Artist and writer currently living in Aberystwyth.
It never used to be like this, though as a child, I ate to please, as much as to sate hunger. She cooked and wanted recognition for this, understandably. And I ate what she gave. When I stopped doing this she took it personally, forgetting all those tacit suggestions that control needed to be imposed. And now I cannot stop controlling it.
We left the windows open last night, and consequently the morning’s cleaning wasn’t so bad. It has to be lived through. There is so much worse to be borne, like her murder. I am so sorry, no one should have to die like that. May she now rest in peace.
Yesterday I was full of them, and the belief that I could make them happen. Today much of that burst of enthusiam has been punctured. Reality, what that is, has set it, and my shoulders are tense with disappointment in myself and my dreaming.
It made the town eerie, buildings were lost to it. The National Library was a blur. I walked in a dream.
I was thinking this morning about who I matter to. He was at the top of the list, obviously. Then I thought about her, and to be honest, I can’t say. She might miss me in the abstract when I am gone, and feel a little guilty, but that will probably be it. As to the rest of my family. Again, the missing, would be in the abstract. We don’t need each other for the every day functioning of our lives. I have a few friends, of which only one would, I think, mourn me. The feelings are mutual. I don’t mind. My impact on others has been small and I never expected more. When I am no longer matter, all of this it won’t matter. And I am glad.
I don’t usually smell it, but this morning I did. It’s salty, yes, but also earthy. I smell its colours, green-blue, lots of greys and a black almost brackish in tone. It’s a smell that also leaves behind a stickness on the skin, just like salt. Smells remind me of my liveness, despite the sorrow.
I feel them these days. My body is tired. I push against it, willing my legs to go faster and my hips and back not to seize. And I manage it but afterwards the tiredness comes. How many more years? I often try to calculate it. I want rest. So much.
I yearn for simplicity, I always have. Nun’s cells make my heart sing. I fantasise about sloughing it all off once he has gone. All of it. And just keep the bare essentials, one chair, one table and one bed. My soul longs to do this. No more stuff. Just emptiness.
I fret too much, I know, but once it takes hold I cannot switch it off. I fret over what I don’t know, which seems legion. Just get it down, he says, and it can be edited later. He is right. And I should, but offering up something that it is far from perfect is an anathema to me. Will I ever learn?
We talk of it often. I need it. But we have different visions.