Author: Ellen Bell

I want it to hold. Let it be so. Let there be peace for all concerned. Let those who have been made homeless return home and begin to rebuild what has been destroyed and let those who were taken be returned to their families. Let it be. Let it be.

I dreamt that a car salesman brought a car for us to look at. It was small. A tiny, grey little bubble car. Inside it was a baby. A huge baby. It filled the whole of the car’s interior. The baby came with it. It was part of the sale. Free. The other ‘hitch’ was that if we bought the car (and baby) we would have to move to Scotland.

The wolf moon has brought me very graphic dreams. A couple of nights ago I dreamt that I was wearing my little black leather boots but that the front of them had lost their colour. They’d taken on the look of skin. It was as if the black had been washed off. I was still wearing the boots, for I could feel the soles under my feet, but I could see my feet and toes through them. It was the oddest thing. I even brought it to the notice of others in my dreams. Look at my feet, I said.

I’m often walking in my dreams. It is usually daylight and I am generally walking through landscapes. I walk alone, as I do in the mornings. No one troubles me or speaks to me. I am calm during these perambulations, though I am usually going somewhere, though these destinations are rarely known. Last night I got there. Well, almost. I go to the city that I’d intended to go to and a man told me where to catch the bus. I imagined the journey in my head. I was almost there and that felt good.

I know it is ridiculous but it is a symptom of my malaise. He is coming today and I don’t want him to. I don’t want a stranger in the house no matter the usefulness of his appearance. I just don’t want it. And consequently I build such an event into a major happening. It is not. I know this. But I do it nevertheless. He says that he is the same. Possibly, though to a lesser degree. Oh, let it be over soon.

He was only 65 years old. I think he was a September baby like me. I used to like watching him on Whose Line is it Anyway? A good-looking man, if going-on-louche. He was quick-witted, a fast-thinker and naturally funny, I thought. He struggled with bi-polar, going grey too fast. Poor love. It was a steep fall. R.I.P.

I want it and yet I don’t. There’s always been this emotional paradox. It’s that being too ‘near’ people, physically and emotionally. That being known and knowing. It’s too much. I need my physical and pyschic space to be preserved. I am sponge. It’s been so for as long as I can remember. I take it all in, their stuff, as well as mine. It overloads me. And I want to run. And yet. And yet, I long to belong. To? Someone, family, friends. And when I feel I don’t, when I sense and feel that distance, I am sad.

My tongue is rigid, even in sleep. What is it that I am trying not to say?

I’ve thought about the people of LA who have lost their homes and possessions much over these last few days. It is hard to comprehend how they must be feeling. Our homes are containers, not only of us, keeping us safe, warm, dry and nurtured, but also of all those things that describe, hold and reflect who we are to ourselves and others. Poor loves. My heart is heavy for them.

I don’t have them that often. I never really did as a child either. It felt unsafe, and still does, to a certain extent. I feel out of control, even though, I know I am not. I see myself having them, indulging in them, allowing them air. Fanning them. It was over nothing, as they usually are, a mere symptom of a deep self-pity about not having things my way. And, being or feeling out of control of my life and of what needs to be done. Housework. I want it done but don’t want it take up my precious time. Let it be. Accept it. You have a home, unlike all those people in LA who have lost everything. Bless them. Let it all be. Resistance and non-acceptance uses up energy. Let it be. All of it.

I try to detach myself from it, concentrating on the getting myself and my body through each moment. I try to notice the particulars rather than seeing the bigger, more frightening picture. I can take this step, do this thing, I can allow the routine of this life to carry me through. And mostly it does, but the lowness I feel is a drag on my resources. I cannot see joy, feel or taste it. And this shames me. I have so much and others so little. I want oblivion, that empty nothingess, and know that for the moment it isn’t for me. I have a life to live. And I am sorry that I cannot live it with more lightness. I am, sorry.