God Is an Octopus by Ben Goldsmith

Author:Ben Goldsmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781399408349
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2023-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

9

Wilding

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees.

WILLIAM BLAKE

Iris and I shared a love of icy frosts and the wide blue skies of ‘proper winter days’. On snowy days she made a point of sending me a blizzard of photos and the kind of frustratingly short video clips that teenagers love to share. As Iris’s 16th birthday loomed in late January 2020, six months after the accident, a particularly mushy, warm winter had settled over us: weather to match my gloom. A year earlier, two so-called beasts from the east in quick succession had blanketed the British Isles each time in a metre of snow. Sometimes I re-watch the clips Iris sent me from Wycombe Abbey. There she was, ploughing through the fresh snow with her friend Carys, fat snowflakes tumbling from the sky all around them. The two were hopelessly dressed for the weather, Iris beaming in a soft red and white Christmas hat, I remember pointing out to her at the time. ‘Hi, Dad!’ laughing as first, she ran, then fell and rolled, virtually disappearing beneath the snow.

Though I didn’t like the oppressive grey weather that first winter without her, I was quietly glad about the lack of snow. There was comfort in studiously avoiding all sorts of things Iris would have loved. Fishing with Frankie for muddy pikes in the drizzle on the lake at Stourhead was fine. Whereas a fruit smoothie drunk on the doorstep of her favourite place in Barnes, making cupcakes in the kitchen at Cannwood, music blaring, or drinking a cold beer at a fun little party in London … the very idea of these things filled me with longing and dread. My very ability to indulge in such pastimes seemed profoundly unfair. Deep down, I knew that these aspects of my life would need to resume at some stage and that I would come to do them again, not least because I owed it to my family, but not yet. I made a point of defiantly rejecting anything that might underscore the injustice. Why was I alive still at the age of nearly 40 to enjoy for the umpteenth time things that for Iris had been shiny and new, while she was just gone, her life over before it had even really started?

I stopped listening to music altogether. When I stumbled upon music being played elsewhere, the effect on me was often giddying. A soaring Ave Maria that played on the radio in the dentist’s waiting room sent me into a spiral of grief; so irresistibly beautiful I found myself mesmerised by it, unable to tear myself away until, eventually, I had no choice but to creep out and hide sobbing in the lavatory by the receptionist’s desk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.