Author: Ellen Bell

He bought me a new wall clock for my studio. I’d love to feel able to buy a classic designer one but perhaps it would look out of place among the IKEA tat that fills this white space. It’s OK, I’ve made other choices. And this one, though inexpensive has a nice pale green around its rim and a gentle, comforting tick. I am so lucky compared to many. So lucky. We talked about the twelve people who drowned trying to make the crossing across the Channel. And our government want to send such wretches to Rwanda, and after such travails. It sickens me.

Is it a full moon tonight or the next night? It’s hard to say. Some say (courtesy of Google) that is the 25th April others that it is the 23rd, today. Its appearance explains my unsettledness. The tension in my back and my neck. It stirs things up. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but at the moment I want peace. I need to concentrate. There are so many new things to adjust to, to learn and meet. I must be brave. Must.

Rush, rush, rushing. Time slips through my fingers. Is it that my lists are too long, or is it that I am getting slower at accomplishing the crossing off of things on them? There is no time to do all that I wish, have or need to do. It makes for a rich life, but only when I can find the time to sit and appreciate it. This isn’t a mindful way. I know this. But there are these demands that things are done. And of course there’s my fear, always there, of failure, of not understanding, or of how to do so many new things. I want to walk for longer in the mornings, I miss it. I do walk but I have to curtail it to fit all the other things in. It is my fault. I need to take stock and sit in the sun a while.

She died last Thursday. I didn’t know. She called to tell me. She was inconsolable, not just about the death, her death, but her life as a whole. It’s been so difficult, she said. She died from a fall. She was in so much pain, she said, I think she just gave up. She was in her eighties. I understand. She gave me shelter. She gave me a small sense of belonging. I needed both these things at the time. She was seductive. A force. A power. An iconoclast. She took one over. She took me over. I needed it then. I shall think of her. Of you. Rest in peace.

Numbers are significant for me. I count things. It’s a superstitious thing. A preparation thing. A rationalising of chaos. Today is a 5 day. The number 5 is a scratchy, metallic kind of day for me, or at least it can be. Hard, sometimes, they are also portentious days, things happen. 7 days are kinder, warmer, more loving. They are my favourites, though more the 7 days than the 5s. It’s a silliness, really. I know this, or at least my rational self does. What harm does it do?

I have sciatica. Again. I try to accept it, as I try to accept most of the things that I cannot change or do anything about (such as the newly-arrived splat of seagull guano that has run down two flights of windows). I walk with it and through it. But at the moment it is not shifting. It tightens the back of my thighs and my buttocks. I just keep moving. That is all I can do. Plus, I am dog-tired after a long day yesterday. A rewarding one, but long. Today will be another such. And I long to sleep.

There’s yet more. More than yesterday it seems. It’s colder. From the North. Bitter, blustery and fierce. I walked into it, pushing against the discomfort of my present sciatica. Pain. It’s a teacher. It can make me grumpy but I try to detach from it. See it as a gift. Can it be? Sometimes. It slows me when I know I need slowing. I listen to music, literature, Norwegian and poetry on my iPod. It’s a hotch-potch of voices, sounds and reflections. The poet David Whyte talked about how we should embrace our limps or marble-like flaws. An actor reading Proust spoke of the writer’s impregnation of his pain onto his bedroom walls. Paul Weller sang of being invisible. I listen and am transported. And I forget, for a moment or to, the wind.

I woke to its fury. And the rain. My heart sinks. I need fresh air, to walk, to get it over with. And then to work. I will go out anyway, though my body longs to rest, to sleep, to stay where it is. Often it isn’t as bad as it looks from the window. The air smelt different, churned up. An odour of wet dog, the kind that they leave in cars. Slightly fetid, even warm. The wind gusted. Whirling around me, it buffeted, worried at my legs. It’s tiring work walking into it. I write in my head as I walk. I don’t want to work. I want to rest, to do something undemanding. To not create. But I can’t. Rest can only be savoured, relished when the work is done. T’was ever thus. I have chosen this. And it is a gift I cherish. Truly.

I’ve been seeing magpies. Single magpies. I used to get very edgy when that happened. Not so much now. That one for sorrow. Two for joy. Sorrow. I try to accept its place in my life. It has its part to play. In the whole scheme of things. If it is coming then so be it. Yesterday I also saw a jay. He was following close on the heels, so to speak, of a magpie. I love seeing jays. They are not a frequent sight, at least not for me, though I know that there is a nesting couple somewhere near this school. I saw their young feeding off the American’s seed hangers. But it still thrills me to see one. That pink on the wing and the flash of blue and white. They are bringers of portents, omens. Change. I am open to it. My heart opens to it.

I find travelling, the being out there and open, both joyful and wearying. My body fizzes. I stop breathing properly, taking short staccato intakes rather than slow inhales. It’s anxiety. I am overwhelmed by all that I have to do. I will get it done. Whether I get it done as well as I’d like is another matter. It will calm down. And I will start breathing again. Soon.