Artist and writer currently living in Aberystwyth.
It haunts me. And it is the same whenever I am to begin writing something new, something that is yet inchoate. And now that fear is increased by the spectre of a new, additional supervisor. He looms over me as I try to begin. I must get over this. Push all of it aside and just begin, write what is mine, what is in me, find my voice and all those other platinudinous things…blah, blah. Just write, Ellen. That’s all, Just write.
I am hurting again. My back has been pulled. Overdoing it, he says. The hurt makes it stiff, rigid, umoving. And I am sorry for it. Things were improving. So be it. I shall sit and work, hot water bottles on my back and tummy and wait till it passes. I am blessed, regardless, now and always.
Just liquids. No solids. I’m to give a try. It might work or it might not. I have a choice, others don’t. So far the hunger is at bay. Perhaps it won’t come. Outside it rains and rains.
It’s not important. None of it is. The fact that the fridge has broken, or that my body hurts, or that I feel that I am not working hard enough. None of it matters. Not in comparison to their hunger, or the tsunami that threatens. Nothing matters but those real life things. Let me not forget…
Tomorrow I am going to get it seen to. It’s a long way to go to be flushed out, to be made clean, to start afresh. I want it. And then? A new regime? Who knows? It doesn’t seem to like food. Shall I just do without? What a luxury, eh? To be able to choose to deny oneself. The irony is acute, I know. Let them be fed. Please.
I am so acutely aware of the insignificance of my daily, nay hourly concerns. Such as the fridge. Which, appears to be on the blink. (It leaked a ton of water and I through such a wobbly. To my shame.) It is nothing. They are nothing compared to not be able to feed your starving baby. Oh, my heart bleeds, I feel it. So much despair. Please let the aid get through. Soften those hard, hard hearts.
It’s more a question of allowing oneself to be happy, really. Especially when the world is filled with so much unhappiness. I talk to him about it. How would you being unhappy on their behalf help them? he asks with his usual wisdom. Nothing, I say. And it wouldn’t. Can’t I be happy and still remember – still pray for the end to violence, to hunger, to war? It all sounds so platitudinous. I can be more specific. France talks of recognising their state. I hope we follow suit. Take a stand. Feed them. Honour them. Save them. Now. Please.
Food aid is being blocked. They have nothing. They are starving. This is an abomination. And yet what are we doing about it? We go about our lives, me included, seesawing between the sacred and the profane, and forgetting. Please let those lorries through. Please feed those who are starving. Let their torment stop.
It was in my bed, just in the place where I sleep. And it was dead. Why had it gone in there? I’d clearly killed it when I lay down to read the afternoon before. Poor love. It was flattened. It made me feel a bit queasy. It’s too much of an intimate place to share with a spider, alive or dead. They are everywhere it seems. I am sorry for its demise. As I am for the snail I think I stepped on this morning in the dark.
I dreamt that I was moving myself around on a child’s scooter or trike or was it a skateboard. I was a little ashamed of it, its infantile qualities were plain to see but I didn’t discard it. I kept it with me, under my arm, my naivety made clear for all to see. Was it a symbol of how I feel I come across in my endeavours to understand and engage with philosophy?
I practice saying it in my head. I imagine telling people about it. I am not trying to make it happen, quite the contrary. He calls such behaviour ‘magic’ – magicking it away. It will happen. I know this. I practice to know it better, to if not embrace to accept its inevitability and make myself ready for it. I won’t be. Ever. But I will survive and the life that will come out of it. Meanwhile, I am thankful for his presence, daily, hourly in my life.