Author: Ellen Bell

I remember hearing my Dad use this word in reference to my grandfather. He’s had a stroke, he said. As a child, as I was then, that word meant a caress, something gentle, benign, loving. How could it cause such a catastrophe? Why was my father so unsettled, agitated?

I watched her being jostled on a chair into the back of the ambulance again yesterday. A suspected stroke. Poor love. Her son described her as a ‘tough old bird’, but I suspect she will feel the disorientation of being there at hospital and not at home. They’ve kept her in over night. I hope she returns.

It was the second she’d had in three days. We found her on the floor. We’re not allowed to pick her up, said the carer, who told us she’d just rung for an ambulance. I knelt down beside her, stroked her head, her hand. She was bemused, muttering to herself, cross. She wanted to go to the loo. Her skin was ash, falling in folds from her face. Her hair was a nest of tangles. And her light blue towelling dressing-gown spotted with porridge stains. The paramedics came, six of them apparently. It was an age till I saw them, from an upstairs window, carry her out to the ambulance on a stretcher chair. Her head lolled to the side. Was she dying? Would we see her again? I thought of her all day. She wants to be at home. Let her return to die here, if she must. Let it be so. She returned. Her son went to collect her when he arrived from Scotland. He went down to see her. She was full beans. What adventures I’ve had, she said to him.

In her book Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner’s central character, Edith Hope, at the end of the working day, always showers and changes out of the ‘simple cotton dress’ she wears to write in. It’s a kind of metaphorical, as well as an actual, cleansing away of the day’s toil. I feel the same, though for me the grubbiness I feel then is inner, not outer that no bath or change of dress can alter or wipe clean. It’s a sort of self-disgust. We talked of it yesterday. Is it a throwback to childhood, as so many things are? Of not being or at least feeling valued? Possibly. If so, I can change it. I can slough it off. But it’s hard. Particularly then when tiredness dogs my spirits. Perhaps acceptance is better. Possibly follow Billie Holiday’s example with her “Good Morning, Heartache, ” greeting. Why not? “Good evening, morbidity.” As the Welsh would say, “Ows it goin?”

I don’t know what happen. I caught my foot on a chair and somehow toppled over. Or lost my footing as the saying goes. And suddenly BAM I was on the floor, on my back, my head having cracked against the floor. Everything hurt. Bruised ankle, bumped knee, a hip an elbow. I thought of the black and blue that would appear like wounds on my too easily bleeding body. Bless it. He tried to rush to my aid but he takes time to react and move these days. I shook for a while. It is the shock of falling. Everything feels dislodged. Awry. It is nothing. I recover. Downstairs is another matter. We shall see her tomorrow.

I lay on the college field reading Bachelard writing about nests. He wrote of how the female bird uses her whole body to form the inner lining and shape of the dwelling. And how physical a process it is. Beautiful. I concur. Home, it’s making and maintaining is a physical process. And my homes, have always resembled my body (in this one, both our bodies) in the way that a bird’s nest does, though perhaps it is also an emotional fitting and resembling too. Are chairs nests? For some. For others the chairs are not theirs, they didn’t choose them but must appropriate them, make the best of them. Make them home.

Many people will, I suppose. It is a change. A landslide, as they keep saying. But I am ambivalent. Is it enough? Who can say? I am locked in my own concerns. I feel bad about that. The outer world has become surreal. There is too much that I no longer recognise. And it’s the others that have been let in, they are more concerning. Those small parties with their bitter poisons. Let us be washed clean of such hate. Soon. Please.

I long to do it. I long for a week (at least) in which to do. Just that. Every drawer, every shelf, every inbox, every scrap of paper, every sketchbook. Sorted. Labelled. Chucked. Or given away. Just to make some space. To make some clarity. So that I can think.

I read at breakfast. I take in snippets. I ingest the words in short bursts, inbetween the up and down of getting things, sorting things. It’s a different form of taking in. I savour what I read, the sentences play out in my head. At the moment I am in Tom Lubbock’s last book. I don’t want it to end. I want to have it in my mouth for a while. To not suck too hard. To not rush it. Every word needs to be considered. Her’s was different. That was urgent, a rush headlong. This is a musing. A slow soak. Of ideas.

I’ve returned. We’ve returned. It always feels longer than it is. Always. And there’s so much adjustment to make, all that re-remembering what to do to keep this life of ours turning. It is down to me. He is more naturally laissez-faire. It is not a criticism. I like him being that way. My way is more restricting, rigid. But he bends to it with his usual grace. And lets me hold us. But I am weary of it at times. Especially after only 4 hours sleep. It is not enough and my body groans. It was good to see the sea. The hills were a challenge.

It is a constant theme these days. This acceptance of one’s lot. And the courage that that takes. I see it. It’s a small thing, a quiet choice. Nothing to be shouted about. And yet. It is brave. It’s a sloughing off all those ego dreams. Of all that one would like to have been. “I’m not going to renew my passport,” she said. She knows that it’s too much. All that wandering and attempts to escape self, the life that limits and yet hold one in place. The other brave one does the same. She will not escape. Cannot. Yes, she can improve a little on her mobility but she is caught there. What courage to accept that and make the best of it. Hats off to both. To all.