Becoming Wildflower: Wildflower Series

Prologue

22 nd June 2017. 

The last day of Imogen’s 2nd year at university.

Imogen sat on the chair, holding on tightly to the arm rests, shaking.  Her lecturer spoke to her. As her lecturer talked, the words melted into each other to form an incoherent mumble. 

Gazing out of the window Imogen reflected on how she wasn’t as brave as she wanted to be. For in that room, and on the dancefloor and in almost every corner of her life there was this little voice saying,

I'm not good enough to be here.

She thought how the emptiness was always there; She had become good at hiding it, masking it with normal human emotions.  She wondered if the real Imogen behind the wall she had built around her was now showing through. The broken girl pushed aside by the cold world, alone and afraid.

The child who just wanted to be loved, to have a family love her the way family were meant to, to be in a crowd of friends rather than alone within a crowd.

Perhaps we're all the same?, just some of us show it a bit more. She thought as she began to pick at her nails, pulling the skin from the edges.

There were days where it felt like a pain she couldn’t conquer. 

Imogen... Her lecturer spoke loudly with a sternness, but also filled with concern. 

Her mind focussed back, listening attentively.

Imogen looked up.  Her lecturer stood facing the window, her back to Imogen.  She turned slowly.

.... You know how to perform all the right gestures and movements......, but the passion behind them has faded....

The words trailed off, followed by a pause.  Imogen continued to stare into space as thought played through her mind.

"Imogen! Negative emotions effect a person’s ability to dance.  It is amazing how much the mind can affect your body.  Feel the music, let it into your soul. You have the potential to be an amazing dancer, but you surround yourself with walls..... 

.....You need to find yourself, to get rid of the psychological barriers which are suffocating you.  You need to discover who you really are....

Chapter 1

(Present day – 23rd June 2017)

IT WAS A COOL CRISP summer morning, up on the hillside. One of those early summer days with a kiss of coldness that somehow heightened the warm rays from the sun.  The mist rested softly on the distant hills like a cloth draped over a table. The sun began breaking through the mist and shining through the clouds which moved effortlessly across the sky.

The countryside stretched out before her like a quilt of golden, brown and green squares, with explosions of colour from the purple heather, all knitted together by the thick green stitching of the hedgerows.

Imogen sat underneath her favourite tree, an old oak tree, so old that even with arms outstretched she could not reach around it. 

With her back resting against the bark of the tree she sat with her notebook and some of her own journals from years past.  She sat reflecting on the world around her.

She had sat there so many times it was as if the pattern in the bark had moulded to her delicate shape, like a cushion.

Holding her pen, hovering it above the paper resting on her thighs, she willed the words to pour from within her. 

She paused and looked up to admire the beauty surrounding her.  The carpet of flowers. Flowers that were there to colour her world, and a signpost for the warmer days to come.

She let her eyes flow from tree to tree, noticing the buds ready to open to be in that moment with their transient beauty. Spring had come late that year.  Like her, nature seemed to have become unbalanced.

She watched the birds dancing in the sky, dancing to natures song. Their elegance amidst the infinite blue sky, gliding as free souls. 

The sound of the stream rushing past, the birdsong, the wind whistling through the trees, all breaking the silence like a knife, like an orchestra, nature’s way of creating music. 

Each wing-given arc were like the tips of a conductor's wand, orchestrating the music, a music for both eyes and soul. A song began to fill her mind, she began to sing, trying to remember the words...

Let’s go up the hillside to the highest ridge of stone,

where the lapwing sings a eulogy at the wonder of it   all.........

.........At the heart of it all there’s a story to be told

for the sake of our salvation and the troubles we behold.

AS SHE SAT, HER HAND brushed over the wildflowers growing around her. In this space she found a sacredness that transcended everyday concerns. As she sat thinking, a single tear fell from her eye.

We remember all the mornings at the heart of it all...

Sitting with her journal and some of her own journals from years past Imogen reflected on the meeting with her lecturer the day before.

Her lecturer asked her to write an essay over the summer break, an essay about who she was. An inquisitive piece in which her lecturer hoped would help her to heal and to grow.

Who was she?  She thought as she stared at her hands. 

SHE NEEDED TO FIND herself.  She was beginning to realise that we need to accept what has happened to us as children, and through our lives, if we are to grow and to heal. 

Words began to flow from her on to the blank page of her journal.

LIFE IS AN UNWRITTEN book. You get to be the star of your own story, crafting it day by day, interacting with loved ones who are the stars of their own stories.  As we all travel the pages it is our connections that make the tale worth telling.

THROUGH STUDYING ENGLISH and literature, she reflected on how within a story it is the highs and lows which keep the reader enthralled, but most of life's joy is found in the quiet passages, in the rich detail and the savouring of moments.

It is in the realization that happiness is a quiet emotion, and as such is not easily stored in long-term memories like the troubles and the triumphs.  She knew she had to re-visit her story so far, reading between the lines, looking deeper, so that she could move onwards into the next chapter of her life.

You can’t move forward until you’ve learned to come to terms with your past she sighed.

Maybe in writing her story, she could find herself, and begin to heal.  An opportunity to redefine her life, and the legacy which her life would leave.

Sometimes it felt like her life spun around her.  Her thoughts and memories.  Her hurts and fears, all her feelings and tears caught up in one big whirlwind; and she was stood in the middle, in the calm watching her life flicker by around her.

She began looking back to her earliest memory, dancing as a child. A perfect memory of her with her father.  In that moment he was the father he should have been, would have been, before life fell through the cracks. 

There were many things that were rough about her father. Those comforting hugs where she felt safe and sheltered, though with the scent of beer always lingering, as if his body breathed hops.

Those big safe hands. His hands were calloused from years of work in the furnace, the scars from burns. But there was nothing rough about his soul. His voice was like a car moving slowly over gravel. A strong Geordie accent using words many would not understand. He was the gentlest of spirits, a calming breeze in the storms of life.

That snapshot of memory aged 4yrs, she was dancing on the beach.

Imogen closed her eyes, returning to that moment, a child...

(Past – 2001)

SPINNING AROUND, BAREFOOT feeling the cool sand between her toes.  Trying to copy a pirouette which she had seen on TV, she spun around and around until she began to get dizzy and lost her balance.

Remembering his laughter, as she began falling onto the sand beneath her.

Her eyes slowly began following the birds in flight, watching as children do, with that look of love and awe.

The white gulls owned the skies. 

The swallows performed graceful dances against the backdrop of the blue sky.  A solitary bird caught her eye, gracefully flying separate from the flock. The bird folded his blackened wings against his body and unfurled them again in a graceful glide. Her eyes stayed with the bird, the beating wings capturing her mind in the most calming of ways, the same way soft waves lapping upon the beach do. 

Her fathers outstretched arms, guiding her to her feet before spinning her around, holding tightly onto her wrists as she began to fly.  The beach turned into a golden blur, flying - flying until he could spin her no more.

The memory was blurred, no smells, no season, or weather, other than a lack of rain. The beach was in fine detail, a beach which became a fixed place within her life. But the finest detail was his face, creased with love and her joy - not only for the ride but for being with him, for being with her Daddy.

Dancing and nature were the only constants in her life.  The only glimmer of light in a dark world. 

(Present Day – 23rd June 2017)

HER GAZE AGAIN ENCOMPASSED the sky.  It was as if the lapwing were singing her song, providing a backing track to her life story, a eulogy to the wonder of it all.  The swallows were performing an intricate dance to the story of her life.

She always admired the artistic movements of the birds.  She thought how others couldn’t see what she saw.  She could see the intricate movements of a mating dance. The flamboyant movements creating elaborate displays which were filled with daring dives, and intricate sequences including wing flaps, subtle head dips, all a part of a courtship ritual.

She had studied courtship dance in one of her modules earlier that year, though had been fascinated by them for many years.  She remembered how as a child she would watch the dancing starlings, and her father’s pigeons, and try to mimic their movements.

She had learned how in many species, the male alone would dance for his female while she would observe his actions, while in other species both partners interact with one another. She felt like a bird dancing solo being watched by those around her.

Mistakes in a bird’s dance show inexperience, weakness, or hesitancy and would not likely lead to a successful mating. 

She thought of her own dancing and the many times her insecurities and doubts affected her dance, showing her weakness, anxiety, and hesitancy to the world.  Like the birds she wouldn’t be successful until she had learned her ‘life dance’.

Taking a deep breath, she sighed as she began to delve into the depths of her life, times she’d buried, moments she tried so hard to forget.  Though a story which needed to be told.

From as far back as she could remember she was always alone.  She wasn’t an only child, but it felt that way.  Her sister, Lesley, was 10 years older, but there was more than age separating them.

Imogen always sensed a deep jealousy.  Barely a word was spoken, just glances as they passed on the stairs.  Left out of groups, alone.  At home, no one else to play with except for her bears. She would sing and tell stories. Happy in her own imagination. 

Chapter 2

She began to remember days at school, that first year, aged 4yrs old.  The year was 2002.

In that cold unfriendly classroom, she would crawl under an old table. No-one knew why she did it. It was as if some instinct drove her to do it, to hide somewhere dark, somewhere that felt safe. 

Those early years of first school she recalled the first bully making her life miserable.

Closing her eyes, she could remember standing against the cold wall in the school yard. Remembering the wind howling around her as she watched the other children play, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed, hoping that she wouldn’t be their choice for amusement that day.

She was a teacher pleaser, always doing her best in classes and clever too, learning quickly. But her childhood was rough from the start, her home was turmoil and violence; not constantly, but enough to make her less stable than she should have been.  She was always a victim of bullying.

At times it felt like the entire school even the teachers were bullying her. Whether it was emotional or physical, every day of her childhood was plagued.

She remembered how she would always go home crying, scolded by her parents. 

STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, fight back, stop being so weak....

TILL SHE NO LONGER spoke out.  Keeping her feelings bottled up inside her. Lost in a world of loneliness.

As she wrote down in her notebook her recollections of those early years, she wrote the words...

LONELINESS IS A DARK desolate place.

It is like being in a public place surrounded with thousands of people but feeling invisible to every one of them.

Like walking along a road with many twists and turns without a map, without any idea where you will end up. Loneliness is feeling like you are meant to suffer alone; loneliness IS suffering alone.

NO-ONE COULD SEE HER vulnerability; the lack of roots, she hid it well.  Reaching down, Imogen picked a wildflower, looking closely at it as she twirled it in her fingers. She thought how she knew how it felt. It had no roots at all, nothing to anchor it to this world; yet was still expected to give its beauty, to provide nourishment, to contribute to the ecosystem. 

Without it the balance would be disturbed but not appreciated for its contribution, overlooked.  To some they saw it as a weed.  But still it was expected to flourish and warm the hearts of others. 

OUR FAMILIES, OUR PARENTS, they provide us with the roots to grow, an anchor.  Without strong roots she was still able to flourish, a free soul finding her way, painting the world with the vibrancy of her laughter, a loving heart filled with kindness.  Hard working and driven, determined to succeed.

She looked forward to the future.  She wondered; would she be a parent one day? Would she do better?

She vowed that if that day came, she would be everything they weren't and give what they did not - security and unconditional love.

She began to look back at her childhood, her parents. She again looked back to her early years,

(Past – 2003)

SHE REMEMBERED HOW at bedtime her father would turn on the tape player, playing audio books, fairy-tales.  She would sit trying to read along with the story.  Some nights her parents argued. Those nights she lay in her bed listening to the sound of their fighting, occasionally the sounds of plates being smashed, broken, her mother screaming, her father shouting, doors slamming.

She would sit in her bed cuddling her bears, trying to lose herself in the story, but some nights the only solution was to use her hands to cover her ears, rocking back and forth. Trying to sing a lullaby. The only time there was peace was when her father was on nightshift.  He would leave not long after putting her to bed.

To the outside world you could have made the assumption that it was an abusive husband, the wife a victim.  Maybe that is how her father would have preferred people to think, rather than reveal the truth that in fact he was the victim. 

ONE EVENING SHE GLIMPSED through the crack in the door as her mother swung the frying pan above her head, tightly gripped in both hands as she swung it.

The sound of the pan making contact with her father’s head made her jump, she gasped, stepping back knocking a trinket off her bedside table.  The noise temporarily distracted her mother before going in for a second blow. The noise gave just enough time for her father to react. 

Her father reached up grabbing her hands, managing to take the pan from her, he stood holding it, she wondered if in that brief moment he would hit back, well that is what he always told her to do, a victim is weak.

But you never hit a woman, though many times he came close to retaliation.  On this occasion though he put down the pan and grabbed his jacket, his hand rubbing his head as he left, closing the door behind him.

She remembered one late evening, a few weeks later. She had just broken up for the summer holidays, looking forward to a summer free from school and bullies.

She was 5yrs old, her father was on nightshift. 

FAST ASLEEP, SHE WAS awoken, her mother grabbing her arm pulling her out of bed.  Quickly she got dressed, confused, holding on tightly to her favourite teddy bear, ushered out to a taxicab.

She could feel the cold as she stood, sandals on her feet, no socks. She wondered where they were going. A scared and frightened little girl, thinking of all her other bears left behind, her friends, what would happen to them?  Was her father joining them?  Where was he? she frantically worried.

The taxi pulled up at the station, Central station. She stood shivering on the cold platform.  The archways creating a wind tunnel, the dull orange lights were flickering. She had been there before with her father, during the day, watching the trains come and go, but she had never been on one.

The wait was confusing, her mind filled with an array of reasons for why they were there.  Her thoughts were disturbed by the raucous, metallic shriek heralding the arrival of the train.  The doors opened, passengers descended from the carriages, before those waiting on the platform began to board.

Daddy, I want Daddy She shouted as she was dragged onto the late-night train. 

She couldn’t read the other destinations but could read the word London. She cried herself to sleep on the desolate train.

A long train journey through the night.  She awoke to the sun shining through the train windows as they approached London Kings Cross.

Chapter 3

(Past – 2003)

ARRIVING IN LONDON they boarded another train continuing south.  Her mother and sister talking.  She interrupted, tugging at her mother’s arm.

Where are we going, where’s daddy? She begged as her mother scolded her.

At first, she shed tears, though crying wasn't allowed. Over time she found it easier to conceal her tears, as if to cry without the watery evidence.  If she buckled her mother would tell her to stop, or she'd give her something to cry about.

They reached Torquay.  A pleasant little seaside town.

They made their way to a Bed and Breakfast, a little room. She remembered the old wallpaper, spotting areas where it was beginning to come loose. The small room became their home for a few weeks, but it felt like an eternity.

She tried hard to recall memories from that summer, the town was bustling, filled with holiday makers, enjoying the sunny harbour town, the main street filled with souvenir shops, the tram running up the hillside in the distance, taking tourists to the secluded sandy beach below.

Even at that young age she was a little explorer, inquisitive, a new place to explore, and get into trouble!  She smiled as she recalled her exploits, climbing on the garage roof at the B&B. 

Due to the position of the B&B on the hillside, the back garden led onto the garage roof, she walked onto it. 

Her face felt the warm sunlight as she closed her eyes and let the warmth fill her. The roof below her began to creak, trying to keep her balance she fell, there was a brief moment before the garage roof gave way beneath her.

She couldn’t recall how she fell through, just the dull thump of hitting the car below which broke her fall.

She always wondered what would have happened if the car hadn’t been there, if the garage had been empty.

She lay there on the bonnet of the car unable to breathe, the wind knocked right out of both lungs. She heaved struggling to breathe, crying, unable to shout out.  Time passed.  Eventually she found enough strength to shout out, and bang on the garage door, it felt like an eternity till she was rescued!

The summer ended, September arrived autumn blew in, the town became quiet, like a ghost town.

They moved into a small flat on the hillside.  She started at the local primary school. The playground was on the roof, wire fences around it, you could see the harbour in the distance, the boats coming and going.

She remained alone, unable to make friends, ignored, laughed at, feeling pushed around, tripping over, her shoes becoming tight as her feet began to grow, too afraid to ask her mother for a new pair.

The harshly spoken high pitched words which were regularly repeated, sometimes accompanied by a beating echoed in her mind.

I WANT NEVER GETS!! 

She soon learned not to ask, or to ration what she dared to ask for, questioning was it worth the possible consequences.

She would sit quietly and alone playing.

She would go out of her way to be nice to other kids at school, but mostly stuck to just two friends who didn’t mind how old her clothes were.

They escaped Newcastle with very few clothes, the clothes she had were beginning to get worn.  The bottom of her trousers above her ankles, a few dresses and skirts. Although she was always more of a tomboy, wearing skirts and dresses it was less obvious that her clothes were too small.  She became the little girl sitting in the corner of the school yard, practicing her spellings or getting lost in her imagination. 

She remembered a moment filled with embarrassment.  Even at such a young age she had to dress herself, get herself ready, her mother neglected to take care of her.  One day, in a rush to get to school she forgot to put on her knickers. 

She climbed the stairs to the school yard.  The wind gustful, made stronger by the corridor funnelling the wind.  Her skirt lifted, she stood as everyone stared at her laughing.  It felt like a lifetime.  Her shoulders curled in, towards her chest. A statue consumed with a sense of being completely exposed, on display. Each of her fingers laced together with one another, holding herself together amidst her fragility.

As winter began closing in, the storms battered the shore, the summer may have been warmer and beautiful, but the winter was colder and darker. 

Her mother began spending time with a man, Lesley tried desperately to build a life for herself, making new friends. She would have been sitting her final exams, her GCSE’s that year but their mother never enrolled her in the local school.  Instead sending her out to get a job, to contribute. Lesley appeared to adjust to this new life, being an adult. 

(Present Day – 23rd June 2017)

IMOGEN OPENED HER EYES, taking a moment.  For so long she had suppressed that time, those memories.

She thought how a person’s suffering, or memory of it, is like a teddy bear fashioned from shards of glass. The tighter you cling to it the deeper it will cut.  Acknowledging that suffering and the circumstances from which they came can help to put down that bear, to recognise the cuts and from where they come, leading to the time within life where that bear no longer can cut so deep, the edges smoothed away like the way the waves form beautiful pieces of sea glass.

Reflecting back, she thought how lucky she was that she was only 5years old, the disruption to her life minimal in comparison.  She was now at university, her sister never got that opportunity, her future ripped away from her.  She could see after all the years that had past the deep resentment, the grief and loss for the life she could have had.

Re-focusing her mind back to that time in Torquay. 

(Past – 2004)

SHE REMEMBERED BEING alone.

She began collecting small beanie bears which she collected from the shops on the seafront. Some bought with the small amount of pocket money which she was given when she had been ‘good’.  Others she earned.  Hanging around the shopkeepers took pity on her; she earned a few bears by filling shelves.  She was afraid to admit that a couple had been obtained by stealing.  She wondered if they ever knew and just took pity on her.

Those bears became her new friends, though she missed her bears back home and wondered if her father was looking after them, she wondered did he even know where they were?

One cold dark January evening was filled with commotion, shouting. 

Again, Imogen