning just won’t come. what are you supposed to do with that? walked to the nursery at noon again in the full sun, no hat. maybe i wanted to burn a little. had lunch at por que non? with my dalmatian campanula. was a darn sight better company than most. finished flow (2024) in the bath which i suppose is appropriate.

feeding myself today like a sick dog, chicken, rice, sweet potato. i noticed that the monarda had sprung right back….conversely the daphne is wilting in protest, having been forcefully removed from the earth, transplanted. hope she picks up. did my usual walk/run round by 71st. almost stopped to admire some curious blue flower, but i think it may have been aquilegia. had girl dinner consisting of stale crackers, hummus, fava beans. watched some more of flow and it’s stressing me out. can we not have to worry constantly about survival for even 5 minutes. more successfully ignored today the persistent feeling that i am dying, though makes me think i should prepare for that eventuality anyway. i don’t even have a will. can’t even decide who i want to take care of. it’s all of them i guess.

. . . . in which i am with jessie on an old british railways train. the seating is absurd like a restaurant booth and jessie is sat in the corner. she is pregnant and wearing dungarees and i am helping her in and out of them as we can’t decide if they are the right way round or not. a passerby asks us about them but we are unable to say anything about them until we have decided. they appear to be made out of some silly material like black vinyl and they want to stay flat, like they are padded or filled with some kind of foam. jessie asks me to take a picture of her with her phone and i oblige. it is awkward because she wants it to look coupley like i am taking the place of her husband. she urges me to pose her in this way and i decide to rest her feet on my knee and arrange my legs at an angle that seems pleasing, especially with my socks which i think are striped. reminds me of baby reindeer. i start taking photos but getting the right composition feels impossible, i move around in the space available but something always seems to be in the way, notably the head of wickie, a sickly parrot. there is the suggestion of some repressed sexual abuse but i can’t name it.. . . .

it is hard to make scrambled egg these days because it reminds me of sitting down as if to breakfast with my dad on the other end of eight time zones away who would routinely comment, ooh that looks nice, what you having, and wishing i could share it with him, knowing he would get nothing like that at home, wouldn’t have had a decent breakfast in years

. . . . in which lucy is cradling dad, who is still alive, in his room and kissing his forehead and telling him how much she loves him . . . .

there was a sort of whisper in the forest, an amalgam of winds that thrashed this way and that, whistled down corridors, roared in the canopy, of limbs outstretched, trying to overcome their shyness, of the transfer of nutrients between intertwined roots, of inosculating trunks, branches, of fluctuations in the habits of networks of penetrating mycelia, of the fading and flourishing of mosses and lichen, of creeks forging new paths, enthused with the surge of snowmelt in higher altitudes, of the changes in atmospheric pressure, of the unrelenting certainty of downpours, the influx of positively charged ions, of the size and weight and frequency and distribution of rain droplets, of their paths both well-worn and infinitely varied towards the tender earth, of the subterranean activities of beetles on the rotting deadwood, of the tendril perversion of vining plants, of the arboreal locomotion of small animals, of twigs that small birds assembled here, set up camp, a cornucopia of the remotest extremities of all the other trees in the area, of the murmuration of swallows, of birdsong, the cascading patterns of which, undulating, propagating from tree to tree, of the movements of birds and pollinators rudely probing us, of the rhythmic pulse of fireflies and the soft persistent glow of bioluminescent fungi, of the tickling of swordferns, of the tightening grips of epiphytic plants, of the whirring of twirling samaras, of the shafts of light softly filtered through leaves, through the dusty, amber forest haze, of softly dappled light fairies, that Jimmy, who I had not seen since we were mere saplings really, was stricken with another infected canker, from which he would this time most likely not recover, would not have long before being delivered most finally to the forest floor, and I, forever fixed to this point now, entertained no hope of seeing my brother again, or any of them really, no notion of family now save for these memories, save for this innumerable collection of trees all clinging to this green earth I suppose, recalling afresh the agony of the first time we were separated, back in the nursery, my baby brother, a mere sapling, too young then to join me and Albert and Mary, hearing, when we were reunited, of the ghastly destruction brought by the storm of ‘39 to greenhouse 4B, a terror from which he never fully recovered, would continue to shake his leaves in a manner, though almost imperceptible, most unnatural, felt so dead inside for so long, which is funny because I am mostly dead inside, and that dream I always had, the one where I uprooted myself and could move around freely, where I seemed to know where Jimmy was and took myself on a little trip over there, paid him a visit, he made me tea and fried up some eggs, eggs in a basket, nice little nestegg, and we sat in the little garden that he tended, talked about mom and dad, which was strange because i knew that mom took many lovers, in a sense, birds and the bees, but in the dream

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