Author: Ellen Bell

It’s a strange juxtaposition of words. One so clear, clean and the other redolent of business transactions, of compromise and of loss. I hope the outcome, if it comes, protects those who need it…

Why did I weep at breakfast? I said it was about the horror of other people’s actions and beliefs. It was but it also wasn’t. Mostly, no almost entirely it was about mine. All of that wrongness that is in me, that came into me even before my birth, that I carry in my blood, bones and organs. I reject it wholly but it remains. A horrid gift. And nothing will cleanse me of it. Except death. And even then, who knows? Forgive me.

John Berger writes about painting the existent as an act of resistance, of hope. Is that what I am doing by drawing my quotidian? I like to think so.

Who am I to say what is right and what it wrong? Rightness is subjective, some might even say a cultural notion. And yet, it hurts to see and hear what is happening to those whom I deem as good, truly so, being bludgeoned and bullied by those who are not. Will nothing happen to stop this? Must might and pure self interest win out?

She finds sweet things to share with us, anecdotes that she delivers with a honeyed charm. I resist and welcome it. Today she told us of a recycling place in Yeovil, I think she said, that has salvaged all the discarded Christmas decorations and hangs them out each year at this time for their customers’ delight. A nice thing. Thank you.

I am groggy, her text woke me from a deep sleep and after I texted him I struggled to return to it. She says he is struggling. I said what I could, weighing my words carefully. He is such a tender being, so full of feeling. I hold him to me in my mind. I hope he feels it.

It was a mish-mash of things that I’d thought or spoken about the day before with a familiar replaying of characters. Do you want some more coffee or toast? I asked the assembled family. No, they said, though I still went into the next door room to make some. Each of the rooms were virtually empty, with just a table, some chairs and in the smaller ante-room a toaster. When I went in there to make more toast I noticed that just by the door, on another smaller table, was a toast rack full of pre-prepared toast. I still went to the toaster to make more. It was a machine like the one you find in hotels with a revolving tray on which to place the bread. H. and J. were there, though I didn’t see the faces of the others.

He used the word ‘toll’ to describe the impact that this research is having on me. I know the toll it is taking on you, he wrote. And it is. I know this too. But I cannot treat it lightly, or detach myself from it. I wonder whether I will survive it. And, if I do, what my life will be after it.

She told us that he has her bed and that she, in turn, sleeps on the sofa in the living room. She says she is tired, that caring for him has made her weary, and that sleeping on the sofa has made her arthritis worse. It’s a familiar pattern and that is not a judgement, we all have them. As we all have people in our lives who abuse us with our full and willing knowledge. He, is appears, has always abused her, that is taking more than he gives. But she is happier for him being there, clearly. It will be up to her. Perhaps she just wanted to be heard and felt for. And I did and do.

I finish one piece of writing, but the respite (a mix of relief and panic at there being nothing..) is short. Another one waits to be begun, or in this case, amended. I am assailed by the fear of it, of failing, of being rejected and of not getting it right. I know that all this fear stuff is of my doing and that it doesn’t have to be like this, but I know no other default position. Try. Try another….