Written in writing group on Monday, November 20:
Don’t know what to say. where to begin. Standing at the door, looking out at the rain. It’s been raining for days. All the people are dead except me. I don’t understand what happened. The river has been high with all this rain. Sometimes I see branches, or even tree trunks floating down. … I wish there was someone to talk to. Maybe I could walk. I do have a raincoat and an umbrella. I could walk down alongside the river. I remember when there were flowers. They were really pretty with bright colors. I wonder what happened to them. … The rain is tapering off. That’s good. I wonder if I’ll see the sun. Maybe I’ll find something to eat. I haven’t had anything to eat for days. But I don’t feel hungry. At least the river is here, so I have plenty of water. … It did stop raining, but it’s still cloudy. The prairie stretches flat in every direction. I don’t see any trees or hills, just grass beaten down by the rain. … When it got dark I lay down by the river. The gentle sound it makes as it moves through the rocks is soothing. I can’t see any stars. … I wish I knew a prayer or a poem or something I could say to myself that would be comforting. … It’s light now. The sun must be up. It’s too cloudy to see. I wonder if I’ll ever find any more people. … I’m tired. Nothing is changing. I’m not getting anywhere. Maybe I’ll just sit for a while. What’s the point of going on? … It’s three days later. I’m still walking downstream. I see something further down, maybe some buildings. … But now I see that they are old houses, falling apart, falling down. The people must have gone away. I look through one of the houses. There are paintings on the wall. I find a kitchen with a stove, but there’s no food. I wonder what happened. I poke around. There’s furniture and books, but I don’t see any clothing. I open a book, but can’t read the language. I wonder if I’ll ever find out what happened. … I go on down the river.
I think this describes very well what a baby might feel when it is left alone, what I felt when I was left alone. Except of course a baby doesn’t have any words. This may be how my mother felt as a child, I don’t suppose Granny was there for her any more than she was there for me. I can see how feelings like this could lead someone to drink. On the other hand, I can see how one could experience this without much emotion at all, just casually walking through the emptiness. Writing it, and then when I woke up this morning, I felt utterly desolate, abandoned by life. I finally had to very fiercely say to myself “I don’t believe that grey empty world is reality. It’s just a painful place I get stuck in, probably connected to things that happened when I was a baby.”
I reach out to comfort baby Jenny, to comfort Mom, and then to everybody who is feeling like this. “There, there, dear. It’s a terrible place to be. It’s not real, it’s just how you feel when you’ve been alone too much. Human beings were meant to be in community.”