Turning to my blog as a kind of journal so I have markers as I find my way though this bit of life that feels so sad and lonely and disorientating. Last night I dug out a book Jon gave me which I felt sure would help me to find myself in this new place I have arrived in. The book, The Arrival by Shaun Tan, kept calling to me. And yesterday morning I pulled it from the bookshelf to read in the evening. 
I'd had a rough night, waking too early, the small hours are grim, the dark confines, and grief often hits me like a wall. Maybe it's also because Jon and I often used to chat by email in the hours before dawn, sharing our insomnia, I'd send him a picture or a song or some-such because I was thinking about him and he'd come back with  "you're awake early" and we'd pass words for a while. 
I was out yesterday, my friend Sally took me to Strumpshaw Fen. Jon had worked there as a resident volunteer for six months and had loved it and made friends who I felt might want to know that he is a bit harder to reach now. Strumpshaw was beautiful in the rain. The river was up to the top of it's banks and a light lingering mist made soft the edges of the landscape, the reed-beds and fields and the trees in the distance.  Pheasants criss-crossed our path, Gelder-Rose berries bright red and shiny hung beautiful and under the apple trees were masses of sweet-smelling windfalls of various sizes and colours. 
I was worried coming home that I'd done the right thing, would Jon want his friends to know he'd died ? Was I making too much of a thing ? Would he prefer to slip away quietly nobody knowing ? Would he prefer that I stopped telling the world I loved him ? Had I wronged him ? Was I making a fuss ? And kicking myself for all the times I got things wrong, the times when we were together when I fucked up, didn't cope, when I could have done better, when if I'd turned a different way or been other than how I was maybe it would have gone differently. I don't really know what to do with those thoughts, they exist, putting them down here in my blog gets them out of me. Allows me to admit my failure and doubt.
Sometimes in the past two weeks strange things have happened. On the thursday after I heard of Jon's death, my boots appeared on the bench in my garden when I went out into the garden to smoke, I must have put them out there myself but I couldn't remember doing so, and it felt like Jon was close-close by and the same day a flock of tits came to my birdbath and hung about the rowan tree, a mixed flock, long-tailed tits and blue tits and great tits, and one brave blue tit perched on the threshold* of my back door and looked in just for a moment. And I found by chance the guide to the gardens at Trebah which we visited in Cornwall and inside was a photo of Jon looking into the distance. Last night I opened the aforementioned book he gave me and found a note tucked into cover, it said "you can hear their dreams I love you Jx" and I felt him all about me. I know I'll never touch his body again or be able to look into his eyes, I am confused and surely a bit mental at the moment. But the moments when he feels near are so precious I want to jot them down here in case I forget. 

* originally posted lintel but I had a feeling it was the wrong word .. one brave blue tit perched on the threshold .. it even looked me in the eye .. grief is very very painful  

This morning my friend Karen and I met up at the station to catch a train out to Brundall, a small station not so far along the line that goes to Reedham, at which point it splits in two, the left or north track going to Yarmouth, and the right or south track to Lowestoft. We'd planned our expedition about a week or so back but been meaning to take a day trip together for much longer but life gets filled up, and before you know it weeks, months, years have passed.
From Brundall we walked to Strumpshaw Fen, which I have visited a fair few times before but do not know so well as to say it is home territory. The birdsong was liquid bliss and there were geese honking and flying about and marsh harriers, male and female. We also heard a bittern booming, a strangely sinister call - I have never felt the same about them since I was told they eat marsh tits in their sleep, that seems pretty awful and ogre-ish. Karen could recognise some bird calls which was great, it's a skill I am still picking up and not good at at all. 
The weather was a mix of cold wind and rain with hail in it, and beautiful bright spring sunshine. We were glad to be wrapped up but it was definitely hat on-hat off, zip up-zip down weather, which was quite refreshing. 
We wandered all round just enjoying each other's company and the sights and sounds, Karen had her binoculars and I had my camera so every so often one or other of us would drift off into looking-looking-looking space for a little while. 
I always feel like I need to apologise for my photos, I know so many good photographers that I feel like my pictures are not really all that, but hopefully they convey some sense of the feel of the day.  

A wonderful day out at Strumpshaw Fen, Norfolk with my old friend Sally.