Category: Writings

The ground was still wet but I went to pick some anyway. There were loads of them, some still small but very juicy. They came away from the stalk like a dream. It became quite compulsive, though many of the best ones were too high for me to reach. The sun shone quite unexpectedly. The damp soil smelt strange. I can’t really describe it. I didn’t really like the smell. It smelt of clay with a hint of dog poo. It stuck to my shoes. My footwear wasn’t appropriate.

I had to bring the call to a swift conclusion. I felt bad about it. She’d been talking about meeting friends in her conservatory to do some painting. Her son was due to visit that evening. She is lonely. She is a gregarious, social being. It will be nice to have someone to say good morning to and good night to, she said. Yes. It is as simple as that sometimes. Poor love. She does well. That is, she manages. But I suspect she is lonely and sad sometimes. And she is too smiling a woman to be sad. I didn’t give as much of myself to her as I ought to have done. I am sorry. Next time I will be better. I promise.

I found a piece of blue and white in the soil. An old piece, I think. Not a transfer, certainly. A small treasure.

I dreamt about it. I had it. I don’t know how. But I was washing it under the tap, cleaning it of all previous owners. It was now my radio. Mine.

I see it every morning in the window of the second-hand shop. It’s nestled next to a large glittery head of buddha and surrounded by bits of china. The window display is not what you’d call minimal. There is a clarinet in a blue-velvet-lined case balanced on top of a train set with two miniature camper vans standing on each corner. A trumpet, a ukulele and a guitar hang from hooks on one of the side walls. The rest is mostly tat. I like it though. I pass it twice on my walk and sometimes linger a little on my way home letting my eye roam over the jumbled array.

Her other son must be visiting now. He isn’t due back from Ireland for a few days yet. I know this because we could hear his saxophone through the floor and walls. At first I thought it was a cello. Perhaps it was but it’s unlikely. It’s not so easy to take one of those on a plane. He practised and played for well over three hours. It irritated him but I quite liked it.

It was a hard listen. Beautifully acted by Ronald Pickup but a hard and bitter tale. At one point he told of his father telling him a story about Shackleton wandering in the snow in search of help with his two companions. He was convinced there were four of them as they trudged. There wasn’t. Just the three. He called it ‘Divine Providence’ – a helping hand, and accompanying. I like the idea. And sometimes I feel it too but it inside not out. His father told him the story to help the boy sleep.

The clouds have cleared a little. There is more blue than they promised. A good omen, eh?

The sun came out unexpectedly yesterday late afternoon so we went to sit out after supper. A man was there striding off into the wilderness with a tupperware bowl in his hand. He was there the whole time we were there ferreting among the bushes for blackberries. He got cross. Why doesn’t he just f*** off? he said. I was edgy too. Not sure why. Perhaps I was envious and wanted to collect some too. Will there be any left after he is finished? I love the idea of foraging. Nature giving freely. He seemed to know where to go. Had he been doing the same thing for years? We said hello when he passed us on his way home. He lives in the big house we stare at when we sit. We chatted for a bit. He seems a nice man, he said after he’d gone.

Another night of rich dreaming. You don’t need to bring your own pyjamas, the man who was to be my lover in my dream told me. I liked him. He made me laugh.

So much of it is. And I suppose the secret of contentment is navigating it with something like acceptance. I like the order of it, the routinous doing of the usual, the habitual though aware all the time of a part of me that wants to rebel, to run, to throw it all in. I walk the same streets, the same promenade, I do the washing and the cleaning on the same days each week. Routine holds me in place but it also imprisons me. Don’t you feel that? Work is the same. I need order. I need to know what I am to do each day. I need to know that I can solve it. Which I don’t always. Know, that is. I solve each one, each challenge, at least to the best of my ability but even in that, even in that thrill of the solving there is the humdrum waiting in the wings. That, is that all there is? So be it.

I didn’t know depression could be like that. He writes about it so powerfully. I couldn’t listen to it all, it was too much in one sitting. Funny how what I listen to colours the work that I am doing. And when I return to the work I remember the sounds, the voices, the words.

Time to work. Gentle work today. I want to write about what sewing means to me. Like he did. Delving. There is more to unravel, I think.

He’s never liked it on me. He said it drowned me. It was a little big, I admit. But she bought it for me as a birthday present. Nevertheless, I gave it away a few days ago. And then last night, in my dream, there was a man who walked passed me in a cafe wearing it. He had it over his jeans. He smiled at me as he passed. I knew his face. He was small, grey-haired, quite handsome. Who was he? I wanted to tell him that I’d seen my dress. He would’ve laughed then, as he did when I told him this morning.

Her cat has had another litter of kittens. Five this time. She told me how her daughter sat with her during it, rubbing her tummy. I asked about her tomatoes. One has ripened. Only one. And she told me how the collie had been frightened of the thunder. I love to hear her tales. Am I doing wrong in sharing them with you? I keep her name safe. She is safe. It’s another life to me and one that I cherish being a part of however small.

Another project to start. It always makes me a little nervous even if it is just for myself. I worry so much about failing. Being clumsy, foolish. I feel so small. A little jot on the earth. So be it. Can’t that be OK?

I want to write to them all. All those people that for the moment I cannot go and see. I find emails so unsatisfactory. They are fast, certainly but there is no beauty to them, no personal touch. So I’ve begun writing letters. I cannot say how they are received. Perhaps they are seen as weighty, and coming with an expectation of a return. I hope not. There is no obligation. I do it for myself mostly. I want to be with them to hold them in my thoughts for a while and to send a gift of a letter seems a nice act. Is it not? The letters reflect the people I write them to. Some are short others long and thoughtful. I feel love for those people, those warm beings who have both peppered and affected my life. I hope they feel it.

Now I must get to work. There is much to do and solve. And it is to be rice for a week so no oat-milky tea, alas.

He’s gone to Ireland leaving his mother to his brother’s care. He won’t need to do much, for at 101 she is still very self-sufficient. We heard his voice through the kitchen window as we walked past. The next one is an anagram, he shouted. He needs to shout or at least talk loudly for she is profoundly deaf. It begins N O, he continued. They do crosswords together too. Like us. Though often I get a little cross, my mind doesn’t function too well until I have some food, then, apparently I get rather blase.

I went out yesterday. It gave me some anxiety even though it was to do not unpleasant things. And to see women that I like and admire. Hair has been removed and hair has been cut. I am neater. I asked about their business. They are working to half capacity. And they have to wear those dreadful shields. It makes one feel impure. I wore my mask. Few people around town did.

I managed to walk before the rain came. Thank you for that. Today I shall solve it. I um and ah. Let it be light. And kind. And joyful.

I’m re-reading Jane Austen. It takes me over. I know the books inside out, that is, except for Sanditon and Love and Friendship and her juvenalia. I love their restraint, their details and mores. It is an escape, clearly but a joyous one nevertheless.

I’m to go out into the world today and it makes me edgy. Things need to be done to the body. But my work routine is unsettled and there are also these infernal admin things to do. But I need to clear the deck, always.

A misty morning. A thick fog of it. Autumn is coming.

Was it the weather that made me so agitated yesterday? It was hot and muggy and then there was that deluge of rain. Torrents of water gushed from the downpipes and I rushed around shutting all the windows. People call such flooding biblical and the evidence of it was clear this morning as I walked into town. The pavements had dried but the drains were all filled with debris – twigs, leaves and scraps of litter hugger mugger-ed together all sodden. It was a small thing and I blew it out of all proportion (it’s been awhile since I’ve done that, I thought I was growing calmer, wiser). A broken egg, still in its box but spilling wet into the bag and soaking the other contents. We do things differently. And he does his best. And I don’t want to hurt him but I hear my voice beginning to criticise. Ah, me. He understands. He does. And I carry it into my dreams.

We were in South America in an airport I was travelling back to see Mum. I needed some sustenance to take with me. All the food courts were full of fresh produce – cabbages, lettuces, carrots – they looked like greengrocers. I saw some rhubarb. Lovely but how would I cook it? I watched a woman take a bite of some raw. I opted for a banana and went to pay for it. But then I forgot that it was in my bag and went to pass through the turnstile. Then I remembered and went to a till. The woman kept passing my banana back and forth on the conveyor trapping it in between where it feeds in and out till it was getting all mashed up. I didn’t know what to say and when I tried to find the coins to pay for it in my purse I couldn’t.

A nothing dream about irrelevant fears that sometimes take over my day. Monday’s are busy. Though the busy-ness is of my own construction.

A mist hangs heavy over us though the sun is trying to come out. Will there be another crop of blackberries?

Work now. I go in and out of confidence with my ideas. Keep me steady.

I love to hear her voice. Perhaps not initially for I sometimes expect that I am disturbing her. And it is hesitant at first, croaky. When she warms up so do I. Sometimes I even joke with her a little. A tender being. Sensitive. Like me. We talked of her tomatoes. Greenhouse grown they are still green. They need sun. Don’t we all. Don’t we all.

He told us he is off to Ireland today. These brave beings setting out. She is to go to Devon. I long to be off and yet I am wary. Things won’t, aren’t the same. He travels alone like I used to. Off in his car. Freedom. A show of it. Family will take care of his mother for him.

The Pelican Bakery was shut today. I missed the smell of bread. It is there even when they are not. Not today. Not today.