The Weather in My Heart... A job interview... Moving to Tresco... ??? The Biscuit Watcher, and a million other things on my mind...

Will the dog get bored living on a 1.5 square mile island? + If Chelsea Flower Show Did Graves, this one would win...

I heard something on the radio this morning about making graveyards more appealing for wild life. Often they are too neat, too tidy, clipped and manicured. What could be more wonderful, more soothing, than sitting by a loved one’s grave watching butterflies and bees, hearing the buzz and hum, listening to birds singing? If we want this we must resist the strimmer a little. On James’ grave I planted a beautiful little ground cover perennial called Gallium Odoratum, common name: Sweet Woodruff. It has not come back yet so you can’t see it in the picture. It has little white frilly flowers, a lovely fragrance. It’s very gentle, popping up through the pebble shore we have made from nearly three years of dog walks. Nana Norma tends to the flowers every morning. It’s a place of beauty. Peaceful and totally unique. Nothing else like this exists in the entire world.

Nana Norma Edwards should win a prize for her display. Really think Chelsea should start a new GRAVE category at the flower show! The money she’s spent on flowers in three years - I think she could have gone on a luxury round the world cruise by now.

As the third year anniversary approaches the familiar ache and fog returns. I am throwing myself in to new projects: Organising an ART SHOW of all James’ creations. It will be held on Friday afternoon 22nd March at Wadebridge Primary School to raise money for art supplies. There will be cakes and of course his favourite - A Cream Tea! More details TBC.

Finding more ways through: I am listening to my inner dialogue and realising how easy it is to start the day with one negative thought, (such as, Well that was a shit night’s sleep) and how that one thought can set the tone in your head for the entire day. So today, I thought, yes, I have woken tired, but nevermind. What do I need to do right now? Write and Pack…

I need to pack a bag for Tresco on the Scilly Isles. For at least two years now I have been moaning a lot more than usual. I am doing Simon’s HEAD IN, with my incessant moaning. So it’s time to shut the fuck up and do something about it. Basically I want to get out of this house, this town. I DO NOT WANT TO DRIVE PAST THE FUCKING CHAPEL OF REST EVERYTIME I LEAVE MY HOME. I DO NOT WANT TO LOOK AT THE PRIVATE AMBULANCE THAT PICKED HIM UP FROM THE HOSPICE. I DO NOT WANT TO DRIVE PAST THE SCHOOL AND SEE THOSE BURGANDY JUMPERS. I am done.

September 2020: first day back! James with his best friend Betsy Ball , who lives next door but one, and beloved Ernie. Betsy is a very brave and brilliant friend with a special Guardian Angel looking out for her!

In September someone on my Duchy College group chat shared a job vacancy on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly. I stared at it, an alarm went off, my heart kick-started itself. I felt my skin prickling. Gardening on Tresco? Why wouldn’t I apply? I called the number immediately, explaining our situation; that Simon has many years experience in garden and property maintenance and I have an RHS Diploma. The man was keen to meet us. But could they accommodate our dog? ‘No, not right now, but call back in January and things might have changed.’ So I did… they now have permanent positions for two of us with a house. And the dog is welcome. This Friday we are flying over to see if we like it!

Life has thrown us into a situation where we are free to do whatever, go where ever we like. Freedom is overrated. I feel bound and gagged with confusion. I want to leave, but where to go? One problem! We are ridiculously in love with our dog. Let this be a warning to you. If you get a dog, you will love it like a child. If your life is stable and settled and you don’t go away a lot, then great. But if you like to be spontaneous, it’s a no. It’s roughly 15 years of being in love with a four legged friend who will love you like no one else will ever love you.

The Biscuit Watcher - Constantine Bay 2019

Biscuit Watcher 2017 Rock Beach

We are now packing our bags for a four day all expenses paid trip to see if we think we can live on an island, 1.5 square miles! Will we like the accommodation? I couldn’t sleep, thinking, will Ernie get bored of his walks? I am laughing at myself. But humans are better at being human when we think of others. I need something/one to nurture. Plants and a dog. He’ll be fine, I am sure. In dog years he’s almost 80! Then my heart sank. What about James? What about not being able to nip up the road and sit with him. HIM? HIM? Jessica, you cannot stay in this town for a headstone. He really isn’t there. I feel that in my bones. I know for a fact that he is not there. The body is merely a vehicle for a spirit. And his is a free one. That reminds me, no vehicles needed on Tresco - NO CARS! Simon is getting very excited about all the fish he is going to catch. I have not seen Simon genuinely excited about anything for a long time. He looks like he has come back to the world of living. I am so excited for him, to see his face, looking out the little plane window on Friday morning - when he see’s that water, that white sand. I have been there before. I know he is going to be blown away by its beauty. I cannot think about packing up this house, taking James’ room apart. I know our mother’s will cry. But with relief as well as sadness. I must not think about this. It might not happen. Bridges can only be crossed when you come to them.

I want to step out and see the world. I want to leave this town, go on a big adventure, get lost in cities and mountains and valleys. I want to go where all these horrific memories are not. But for the love of this dog, we are heading to a tiny island 28 miles from Lands End. I have a feeling it is perfect for us. If you have not been to the Scillies, GO. It is utterly breathtaking, it is like stepping into another world. And that’s what we need.

Finally and very random, I have a new laptop. It’s given me a virus. A chronic case of attention deficit disorder. It’s so fast I can skip between worlds lightyears apart in the blink of an eye. A dozen tabs are open. So much begging for my attention (and here I am begging for yours, sorry about that.) I can feel my concentration deleting itself, redundant. I am ordering seeds, looking at yoga retreats, new tools, recipes, Being A Writer blogs, How To Get An Agent articles, job application forms; The Lost Gardens of Heligan are looking for a skilled gardener? Is that me? Is Tresco me? I am so lost, perhaps a lost garden would be just the place! But maybe it’s too near the hospice perhaps. Can I avoid the road to St Austell forever?

I have returned to the scatty twenty-something girl before my son James existed. Motherhood did give me some focus for a while. Becoming pregnant grounded me. it' felt amazing. (I do feel grateful that I at least got to experience this miracle.) Now it’s back to this flightiness - too many options. It’s like being back in my old job, Rock Bakery kitchen, flipping fried eggs, bacon, making coffee, messing up the till, starting three salads for the deli counter, emptying the dishwasher, shouting, MORE PASTIES PLEASE, answering the phone, stirring soup, burning a panini. An hour later the Cous Cous was still beige and my colleagues exasperated with me… That job was like being in a washing machine. Or is that my brain? How many times did I have to go out and give a customer a free doughnut because I’d burnt their panini? On the sign it said, “Toasted Panini in 3 Minutes!” (Laughing sideways emoji) I said we should add a 0 after the 3. Oh, we did laugh. Those were good days. I belonged. Hard work and good fun. Unless you were waiting for a panini.

I do not go into Rock Bakery anymore. You’d think after nearly three years, wouldn’t you, that I’d have returned to some sort of normal. My dad said to me 18 months ago, ‘I think James would want you to be your old self now, Jess.’

‘But Dad, I never will be. I am not the same person anymore. She’s fucked off forever,’ I said.

I suppose you’re right , he said.

Don’t worry Dad, I am making a new self.

It’s the Gingerbread men that do me in. James loved a Gingerbread man. I had to take the Smartie buttons off because they gave him nightmares. You do become neurotic when you know there is a brain tumour living inside your son’s head.  James, the old soul he was, had a wisdom about food. Someone gave him a packet of Haribo once… he started chewing, his faced screwed up. He took it out of his mouth. He said, ‘Is this food?’ I think I ate it! Anyway, on Wednesdays I have to drive past the bakery. I work in the coastal gardens of holiday homes down the road. I don’t even glance at the bakery as I drive past. Eight years of my life. What am I so afraid of? Seeing my smiley proud face staring back at me: chatting with customers, excited to pick James up from school on my way home from work. I am sorry, Rock Bakery, I will not come in.

I sit in those exposed gardens having my cold sandwich, wishing I had a hot pasty. But I can’t get myself there. The gardens around the North Cornwall coast – they’ve got a look about them – like me, they’re on the edge, braced for impact. The plants are leathery and wiry and so damn clever. Cleverer than me. They stay low, grow small leaves, cowering from North Westerly winds. Shrubs such as the Barbed Wire plant domed and crouched grow thick skins and silvery/white undersides to reflect the sun. The wind is so drying for these survivors; they do all they can to prevent water loss. Continuing to learn is a priority. I want to be a forever learner. Doesn’t look much but planted in swathes it appears like a silvery soft blanket. Alone like this image, it looks like the inside of my head.

Barbed Wire aka Calocephalus: RHS – ‘ silvery white-downy stems. Scale-like, silvery-grey leaves are pressed closely against the stems, so that the bush appears leafless. In late spring and summer it produces pale yellow flowers in small, spherical flowerheads… (Also resembles my big frizzy mop of hair, if left undyed!)

These winter months are cruel. I am racing through - they were once the months that stole my son. Jan, Feb, March. Quick, get me out of here. A three-month crawl towards the end, knowing one thing for certain... I have to keep going – for one simple reason - because I get to live and he didn’t. (Mantras are vital)

In these first few months of the year, daunted by another new start, waiting for the light, waiting for the ground to wake up, waiting for life to return to my garden, for the suffering to end, it was these months, this temperature, this light, when we watched him slowly disappear. These months throw hard memories at me, like gusts whipped up by the rolling undulations, the lay of the land. Rainbows are throwing out giant hail stones. Beauty and loss, hard and soft, the grey and the blue, we must have it all. Endure it all. Like today, this heavy lightless sky, the way at breakfast it reaches into my kitchen at an angle, like liquid marble, it lies itself across the room, all at once it is feeble yet somehow a glowing ice sheet from the east, it comes, this low angle, it comes like an arrow from a bow, lands hard and sharp, across this table. These arrows of light lie themselves down and say to my brain, Remember this— this light brings a time, brings it right back with a slap— TWO METRES!!! James would shout at Nannie… I blink, the light goes right through me… (I’m running out of punctuation marks, none of it’s enough!!!! FFS) I see face masks, empty streets, orderly queues. I’m washing my hands, and his. At hospital appointments, scans, the school is closing, the 6pm briefing, and there is us, trying to watch it, be apart of it. BUT WE WERE NOT. We were living outside the pandemic. The whole country was locked into something together, and there was us, the three of us, (four if you count the dog) in a lonely bubble living something else entirely.  The choking, the headaches, the muscles in his right leg and right arm caught in a spasm, the morphine measuring, the disgusting stickiness of it on my hands, the smell, the panic, and all you can think is - I must stop my child’s pain, and there I was — standing on the empty shore, alone, yelling — I pleaded with Universe, Take him then, if you must, don’t let him suffer… my wish was granted… it’s nearly over, this winter light. This winter light, it gives me all this. Thank you, now f**k off, it’s time for spring. Goodbye winter.

I can sense the ground beginning to warm and swell. Tulip tips are poking up. Sap is rising. Buds are fattening. I will be 45 tomorrow, 14th Feb. No card from James; Dear Mummy, I love you… But I can feel his big little heart growing inside me like a spring flowering tree, this is the weather of my heart. Moody. Sultry. Air heavy with moisture. My body is the soil. My second heart is spreading its roots through me. I can feel them reaching out, pulling on my chest, settling into my arms and legs.

And I can feel a different shift… new writing ventures, less dying, more living, more plants, writing on Tresco maybe? Or wherever I end up. I know I can write my way into and out of anything. With my fingers on these keys I can create a microclimate of strength and courage. It’s safe here, 4 am, candlelit secret writing, sleep and I have parted ways again. Wearing three layers of wool, there are microclimates everywhere. You learn this in gardens. One plant, six foot away from another: one is dead; the other alive. A slightly different angle, and one poor soul has caught an unbearable amount of wind.  

I think the more you plant, the more shelter you create, the cooler and calmer you feel. I am growing into my new space. I am putting myself on the edge, toughening myself up, my skin, like the upper epidermis of a leaf, is adapting to protect me. I go outside. I get stronger. I feel better. Nurturing plants – it’s literally saving my life. I Must go now, got to pack for our second interview for a new life on Tresco. fingers crossed. Please do leave comments.

Ernie, still waiting for his share! Did James ever share? Of course, always…

The Kindest Boy In The Universe. James Edwards, my son. (Top right of photograph, Rosa Rambler Bobbie James, a brief flowering period, but worth the wait, stunning, like him.