Author: Ellen Bell

Mostly I don’t know how to pray. I went into St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden last Wednesday to try. There was no peace. Visitors trundling in and out and a young man standing on a ladder fixing one of the chandeliers. Is peace a requisite? I pray in bed but invariably fall asleep. I want to hold them – all those in Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan – the list is endless. I want to stand with them. Feel with and for them. But it is hard. There is no individual to relate to. Just numbers and a memory of sorrow.

Transitions are always tricky for me. Do others feel the same? It’s that moving from one life to another. It is never smooth. I miss the other, and then, once I’ve got used to my own again, it’s a wrench to leave it. I think of that other family, to which, for this last week, I have belonged. And now? It is as if it was never there. No heartbeat. I miss them.

Is that the word that Edith Hope wrote on the telegram she sent to her lover from Switzerland? I can never remember. Anyway, we are. We are returning. Today.

I need some time at home. I am discombobulated by all this rootlessness (though as I write this I think of those trying to maintain some sort of normal life in a war zone or refugee camp). But my work does suffer, or at least that is what it feels like. I need to be still. Though I also learn so much from the travelling and the seeing of people. We talked of sadness last night.

I went to bed early and slept long and uninterrupted. Long dreams of making, loving and washing.

The parents return and I am glad to let go, to hand back responsibility. I have loved playing parent, for that was all it was. Not a game exactly, but a role assumed. I’ve loved their beingness, the sometime-adult, sometime-child-ness of them both. And caring. As I do. But it is tiring. And I am used to pleasing myself. Well almost. And now the next concern takes over. Let me draw well and be kind.

I creep along the corridor, open the door and slide in under the duvet. My feet are ice. The sheets are white and chill against my skin. I cannot muster the bodily warmth to heat them. I fold the duvet in two and hope for sleep. It comes. Soon.

I dreamt of the house in Spain. My work was everywhere. The agent had arranged an open day to attract buyers. They all spent the time viewing my work. Some were sellotaped to the wall. I’d forgotten it was there. That they were there.

I wanted to stay with him. I wanted the warmth of him. The thought of the other bed made me feel cold, chilled. But I went. The snoring was too much and my need for uninterrupted sleep paramount. I went and folded over the duvet in two. I slept.

It is always discombobulating for me. I feel adrift. Which of course, I am. I wake in a strange bed, too early, and when the rest of the house is fast asleep. There is no helping it. My body is used to waking in the wee hours. Outside it is pitch. I can hear the rain, heavy. P. snores next to me. I’ve been to the loo, done some yoga, drawn and read. I long to make tea, eat and shower. But not yet. Not yet.

The damp stain on my bedroom ceiling has got worse. I only noticed its creeping yesterday. It unsettles me. It is the boiler, most probably. And then the torrential rain woke me. Water, water all around.