on cloud nine
Here's the first collage from a series that came into my mind while I was completing cut out and keep; my 100 Days Project for 2020.
I'll explain my thinking behind the idea more as I go along because this particular one doesn't best illustrate my concept for sapphic studies.
But it's an opener to the series.
Painting:
Le Sommeil (Sleep) by Gustave Courbet
graeme and margaret hyde (photographer unknown)
It’s still an hour or so away from 15 August in London, but it’s already my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in Australia.
Unfortunately, my brothers and I can’t celebrate the day with my parents in person. My parents are in Tasmania, my brothers are in stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne, and I’m on the other side of the world.
They may not even be able to celebrate the day together after all. Though it would be hit and miss as to whether my mum would know my dad today if he can visit her in her nursing home.
So today is bittersweet. But still cause for celebration of the half-century of love, laughter, family, travel and more that my parents have shared and that I’ve been a witness to for 43 years.
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to any of their wedding photos here in London. My brother, Peter, snapped a pic of this photo from their albums a couple of years ago.
If I recall correctly, it was taken at a dinner party while they were dating or around the time they got engaged.
My dad appears to be in mid-blink, but it captures their happiness for all that.
Happy 50th anniversary Mum and Dad
I love you both xxx
clutch
The imprints of your fingers leave their mark on my neck like a psychologist's ink stains.
I still feel your fingertips, gently but firmly holding me. My neck, my waist. Exploring, investigating, supporting, caressing, teasing.
In the darkness I can imagine they still sear my skin; still seek me out.
That you're not thousands of miles away, and so far from my touch.
Why, sometimes I've imagined as many as six impossible things before breakfast.