Never having set fire to a pile of papers before, I was surprised at how difficult it was to get the first piece to blooming burn.
Nine matches gutted before a flame took hold. So much for the graceful, symbolic act.
The papers sat in the bbq's breeze brushed ash.
Not just paper scrawled with childish, badly written sentences.
The garden had been left feral for six weeks.
It was August, quantities of rain and sun had made the garden green and full as a bowl of chorophyll.
Grass stood ankle deep, the bitter vine choked the back door, more leaf and twine than ever it was grape, and the patio was a flood of weeds, barely stone at all.
Having seen cathartic paper burning in films and not thought it could be nearly as meaningful an act as it appeared.
(Nothing is ever as meaningful as a well acted, intimately shot movie scene makes it seem.)
I now realise I had underestimated the symbolism.
A small pile of papers.
All full of boring, heart breaking lines.
Tatty tan lined notepaper,
Folded a4, lined and plain,
And the back of torn envelopes.
Packed away for ten years.
Initially carefully packaged - their neatness a stark contrast to emotional incontinence.
Then the packet just became part of a bigger box, stashed under different beds.
The letters have blurred where oil or perfume has leaked in the box of odds and sods.
I remember what happened and some of what I did but thankfully not how it felt. The feelings have been stubbornly wrought: beaten, fired, beaten again then cooled to form emotional alchemy. Shit to gold.
The letters are a little self conscious and lean to drama rather than essential facts. That's emotions for you, dramatic.
Speedily written in an outpouring of self conscious shock.
The odd line filters through: to be reread one last time.
Was all this helpful, doubtful?
But it's what one does, in novels, films, poems and life....
'Do you remember when we used to....?' 'I just want it to go back to how it was before you were so cruel'.
Thank god it never did; go back to the way it was or how it used to be.
It's good when the flames take hold and the paper layers quickly blaze and bloom to a burnt, brown rose. It's really good.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device