Author: Ellen Bell

I told him about the man I saw in Boston airport. The man who I’d seen earlier working in the stationers in the concourse, and was then on his lunch break. A lunch, that is, which consisted of white rice, that he was eating out of a tupperware container. I took it as a symbol of poverty, that that was all there was. Perhaps I was wrong to that. Possibly he liked rice and was content. He appeared to eat it with gusto. I too am to eat rice for the meantime. I like it too. Though brown not white. But while I stay the fast? I don’t know. I will try.

I am not well. Not ill but not well. I haven’t been since our return from Yorkshire. I don’t know why. Is it stress? What is my body rejecting, not wanting? What am I supposed to learn from this? It is a mystery. I cannot find my wisdom about this.

I thought of them as I ate. I have food, too much sometimes, and they don’t. I fantasised about sending what I had in the post to them. But it would be a mere drop in an emptied out ocean of need. I can only think, wish and pray that succour, safety and peace will be theirs soon. Please.

He began to read a sentence of an article from The Guardian, saying that the writer hadn’t eaten for over 30 hours. There’s a blockade, nothing, no food, aid, medical supplies are being let in. They are being starved. Can nothing be done to prevent what amounts to genocide? We are all culpable. If nothing is done their blood is on our hands. Help us to act.

It was a dream about another. She’s the manager of a coffee shop chain in town that I used to frequent regularly to practice my drawing skills. I don’t have the time that I did then, and rarely go in there now. I was outside this coffee shop, though it was bigger and detached from the other buildings in the street. In fact I could walk around its whole circumference, which is what I did. The windows and doors were open wide. It was a hot day. I could see her through the windows working being the counter. She’d done something, achieved something, though I couldn’t remember what. And I thought, as I watched her, that I must go in and congratulate her. But I had things to do and didn’t really have time to stop. I will do it later, I thought. And then the alarm woke me, leaving me with a sense of something being incomplete. Was that dream really about me?

I’m not tolerant of them, particularly with the ones that he emits. He says he can’t help it and I do believe him but moan nevertheless. It is too much for my nose, it wants sweetness not rancid, fetidness. We manage them, most of the time, these small things, these minor inconveniences. It’s the real stuff of marriage, after all, the rest is flim flam.

I want time. I want time in which to tidy. To tidy my life away in drawers. I crave an order that I don’t seem to be able to impose. I wish to go through every drawer, give away what I no longer need and neaten each and every object. But there is no time in which to do this. Work must take priority, even though to do this tidying would make me feel lighter. I know this. One day, eh?

It was a crossword clue. It asked for the name of a Fairport Convention song. This, I believe, was its title. And I am, almost all of the time, even with this aching back (which I am both learning to accept and, at times, forget). For I am blessed. I know this. So much love and care and opportunity and yet I look forward to my end. The peace of it, and I hope grace.

I worry that they are not protected, that they have been bullied into it. I hope they have found wise counsel. And that they are made safer by it.

I fluctuate between being able to bear it, to detach myself from it and plunging into depths of self-pity. This see-sawing can happen within the same hour, sometimes the same minute. I wish I were more stoic. I am frightened. It isn’t improving. It isn’t healing. I will see her in a a week or so. Will she identify it? Solve it? Heal me?