Artist and writer currently living in Aberystwyth.
I miss it when it is masked by clouds. Its light is a marvel. I saw it yesterday, nearly full, shining into my studio. Its a white light, clean, sharp, sometimes almost ghostly. Such things, such big things steady me, reduce and yet enlarge me, making me more than I am.
Drawing early this morning I heard a voice. I was standing on the corner of Bridge Street just along from the dip that leads down to a wine bar and then to the sewage treatment works. It was a shouting voice. It swore, it called something ‘nasty’, it sang and then shouted again. It sounded like it was someone lying on their back. I drew hastily as the voice seemed to get louder. Should I go and help the thing, that now sounded like a troll about to appear from its cave? Not sure of what I’d encounter, I decided against it. It wasn’t a shouting of pain, after all, just inconvenience, or maybe disorientation. It was an intoxicated voice, certainly. Was I being unkind?
My reaction to it came later, hours later. I started to shake, then weep and go hot and cold. I was frightened, not only of the pain but of what I couldn’t do. I slept in the end. It helped. As did pain killers. I am still sore. My knees are stiff and swollen as is my wrist and shoulder. But I walked, and made breakfast and I was able to get out of the bath unaided. I even did some yoga, though getting my body up off the floor is a challenge. I am lucky. My body is strong, defiant even. As indeed am I.
I’d weighed up what path to take. I am always wary of it. Alert to it, even. I watch the path, straighten my back and stride purposely. It must’ve been a loose slab, something uneven. It caught my foot and I went flying then falling, hard. I am battered. My body is sore. But nothing is broken, I think. Will this demand the rest that I cannot seem to allow myself?
The work load is endless. It’s been seven days a week since Christmas. I have chosen it. I know. But my body is tired. And the seemingly continuous housework at the weekends takes it out of me. Oh, I shouldn’t complain. I know this to. The news reports about the state of the Israeli hostages stops me still. How can I ever complain again? Oh, let us learn compassion. And less self pity. Bless them. Let them heal and live again. All of them, Palestinians and Israelis. All.
We are quick to call others mad if their actions are incomprehensible to us. I don’t understand him. He seems so vindicative, childishly so. There appears to be no reason, no rationale to his edicts other than spite. Can this be so? Is there nobody who can stop him? Is he mad? Or are we in allowing him so much power?
He’s always had one. Alcohol made it worse. Not these days. I know what brings it on. He gets frustrated with himself and I get caught up in the crossfire of it. Like yesterday. I shouldn’t have shouted back. I lost my temper too. It doesn’t last with me. And I always cry. I am sorry for him. He gets so angry at what he sees as his incapacity – usually dextrous. I should’ve been kinder. Always.
He makes it sound so plausible. So simple. Raze an area to the ground, send its people elsewhere, rebuild it as a riveria and hand it over (while regaining control) to another country. Simple. So simple. It is chillingly so. My heart bleeds.
He is fretting, perhaps only a little. I am not sure. He is losing weight. A pound a week. He thinks it might be cancer of the prostate. He might be wrong. He looks well. Is fit and active. He reads stuff on the internet, that doesn’t clarify but obfuscates. He doesn’t know what to do. He will see the doctor in a few weeks. I hope it eases his mind. Live, I suggest. Am I also listening?
I’ve been accepted and am to give a paper on drawing’s negative spaces. The white has a dominant place in the work that I make. It is the space inbetween, the unsaid, the unpopulated space in the busy-ness of my thoughts. Here is the loss. Here is what I cannot describe. The thing that circumscribes what I can.