Author: Ellen Bell

Is it mist or is it fog? I cannot say. I cannot tell. It makes the world outside appear stilled, mysterious, waiting. As if it is holding it’s breath. Nothing is moving. The wind has gone, as has the rain, just this mixing of warmth and wetness. There are no birds. Nothing pushes through this grey. Nothing shifts it. No, there goes a rook, cawing. It is like smoke. The air smells like smoke sometimes. Sometimes when I walk in the early mornings it smells of wood-smoke. A smell I usually associate with Autumn but these days every one has fires. And they no doubt light them as much for comfort as heat. I would. Sharp edges are softened, blacks and whites become grey, melding together in fudged shapes. Smudged shapes. An impressionistic vista from my studio window. The light struggling to come through. A white grey, not a pea-souper.

I’m in a mist too. Ah, the rain has returned, spattering on my window. I don’t know where I’m going with my work. Do you have to? He is so good. I come back from work all a dither. It sends me that place. There are no ease-full states to be had there. It is an antithesis to me. All disorganised, all at sea. And I am thrown. It is all that dealing with strangers, with how I am seen and responded to. And whether they choose me or him. It is ridiculous. An old pattern. The school-yard repeated. Do I belong? Am I an outsider? How do I fit in? How do I learn their games? I forget my freedom. I forget the blissful freedom of it. I can be who I like, just turn up be kind, be gracious and go home. And I can read. And the days when I am not there, when they may have given him the work rather than me I can do this precious stuff here. I can be here, finding my way through the mist. Is that not OK?

It is. And then when I have compounded my discomfort by trawling the internet for further evidence of my smallness I come back to him and he calms me. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing, he says, you want to do it, it is your work, your love, your passion. I paraphrase a little. I cannot remember it exactly. Sometimes I am not paying attention, even now remembering my desire to shut off his good sense my back tenses. He’s said these things many times, it is truth, certainly but sometimes I am stubborn, too married to the self pity. Too misted-up to see. He talked about my focus being on the amateur sewer. And yes, he is right. That is what interests me. The solitary amateur sewer and how they define creativity. Why they do what they do alongside work, home-life and other demands. I want to find their voices. Does she exist, this amateur needle worker? Or is she a composite of my imagination? Is she in fact a she? I need to listen to the tapes. And straddle my discomfort, my knowledge of my non-knowing. To deal with the awe I feel about other people’s work. It is the kits that intrigue me. The following of pre-set patterns, like a musician being led by a score. What does that feel like? The responsibility to come up with the idea is not yours, you just have to work it, make it, play it. And yet, what happens in that small space between following and being guided? Decisions are made. Mistakes too. The mistakes make it mine, she said. I need to listen. To find the diamonds in the rock.

It was only a dream. I dreamt that he and I were in a shop, a dress shop. I noticed a silk dress, a deep purple shift dress with a matching hat. He asked how much it was. It was extortionate. I made to leave and he followed. I opened the narrow door and began to make my way downstairs and that’s when I heard it. An enormous fart noise. He’d farted in the shop. A tiny shop, chock-full of women. I didn’t wait to hear what they said or did. But then I somehow managed, as you do in dreams, to be two places at one time and I was back in the shop to hear and see a woman laugh and say, I hope we can get a new window glass.

He laughed when I told him. At the farting, naturally, and the comment that the woman made. Things said in dreams don’t translate into reality. Ever.

The farting, sadly, is only too true. I can’t help it, he says. I can’t hold it in. I don’t know they’re coming. She was the same. It was excruciating as a child. In a yoga class (I’m a bit gassy today) or at a dinner party.  Always when she was bending down. Just like Petula Gordino in Dinnerladies. Sometimes I just can’t watch her. It is too close. Too close to the truth.

But is doesn’t matter. Not really. Nothing does.

We sat in the sun yesterday. We walked to North Road and sat on a bench looking down on the tennis courts and the bowling green. The Prom would’ve been to busy. The world and his wife out there. And all the necessary greeting that would ensue when we just want to be quiet. Holding hands. We had to take the lichen covered bench, the other cleaner one was taken by a Chinese man and his young daughter. I wish they’d fuck off so that we can have that seat, he said under his breath. Look at him, just looking at cars, not doing anything with her. It’s true they were an odd pair. She kept climbing onto the bench then down again. And he just stood there looking around. Were they waiting for someone? When they eventually left we stayed put. I liked being still, the sun on my face listening to him talk about playing tennis there as a boy. He’d had to play on his own. He was the only junior member. So I’d put my bag on the line and serve to it. Over and over again, he said. Didn’t you get bored? Never, he said. I can see it. I know his determination.

You were like a harridan, he said afterwards. No, you sounded like a harridan. I did, he was right. I was edgy and embarrassed. Where had he got to? I’d had to chat to her longer than I’d intended, thinking all the time, where is he? She told me about her 5 year old’s birthday party at the football club. She’d shared it with a friend. Twenty-eight five year olds running around dressed as princesses. A company had organised the entertainment with the head woman also dressing as a princess, Belle from Disney’s Beauty & Beast (I think, she said) and getting them to sing all the songs. Even I had a dance, she said. It was brilliant. And her brother whirled her around. The only issue was the food, they all forgot what they’d ordered.

He’d got distracted by a two for three pounds offer in the frozen veg section. I was just trying to save money, he said. Fair enough. I can see that. And I should make allowances. It is fine. We have time. There is always time. I shouldn’t have shouted. A harridan. At times, certainly.

The day promises fair. Another blue sky with a yellow sun.

The flat smells of hyacinths. They begin to open. Can you smell them, my love? I forgot to ask.

I can’t stop singing it in my head. That song, Ipso Facto by Badly Drawn Boy. He’s been doing the same. An ear worm. It’s stuck.

I’ve looked up the meaning but I still don’t really understand it.

What a beautiful morning. The sky is cloudless, cold but clear. And the blue is being turned yellow by the sun. Shall we walk this afternoon?

I haven’t checked my emails yet. Has she responded? I have a stomach-ache as a result of writing it. It had to be done. Get it out. Not unkindly, but it has been eating away at me. A stillness. A Sunday kind of stillness. I love skies like this. They are hopeful. A clean-slate of nothingness to be filled with bliss.

Ah, bliss. What is that? Sun. Sun is bliss to me. Lying in the heat of it, feeling it warm my bones.

The clocks went forward this morning. Twelve jumped to two. I waited for it but the announcer made little of it. I hope you’ve remembered to put your clocks forward, was all he said. And I missed the whirring of our one upstairs. Well, it’s not strictly ours. It was here when we came. It’s radio controlled and suddenly starts whirring as if being worked by a far-off Wizard of Oz.

A struggling day yesterday. So tense. But I saw the day through. And went to buy the material. We bought her this old till in an antiques market when she was small, the woman in the shop told me. She’s wanted to have a shop ever since. And now she does. I watch her cut the fabric, loving that sound of scissors against wood. I chose buttons. Better to get the elastic from Clare’s, she says. The till makes a bell sound when you open it. See, she says. I think about possibilities. I hanker after this making thing. What is it about? It’s so much cheaper just to buy something ready-made. But I want to make this, a gift of my time. If you want something done ask a busy person. And I am. Always. Always busy. There were some of her capes in the shop. Is that your daughters? I ask, thinking that would be too much of a coincidence. No, she says, my daughter is a…., what is the word? Dressmaker? I suggest. No, she replies, a tailor. A tailor. Hmm, another one for my tapes, perhaps. The bell rings above the door at Clare’s Wool Shop. Lucky you can read patterns, eh? she says. Can I? What is this mix of comfort and dread that I get from such shops. Crafty, she kept saying on Wednesday night. Crafty. Ugh. And yet, why such snobbishness? It’s just making. The aesthetic is neither here nor there. Try non-judgement. What is it is about? What is the resistance? It’s the stories that interest me, mine and theirs. The stories that take us to the needle. Brown paper bags. They both used brown paper bags. The ones with the crinkle-cut edges.

Do you know where the Castle Hotel is? A couple. She looks worried. Isn’t that the Pier we came down before? she’d just asked her partner. Are we lost? It’s just down there on the right, I reply. Oh, thanks, love, she says. Love. A young girl calling me love. And I am lightened by it. I meet such warmth. Unexpected warmth. Sometimes it is just enough to carry me on my way.

I wasn’t selected. I watch for knee-jerk thoughts. The shame at failing. The thought that someone out there might think worse of me. Foolishness at trying for something at which I didn’t succeed. All these characteristic, tired thoughts rush forward. Always. No matter what it is I try for they always come. Perhaps it is my hopefulness, my fingers-crossed idealism. It might happen, throw it out there and it might come. What might come? Something that will tell me I’m good enough? That I am chosen? Ridiculous, I know. But I need to write it out. To see it for what it is.

There is nothing to achieve, she says. Nothing to achieve. Think about that a while. Nothing but a breathing in and out. How beautiful. To have nothing that one must do. There is nothing you must do, he whispers to me as I fall to sleep. There is nothing you have to do. Can I believe it? Can I let it all go? What will happen if I do?

My back is hard. Rigid as steel. Fear. Fear about telling her what I think. What will happen? What will the truth bring? Well, my truth. Her truth is different, I accept that.

I wasn’t selected.

Was that my real goal to be chosen so that I could add another exhibition to my CV? I wanted to be seen, my work, or is it really me? I wanted my work to be seen, rated. I wanted to be told that it was good. Why is that necessary? You wanted to make something. The Open was an opportunity to work towards, a deadline, an impetus. That is all. The making was the thing. Always. Let it be. Let the failure be no different from the success. It is just experience. You have nothing to do but experience. Experience being alive, sentient, aware. Alert to all things, experience all things, without judgement.

I’ve been away. So no writing. I feel askew when I don’t . It’s been too long. And then when I get back there is so much to do to ground myself again. My back carries it. My board, my rigid board. Poor love. But I’ve been living. He and I, close. And the interviews and the meetings. All good. All valuable. All experience. The Oak, the restaurant with her and her soft, watery eyes. That was a good thing. Her loneliness is palpable. She is used to joy. She is alive to it. A quivering bird of life. I wanted to do more. And for her yesterday morning on the phone. I’m weepy today, she said. And I had to rush off.

Little notes to remind me. The four youths on the beach in the early hours standing round a lit fire, Latino music playing on a ghetto blaster, laughing like hyenas. And the girl that stopped me by Pier Pressure night club. Have you seen a girl? She’s called Eleanor. My friend, Eleanor. Have you called her? She’s not picking up. We’re really worried. I’ve seen two people, a boy and girl down by the bandstand. The boy was shouting. Yes, that’s her boyfriend, he’s really worried. If I see her I’ll tell her. Thank you. Her name’s Eleanor.

I’d heard him shout. A bellow, a howl out at the sea. Eleanor. I hadn’t known what he was shouting then. Did they find her?

Dreams. Bits of dreams. A chatelaine. I was a chatelaine. I was married to someone else’s husband and held domain over a large busy household. The servants were bullish. One in particular. I’m the lady of the house, I said to her. I was strong. And there was a boy, a step son who kept wetting the bed. I took the sheets down to the laundry. I remember the wetness but there was no smell, just water and water. And a later dream. Thank you, I said to him, my love. Thank you, for the embroidery. Yes, the embroidery. Then afterwards I dreamt that I told him of the earlier dream. We laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Thank you for the embroidery. I didn’t mean that. I meant thank you for my life.

So much kindness, openness. And amidst the fear of no work and broken cars, abundance. It is alright. It is always just as it should be. I am open. Open to everything without judgement. Alive.

The dark, the dark night-almost-morning that I walk through is my forest. The forests of fairy tale. The forests that Sara Maitland writes about in her book Gossip from the Forest. It is the space I most fear and my nerves jangle as I walk out into it.

This morning it grew white. The snow makes it clean, light, less fearsome. Listening to Our Own Correspondent yesterday morning while doing yoga there was a journalist writing about visiting a backwater town in Russia famous for its copper smelting. An ugly, black industrial eyesore which the winter snow yearly renders beautiful. I watch the flakes fall as I walked, the way they made new the forms that lay on the ground. Discarded cans, bits of rubbish took on new, softened life. Cars, roofs and lamps all became shrouded in white. Everything is softened, all hard-edges gone. And the stillness. Music still thumped out of the Pier Pressure nightclub. You’re the one that I want, yeh, yeh, yeh.. was being pounded out as I trudged past. I could hear them all singing along. Girls, coatless ran out into the snow, flakes catching like gossamer in their hair. The ground was sometimes slippy, sometimes crunchy. Down by the harbour the wind whipped-up. A fish lorry was waiting, its engine humming and two fishing boats were there, lit-up like Christmas.

The dark. I walk it with fear and wonder. The snow added to the wonder. My forest. I remember the forests in Norway. Both in Baerum. Places of escape, of breath, of freedom and of fear. Mystical places, with those high, high trees and the funny, perky-eared squirrels.

A cold morning, chill. My fingers tingled and stung. Even in the pockets. I like to walk and swing my arms. It stabilises me. It stops me falling.

Her auntie fell again, he tells me. Poor love. I remember seeing the woman in the home fall. She couldn’t help herself. That cry, that terror of losing control. And all the paraphernalia of getting her up again. Hoists and joists, straps and levers. Who has all that at home?

Do be careful, he pleads.

A grey-white sky. Rooks break its chill stillness.

Coffee then work.

I wanted to get a pattern for her. I wanted to make something for her. I have the labels. Her name, printed out. No joy. Nothing in the shops. I shall have to search the internet. I like to feel, to see what I am getting. Move with the times. Let it be as it is.

And the disc is going funny. Is that more resistance? Who knows. I could be comic if I let it be so. Who cares?

What are your plans for this wild life?

I find myself watching them. I watch them all intensely. Usually when one of them is speaking. I want to know them. I want to know people generally. I burn through them with my watching. It isn’t staring. Staring is cold, unkind almost. I look with care, with empathy, with compassion. I know this. But I am also curious. For they are not me. I only know myself. And how it is to be me. How is it to be them?

She doesn’t say much. She is withdrawn. In grief. She is clearly grieving. She is a beautiful woman. You see, I don’t want to make judgements but I cannot stop my mind making these distinctions. I look at her with wonder. How is it to be so beautiful? How does it feel? Her chin comes almost to a point but her face is heart-shaped. An exotic, dark-skinned kind of beauty. And so different to mine. I am a Jane Eyre, a plain needing-to-get-used-to-and-love-kind-of-beauty. A not noticeable kind of beauty. Hers is enchanting. Her voice has a hint of American or is it Canadian? She wears patterns, shimmering golds and greens. Yesterday she had on harem pants that were cut at the ankle. A woman of largesse. She drives a people carrier. A family woman, a mother. Then when we moved to sit cross legged I notice her calves. Her legs were hairy, unshaven. Long black hairs. It was a shock. Ridiculous to admit it but it is true. And yet it is just a different notion of beauty. That is all. Still is took something away.

Last night I dreamt that my legs were hairy. I was ashamed and made a mental note to remove them the next morning. It was a surprise to see them in the bath clean as a whistle.

She answered the phone. It was nice to hear her. Her voice is stronger, more cheerful. She’d been for an MRI. I’d put on tidy underwear, she said, and then found out they did it with my clothes on. She suddenly realised what she’d implied, and added, but of course I change them clean everyday. Of course. Of course you do.

The wind was strong this morning, gusting. Students and revellers wandered wind blown along the Prom. Big girls with cleavage-revealing tops and no coats. Such big-bosomed girls. One had on a gingham top, all flouncy at the sleeve and chest. A Botero-darling. She walked back to the Halls alone. They are so luscious. Are they safe? Nothing is hidden. All is on show. So different. Do I notice it more now that my ripeness has gone? I don’t mind. This is another time, another place. I am content.

Yesterday was better. As were my readings. Perhaps I still can. Who knows?

I glanced a headline in The Times as he read it at breakfast. Something like 10,000 more deaths this year. Is that the elderly? I asked him. Yes, he said. Was it the cold? Yes, that and the lack of hospital beds and loneliness. They die of loneliness? I asked. Can you die of loneliness? I asked again. Yes, he said. Really? Yes, he said.

It’s not really loneliness, as such. It’s not the specifically the want of company, its all the stuff that goes with it. The neglect of oneself, the lengthening of days, of having nothing to live for, I suppose. For I can only suppose. I watch them at the home, intently. Most sleep. Some stare out of windows, into space. Some wander about. Some with coats on ready to go out. Why do they never bash on the locked door, fight their incarceration? Do you think they sedate them? I asked him. Though how he would know, I don’t know. Some, maybe, he said. For their own good. One that he knows, sits in the office with the staff with his hat and coat on, acquiescent but perhaps ready for the off if it arises. It won’t. They have company in there. That is they have the cheeriness of the staff, and the other residents. They have bodies around them, people tending to their physical needs. But they don’t have loved ones. They don’t have intimates. Is that it? Is that what we die of, the lack of people knowing us, and our story? Was he lonely? I don’t think so. He had regressed, gone back to a childish time. We caught him crying once. He talked of his grandparents. Later he sang songs. He was locked-in. No, he died of the disease. And she? She certainly fell fast when they separated them. He was a rogue, possibly. And he smoked and interrupted her regular habits. But he was company. She believed in him, he filled her day, made her feel useful. Her senility came on fast when the family separated them. They thought he was after her money. Maybe. She didn’t mind. And then when she was in the home it was harder for her to hold it together. He was forgotten. She made another male friend in the first home. How could she not? She was charm itself. But then they moved her and he was lost to her too. She died of a stroke. Not loneliness. I loved her. I loved him. But in the end they were lost to me and I was lost to them. She is almost a hundred, the lady downstairs. She isn’t lonely. She lives with her son and her large, sprawling family visit often. And she has the church. She is strong, walking into town every day wearing her jaunty hats. Constitution and mental attitude must play a large part.

You know the man in the wheelchair we saw when they were having that service at the home? he asked. Yes, the one with the orange socks, I replied. Well, he died. He’d been singing and playing catch ball the week before.

Maybe it is just time. Time to go. Have can we assuage another’s loneliness. We talked to her last week. Over and over. Replying anew to every thing she repeated. Did you? Did you? So much so that she wanted to come out with us. Can I come with you? And was hurt, anxious when we had to say no. Your daughter’s coming, you have to wait for her. Is she? Such subterfuge. It can’t be done. Heartbreaking, he said. Heartbreaking.

I’m trying to see small. To focus on now, what is in front of me and to let the rest be. Let it be. Let it be, I chanted to myself as I walked. Let it be. The rain was heavy on my umbrella. Let it be. I walked in a puddle. Let it be. The rain is relentless. Just let it be. I’ve only time to do an hour’s work before I must go out. It is enough. Let it be.

Funnily enough, she said as she carefully placed each of my oranges in the bag packing area, it was my birthday a few weeks ago and I got a cross stitch kit. We’d gone to the supermarket later than usual. You’re late, she’d said. Yes, I’d had to go into work early. We don’t usually see her these days, not since they changed everyone’s shift. I like it when she is free and we can chose her aisle. I like to be around her. We are of a similar age, I like her carefulness, the rather flat, forced way she replies to our questions about her health and her laugh. A horsey, neighing kind of laugh. She’d surprised me when I’d interviewed her. Of course, she had, I had a two-dimensional view. I wanted to be surprised. Sewing keeps us connected. I’d asked if she was knitting. Yes, she said, I am. A cable-fronted jacket. Then she told me about the cross stitch kit. She’s bought a frame for it. From EBay, she said, though I’d thought she didn’t have computer. Who bought the kit for you? I asked. She said a name. I must’ve looked blank. You know, she said, the one I was seeing before. The one with the disapproving grown-up daughter, I asked. Yes. I’ve moved in with him. Oh, I said, taken aback, so you’ve left you’re flat. Yes, she said. I’ve left the caravan.

I didn’t know she lived in a caravan. So many people from Brum come here for holidays and stay. Caravan parks abound. They are cheap, easy but must be so cold in the winter. I think of his parents. Not him but the he from years ago. Travelling to the South West to see them in Weston Super Mare, that then sad seaside town. He was virtually monosyllabic and she chattered on, always wary of me. I wasn’t of their kind, she knew it, and was ever suspicious. And her beloved son. He was hers not mine. I have a photograph of us all. She is sitting next to me and leaning away from me, as far as she can.

Let me know how you get on with the kit, I say. Oh, I’m not starting it yet. What does he do while you sew? I ask. Oh, he’s outside, she said. He’s a landscape gardener, he’s always outside.

I wanted her to encourage me but she didn’t. She is an odd woman. I can’t find my way with her. I’m to check my blood pressure for the next three days and report back. Then, if it’s still steady I can try to come off them. I just want to be clean, inside, I said to him, trying to explain. Lots of people have to take medication, he says. Look at me. I know, it just I work so hard at trying to remain healthy. What is it? What am I trying to prove? I just want to see, to see if I can do without them. But my anxiety, this stress isn’t a good sign. It erodes me. And my pace quickens. We’ll see. Perhaps this course will help. Though the expected euphoria is missing. Not like that that I got yesterday. A pot of tea, that was all I had and I was spinning. For hours.

There was a card on the Prom by the bar. It was still in it’s cellophane. A Mother’s Day card. A Happy Mother’s Day card, left, dropped, abandoned in the rain, in the wet. On Monday I’d noticed some words written out on the beach. On North Beach, big letters formed out of seaweed and pebbles. Carefully done. Meticulously done. Happy Mother’s Day it read. The sea hadn’t taken it the morning after. I forgot to look this morning. Surely it has gone.

They keep sending me them. Mothers’ Day cards. I don’t want them. I never have. It gives me the creeps really. Total strangers commiserating. Sending me a card because they believe I won’t get one. They are right. But I don’t mind and their gesture could never make up for anything from her. Ever.

I dreamt I was there at a birth. It was another woman’s. My child’s? I don’t know. I was the only one there. I was the only one helping. I did it. I birthed the child. A long, tall, dark-haired beauty. Almost fully grown. I did it. I was so proud in my dream. I walked head held high. So proud. I wasn’t scared. Well, a little. It wasn’t gory but laborious. I know that. I helped guide it out. No blood. But there was water and a sac. Symbolic. Naturally. She’ll have such tall girls, I said.

We are off. Off for some tea and a seminar. I want to talk about sewing, to find the questions I need to ask. I want to be prepared this time, though leaving a chink open for the unexpected.

Barbara, he said, sat there sewing. I heard it as I made breakfast. I was listening to a radio dramatization of The Old Curiosity Shop. Kit has got a new job and he is being watched by a girl sewing. I must look it up. I heard it. My ear pricked up. Sewing.

Tea. I need tea in a silver pot. Off. Off into the grey morning. The sunrise was pink. Stunning. To be replaced by clouds. Ho-hum.

I’ve been listening to some John Godber plays while working. Two-parters, they’ve all been acted by himself and his wife, Jane. Man and wife dramas set against the miners strike, Northern poverty and the onset of old age and infirmity. He writes about a Yorkshire-kind-of-loving, undemonstrative, monosyllabic, tacit, cold and bitter. And yet, it is not. It is there the warmth, the care, the intimacy. It is there but taken for granted. He shows this in each and every one. I could kill ya, she says over and over again. You don’t mean it, he says. I do, she says. I do. Boredom, poverty of both purse and ambition, family, roots and fear hold them fast.Together. Always. All that bickering. It rises and falls. Neither take it seriously. It’s just a flash then it is gone. It’s how they communicate. A loving. A Yorkshire-kind-of-loving.

Fantastic. I am hooked. I knew of him while at Wimbledon. His Hull Truck Theatre Company. I was too intimidated by its rawness. I couldn’t engage with it. I couldn’t find my way in. I can now and I’m hooked. Then I go upstairs to do yoga and there’s a Dave Sheasby play on. I’d heard it before. Keeping Anne-Marie, about a woman who’d agreed to be a surrogate mother, took the money, but reneged on her promise once the baby was born. She goes to a solicitor to get help. A rough-and-ready Northern lass, hardened by life, all sharp edges she still manages to get under his skin and the judge’s and the case is won. (The judge quotes a fairy tale where fighting mothers who both claim to be a child’s biological mother are told to cut the child in two and each to take half. I vaguely remember the tale but cannot remember the result. Does the real mother concede?)

Some days I am made abundant by literature. And then there is David Sedaris. A new series, what joy. I took the iPad back into him afterwards so that he could listen too. Our humour is not always parallel but I wanted him to laugh too. And he did. He did.

I need to sew, particularly now. I’m unsteadied by this newness, this trying to recover. All the old habits rise to the surface like scum. The trying to be good, to get that gold star, that pat on the head. Then what? I can be at peace? That constant seeking of approval. Ugh. And yet, I didn’t do my usual thing. I wasn’t chatty, I actually felt reticent, shy. I wanted to sit in silence. So much resistance. And the sleeping. It’s frustrating, and embarrassing, particularly the snoring. Ah. But I’m beginning to be able to pull myself back. I’m just tired. Always tired. Dog-tired. Too much thinking. Too much.

So sewing is good. I calms me. It is simple, rhythmic, constant. I have something to follow. A pattern, a guideline. The tracks are set. With the rest of my practice it isn’t so. That I have to make up as I go along. And with my work, my paid work, well who knows when it comes.

I sew to be still. It is enough, that.