Author: Ellen Bell

I described it as feeling like metal. And yet, in reality it is more like a hard shell, a carapace. It curves around the back of my body. It has protected you, she said. Give it time. It needs time to let you go. Let me go. Yet I get so disappointed when it returns, taking hold as it has done this morning. Can I help? he asks. Do you want to talk about it? Do I? Indeed, can I? When I try to articulate it it comes out so clumsily. What is it about? I lie in bed at night, though it is still day, and think about this. How does it feel to be nothing? It this just about the ego? This fight, this battle, is it just my ego trying to live, to reassert it’s dominance over me? How is it to be nothing? And what do I mean by nothing? I suppose it is to do with no longer being acknowledged, noticed. Ah, this sounds ridiculous. Let’s get to the nub.

It’s about work. It has to be. I get days like this when I do not know what I am doing, where I am going with it. I work inwardly. At least that is my impulse, I work to understand, to make sense of what I am, who I am, why I am here. And by work I mean both my writing and my making. Neither of them bring me an income, well not much anyway. This fact alone, if I use the paradigms I have been raised under, questions their worthiness to call them work. Work equals money where I come from. All of it is been thrown up in the air, my work doesn’t pay, isn’t made for the outside world’s approval, so what is it? And if I don’t know what my work is, then who am I? My work is me and I am my work. No?

In one of my dreams last night I was in a large dormitory with lots of people. There wasn’t much space. Outside the door was a pile of stuff, my stuff, with my name written on labels tied to them. I was to take them upstairs, that much I understood though why or where, I don’t know. Further inside the dorm were some working areas and open plan kitchens. I could see my aprons, I had three hanging up. And 3 identical cutting boards. I need to get rid of some of those, I thought, or find somewhere to put them. It was about stuff, clearing out, making room and dealing with all those other people. Upstairs was clearer, less cluttered, I knew this.

A metaphor, clearly. I wanted to organise my stuff, clear things out, make space in my head. It’s what I am doing know. The desire to sort out my studio is over whelming. To clean, to make order, to find out what this work is about.

Do I really want to pursue this idea that he was so hard on? I don’t know. Do I want to expose myself to public scrutiny again? All that pursuing. Perhaps this week I will sit back, wait and do nothing. Nothing but sew. And write. That is enough.

I can’t go out on Saturday, a youth was shouting outside the Why Not? club. I can’t go out on Saturday, I CAN’T go out.

And then I remember a couple by the Prom yesterday morning. I’d watched them walk to the railing, she sat on the floor at his feet and lit a cigarette. All of a sudden he was shouting, his head leaning over hers: DO YOU UNDERSTAND! DO YOU UNDERSTAND! She made no response, just carried on smoking.

I dreamt I was in somebody else’s space. I was getting it ready for them. Making it nice. And then another person who worked for them, was their PA of sorts, came to me, smiling, apologetic even and said that it was fine but she needed to add more stuff. She had some pottery figures from Cornwall, some wooden objects, cushions, curtains. Bit by bit, she brought the clutter in and the space got smaller and smaller. She talked about her boss and I saw him in my dream, in my mind’s eye. I knew him, had meant to work for him in his other place, a pub-cum-hotel, I think. I’ll talk to him, she said, see if we can’t get that job for you after all. I didn’t want it. I didn’t tell her, though. He was hard-faced, an Eastern European, perhaps Russian. She showed me pictures of his lover, an older woman she talked about how he liked to see the age in her face. (We’d talked about President Macron and his partner, who was 65 a couple of days ago, at breakfast. She’d been his teacher, he said. It gives us all hope, I’d replied. Perhaps this had instigated this reference, who knows?) She was sorry she had to change everything, had liked the way I’d prepared the space. But he likes it this way, she said.

Other people’s homes. I’ve lived in a few. We do so now. It is home but it is not. I always wanted my own home, who doesn’t? It’s an ideal, to be able to live as you choose, do to a space as you will. Though, of course, this has its limits. What would it have been like this home of mine? A flat, a house, a cottage, a bungalow or even a caravan or a barge? Big or small?  I like space, space to move but at the same time I wouldn’t want a mansion. Just enough rooms to live in. The idea of rooms that no one goes into makes me sad. It would be white, barely furnished. Not much on the walls and no clutter, no stuff. And clean. I would clean it from top to bottom, knowing it, knowing all it’s crevices. I like flat-dwelling but sometimes I don’t want to live amongst the mess or accumulations of other people’s lives. And I do fantasise about the freshness of the outdoors, a garden. Room to breathe, to be alone. A little white house with rooms that echo with emptiness.

I am tired. I felt tired walking. There was a light wind and more people were out than yesterday. A police car drove past me on Mill Road, flashing blue. And earlier two cars had driven ahead of me down to the harbour, only to park, lights off and sit. Up to no good? Possibly. Let me go, Steven, let me go. Let me go. A boy is shouting outside Pier Pressure. It is playful. I catch snatches of conversation and unless I memorise it, chanting it all the way home, it is lost. A group of students followed by a man in a hoodie, again along Mill Road. They sprawl along the pavement, falling onto the road, he sidles. Suddenly he rattles a wire fence that sections off the housing development currently under construction. He pulls at it. What is he doing? Then he kicks at a brick that hold the fencing in place. Then another. I leave him to it. Just feeling destructive. I suppose it is harmless. Mindless violence. I remember that phrase from when I was sixteen and on a farm in Worcester strawberry picking. There had been an old armchair in the bunkhouse and one night someone had just hacked at its upholstery, ripping it to shreds. Mindless violence, one of the pickers had said the next morning, adding mournfully, I liked that chair.

The sky is white grey and still.

I’ve painted over the marks on my bedroom ceiling. It looks better, not perfect but better. This will do, you know. This home, this borrowed home. For now, this moment, it will do in all it’s imperfections. It isn’t what I would’ve chosen for myself. But there is much to love. That is enough. And now?

Coffee and work. Coffee and work.

Who rattled your cage?

I don’t know. It was a culmination of things. Of doing an early paper shift that went awry, of having to manage being in the studio with colleagues who I find challenging, of being tired, of wanting him all to myself, of just being rattled. I was rattled and not in a fit state to relax and engender peace. I should’ve stayed at home but a before-hand coffee seemed so attractive. I needed a fillip as I often do after doing the paper review slot. But they kept coming. One after another to chat to him. One even settled down on the arm of the sofa. I’ve got myself some porridge, she said with her mouth full of it. She’d covered the top of it in brown sugar just like I used to do as child. She left only to return almost immediately with a piece of till paper. Are you going into town? she asked him. Could you put a bet on for us? I need forty people to do a sweepstake. She had only four. Names of horses, people and price of bet. OK? I don’t want to do it, he said to me, after she’d gone, it’s a pain in the arse. But he’ll do it anyway. Boy scout, see. Anything to please. They’re nice girls, he said. And they are. They look after him. I like their chat, mostly, just not yesterday. Not then.

We were like skittles. One after another. Down, down, down. I started crying almost immediately. Why? Then the woman next to me started, then the one across. A group of grief. A pool of grief. She did her best to manage it, rapidly changing her plans. I think we should move, she said, eventually. I didn’t want to but she was right. It was necessary. We laughed in the end. And the touch of her hands were warm. I felt such empathy for her, for all of them. We’re too close to the water. I certainly am. I even felt anger towards her at being the instigator of such an outpouring. And yet, she was innocent. A good woman. Kind.

I wanted to feel better. I thought that by sharing my joy, my precious idea with him, I would. He didn’t react as I’d expected. The strict parent, he wanted it to be watertight. Straight off. It hurt. It wasn’t his fault. I was rattled. It was only later that I understood.

Eyes puffy I walked in a haze this morning. Beautiful. It was beautiful. The tide was far out. The air was mild, gentle. Hardly anyone about. Just a smattering of kids. I stared out to sea and did the three point breathing space. It helped. This is joy, I thought. This nothingness, no horizon, no Aberdovey, no Aberaeron. Just nothingness and this breath.

His name was Arthur not Jack. Where had I got the name Jack from? Had it been the researcher? He’d said it was probably spelt Jac. We were both wrong. I met your partner, she said when I opened the door for her, he’d called him Jack too. It was Arthur. A Lurcher. He was very good, considering, keeping his dog noises to a minimum. He may moan, she said. A good woman, I think. She wanted it to be understood that we shouldn’t make sweeping judgements, to treat each case on an individual basis. I can see both sides. Health and Safety had to be marshalled. A dog in the studio. Do you mind? No, not really. He licked my hand. And left a musty, hairy, slightly moist doggy smell behind. It has been a long time. We always had dogs. Ever since I can remember. A Poodle followed by a Dalmatian, a Great Dane, a Labrador and then a Yorkshire Terrier. They were never our dogs, always hers. She could be harsh with them, rather like Emily Bronte was purported to be, but they adored her. Was it adoring, exactly? They followed her, obeyed her. Is that adoring? Is that even love? She was top dog. That was all.

There were two dogs when I walked the Prom this morning. I saw the Alsatian first. Then a rather fat little white patchy dog came bounding towards me barking. That set the Alsatian off. Sorry, said a rather elegant woman. The fact that she was holding a half empty bottle of spirits by the neck was the only thing that punctured her poise. And yet, I thought, so what. What harm? Two men were with her. One, a rather striking man with close-cropped hair, had grabbed the Alsatian’s collar at my approach. I wasn’t frightened of the barking dogs, even the Alsatian with its deep throaty growl, didn’t perturb me. I was surprised by this. They felt kind, those people. I was no threat to them and vice versa. Had they been on the beach. I bumped into them just by the bandstand.

The air was warm. I shall have to eschew my winter coat for my walks soon.

I think about work as I walk. Ideas come thick and fast for another performance. Let it bubble away. Get it firm in my head and then send it out. That is the creative bit for me that fermenting, that forming in my head. I feel enriched by it.

I have these recurring dreams. They usually involve walking up a hill. I am in a hot, foreign country. It is busy, the climbing street is flanked either side with stalls, cafes and restaurants. It is busy. I am generally in company and we are deciding where to eat. A seemingly prosaic dream. But the choosing is complicated. It is hard for us to make definite decisions. I am aware of white heat, of exotica, of food that I both know and do not know. The restaurants we go to are outside, without walls, open to the world. Last night I was aware of the waiters. They were mostly women in trousers, black and with white shirts, like the male waiters, but they were the Maître D’s not the men. I noticed one particular woman, large-breasted and officious.

But it was the dream I had the other night that stuck with me. I was talking to my sister. She told me that she kept seeing my face reflected in her window. She was living abroad. She asked me to come and see. I got there, I know not how, and looked at the face in the glass. It was dark and this image shone out. A woman’s face, framed with dark hair and with her lips a deep red, moving, animated. It doesn’t look like me, I said to her, but I recognise it.

Such things stay, stay in my mind. The meaning is deep. A gift.

She bounded into the studio, her face aflame with what looked like sunburn. In just a tee-shirt and cotton khaki trousers she looked the very picture of hearty good health. Tea? I asked. Oh, go on then, she replied. Milk? Just a drop. What does just a drop mean? I thought. Is that OK, I asked, sliding in through the door and putting the paper cup of tea under her nose for inspection. Oh, I’m not fussy, she said. Have you done radio before? I asked. Just the once, she said, and I was usurped by a terrapin and ended up with just two minutes. I had no idea what she meant but laughed anyway, saying, Let’s hope there’s no terrapins this time. Oh, I don’t mind, she said, terrapins are far more interesting. I listened in the office. She was good. Clear and engaging. Sometimes I really like this job.

She texted in the end, two messages and two texts later. Do I irritate her? I don’t know how to be, how to manage all this. My wants and her non-wants. Just breathe, she would say and accept what is. Accept the messiness of it. I can’t rid it of the mess. It has happened. This is what we are left with, can it not be enough? Is that what she would say? Isn’t this enough?

I think I will make as well as write my way through it. I can do it in secret, in private. Harness the energy, the ungiven love and time into things, into gestures, into making.

Oh, God, he said at breakfast. I laughed. Sometimes they do play some pretty obscure music on Radio 3 of a morning. What’s she singing about? he asks as another woman begins to wail. Big pants, I reply. At some point they were playing something called Airport Music by a composer called Julie Wolfe. I actually rather liked it.

Just let them get on with it, he said. He is right. I get myself all tied up in knots. It doesn’t have to be that way. Just let them get on with it.

The day unravelled. So be it. I read too much into people’s expressions, voices. It isn’t all about me. I am safe.

I will send it off. Off into the world and see what happens. Perhaps nothing. It doesn’t matter. It has been made. And that is enough.

I forgot to set my alarm. He opened the door and woke me. 48 minutes late. It doesn’t matter, he said, clearly anticipating my panic, there is nothing you have to do. No, there isn’t but it throws my day, I said. Throwing my day. Upending it. I tried to keep calm. Should I cut something out? Not go for my walk, have breakfast out? No, just keep steady. All will be well. You will catch up with yourself. And I did. But the tension has taken root. Hard, in my back, becoming cemented by the questions I am asking myself as a result of this oversight. That is the rub, all this questioning and with no real, absolute answers. There are none. Never, ever.

There is nothing you have to do. But there is much I want to do, need to do. Feel the need to do. My life is full. Full to the top with endeavour. With doing. I am a doer. She’s a doer. And I do, all the time. Whether you could say all was work, I don’t know. What is work? That is essentially my practice. What is it? What is work? And why is it that it is only by working that I feel worthy. Am I just what I do? Am I? Is that all I am? If so, what am I when I am not? What am I when I am sleeping? What am I when I become old, senile?

He forgot to wind the clock. A line from Laurence Stern’s Tristram Shandy. I heard it on the radio as I made breakfast. Neil Dudgeon was playing Tristram. I remember him from the Royal Exchange in Manchester. A modest actor, funny, brilliant at times in his ordinariness. Who forgot to wind the clock? Was it his father, or a servant? Either way it had some bearing on his birth, I believe. I listened with half an ear.

I walked anyway and was glad for it. A warm morning. Damp but warm. The air smelt good and the rain stayed off, even though I went out prepared in his coat. Drowned in it.

I ask much of myself. A juggling act. So much I want to do. So much I need to do. Nothing I have to do but breathe and feel the ground, my gravity.

Let’s see what happens in the nothing. In the none action. Maybe nothing will bring forth nothing. Who knows. I remain curious.

It’s always quiet when I walk early on Monday mornings. Everyone is abed. It was still this morning, cold but still. The firmament was wide open. No moon but thousands of stars. I stopped and paused a few times, just to feel my breath, smell the air and close my eyes. It is beautiful to be out there in the night-becoming-day though I never relish starting out. I want to stay in, my body wants to stay in in the warm and the light. But once I am out it is fine, I find my step, my frame adjusts and I move through space happy to be out.

The man who has been sleeping in the space under the castle (what is it a meeting place, a shelter? Either way it is open to the sea.) was up and walking about. His sleeping bag was still strewn across the bench and unzipped awaiting his return. Was he smoking or pissing? I cannot say. I felt a frisson of discomfort, could it have been fear, as seeing him restless. I am used to his sleeping form, a slumbering, seemingly benign presence. Awake what would he be like? What would he do? He did nothing. He clearly keeps himself to himself. I fantasised about bringing him food. How would he react? I want to offer comfort and yet am awkward about it. How far should I transgress into his privacy? What must it be like sleeping to the sound of the sea? Cold. But the air is clear, clean. I hope he is safe.

Her initial reply was cold. Well, I thought so. And then she wrote again with such warmth. I am touched.

And she? Nothing as yet. Be patient. Her life is full and for that I am pleased. The sky is a little blue with trailing wisps of white clouds. Accept it all as it is. That is my tenet today. Be at peace with what is. And wait. All will come about.

I struggle to get off to sleep now that it is light in the evenings. It is OK. I let myself drift and listen to the birds. I watched a squirrel, who I initially thought was a cat, as it bounded along a branch. They are so fleet, so nimble, so trusting. And last night I did some Reiki. I tried to send some healing to him for his nose. But he still complained of it this morning. It will heal. It will.

As I walked along the Prom this morning in that complete dark a white feather fell from the sky. A perfect light fluff of whiteness. I touched it before it fell slowly to the ground. Some people believe feathers are evidence of an angel nearby. A nice thought. I marvelled at it purity. White against black.

I finished it. Not before I had a hissy fit though. I wanted it to be too perfect. It has become a weighty symbol. Too much so. And it doesn’t matter, not really. Nothing does.

The news was horrible, horrific. My loves, foaming at the mouth. I do not understand. It is beyond my understanding. What can I say? What can I do? Bear witness? Is it enough? Is it ever enough?

But there were short glimpses of gentle nothingness, I heard myself saying. That is enough, she replied. That is enough.

I’d been so edgy about it. It’s funny, in my weekly email from the Blurt Foundation they wrote about the fear of doing nothing. All those lists, running to catch up with myself. If only I could get that sorted out, that ticked off the list, that cleaned, that thrown away I can be at peace, I can be still. All the while knowing that once one list gets ticked off another is started.

There is nothing to do. Six hours of nothing to do but follow the practice. Six hours of watching my breath. Six hours of feeling the ground. Six hours of not speaking. More, for I hadn’t spoken all morning. What a space it left. What will come in? I thought. My back was rigid all through it. Honour it, she said, it is holding you in place. Yes. My carapace, my armour, my corset. Holding me. Keeping me upright. Protecting me. From what?

I was the first there. I sat cross-legged watching everyone arrive. The smell of sage took some adjusting too. A dry, slightly sour smell of hay, dried mown grass and kitchen herb cupboards. I liked it after a while. A cleansing. I watched everyone arrive. Caught the smell of the rain every time someone opened the door. The imposed silence made us awkward. Do we nod, avert our eyes or smile? I went with the smiling option but not everyone responded. If people don’t want to make eye contact, honour that, she said. My sense of smell was heightened. I caught whiffs of perfumes, deodorants and when the last woman came in, a stink of TCP. Nine of us electing to be part of that silent day.

I was surprised by my inner resistance. It continued throughout the day. The rigidity of my back being its most resonant manifestation. Judgement was another. Judgement of myself and my fellow participants. A nit-picking kind of voice commenting on clothes, bodies, mannerisms – that droned on and on. Are they all doing it? Or am I the only non-gracious being here? By not speaking, by not sharing intimacy I couldn’t puncture it, find my way in. To love without knowledge. To love absolutely without being pleased aesthetically. That is the key. I watched them as they walked ahead of me, or as they lay doing yoga. All with different bodies, different skins, sexes, inclinations, desires, hopes, fears and prejudices. We’re all sharing the same air, she intoned. Yes. That is true. Is that not reason enough for intimacy, for knowing? To love without judgement. It’s a kind of separation process, this judging. Why? Why do I want to separate myself? From what?

Sometimes I was bored and my eyes would stray to the clock. I want to go home. I want to be in my routine, following the day to the letter in its carved out blocks of time. Held in place by my structured life. But then sometimes, just sometimes, I lost myself and became nothing. What is that? It is beyond my description. A no-thing. Beyond ego. We did nothing. And I was exhausted.

The day was wet then drizzly. I watched as she walked barefoot on the grass and knew the sensation, felt it under my feet too. We were encouraged to whisper before we spoke. And she came over to me, the lovely smiling girl who has been so ill. We sat not facing each other. Don’t ask your partner any questions, just listen and then talk, she intoned. I the smiling woman’s voice and the way she moves her head when she talks. You are lovely, I said to her afterwards and I meant it.

Only three from my course came. I was sorry for that. They weren’t ready, she said. I thought of them, as I knew they would be thinking of us. It has got under my skin. That nothingness is so frightening but so tantalizing. There is nothing to do. Think of that. Nothing to do. And the world so busy.

They’re are still working on Terrace Road. It’s all blocked-off and has been for weeks now. Where are we supposed to park? he moans. There was a man I saw this morning, he continues, he was delivering to one of the pubs and he had to roll his beer barrel along the road. He couldn’t get near with his lorry. He was fuming. Fucking shithouse, he was shouting. What at the workmen? I ask. Yeh.

He’s laughing now. You know the cleaner at Morrison’s, the one from Brum? Yeh. He says that when he has to carry all the garden stuff outside. Fucking shithouses’s. That’s what he says. Fucking shithouses’s.

It was breezy yesterday morning, especially down by the harbour. The wind blew something hard against my lip as I walked. A twig, a stone, a leaf? It stung and then I tasted salt.

A silent day today. We smile about it, he and I, and bow. We’ve taken to bowing at each other, nineteenth-century style. No radio, no singing, no talking. We sign at each other or write things down. It made me anxious on the Prom. What if someone tries to talk to me? And someone did. I tried to manage it best I could by nodding and making assenting noises. Does that count? I’d walked behind him initially, trying to work out whether I should cross the road or not to avoid an encounter. I’d seen him shining a strong torch along the beach. He turned to face me. It’s my daughter, he said, walking in step with me, a large man in a t-shirt. She got really pissed, he continued, and has lost her bag. Have you seen it? A plastic bag. It’s got her phone, her shoes, the lot. My head on one side, I try to emanate empathy and then move on. There is a swan in the water by the harbour. A lone white one. Earlier, coming down St David’s Road I heard a great fluttering in one of the trees. A large bird, though I couldn’t see it. An owl?

I cried yesterday. I think I’m going to be alright and then it comes. No one bats and eyelid, which I am pleased about. I don’t want the fuss. I described it as feeling like metal, my carapace, my armour, a rigid shell across my back. I know that it helps to share such things but it is nonetheless excruciating to me. I want to be in control, held, composed. The day imploded after that. But that is OK. Then I listened to a programme about the Arvon Foundation. Is it a good thing to do? All my fears about eating in public, a lack of privacy, having to share bathrooms, cook together, read together, work together come crowding in. And all that exposure. Can I weather it?

I wonder how many will come today. Ugh, strangers, just when I’d got used to the group. How will it be not to talk? Freeing? No expectation, just a polite kindness. But how will it work? I asked him last night over supper. That’s her problem not yours, he said.