Category: Writings

I hear things on the radio and try to recall them. It isn’t always possible. My mind has become sieve-like. I have metamorphosed into a constant note-writer. The other day it was a quote from Mark Twain. It was in a play, so whether it is truth or not, who knows? When you see and adjective, he was supposed to have said, kill it. It stuck with me as I wrote yesterday. Do I need that word? Or that? Yet another judge to sit on my shoulder. But I agree, less is more. It’s just a confidence thing. Does that say enough? What is enough?

I overslept. My alarm may have gone off, I don’t know. I didn’t hear it. Half an hour late. So I had to shave it off my walk. So regimented. I know, I know. A brisk jaunt. Missing out the gentle bits, though in this weather, with all that rain it would have been hardly gentle. It is still lashing now. And the Prom is littered with stones and shale. A student was throwing up in a shop doorway when I walked past, my umbrella aloft.

And no bakery smells.

Cleaned the house, did my emails and stuff. It takes so long. And now some yoga then work. A bientot. x

Sometimes I forget to mention things. I write little notes, scribbled scrawlings when I get back from my walk to remind me. I meant to mention Toni Morrison’s Beloved too. Hence the title for today and yesterday. Carried over because I forgot. They are broadcasting a reading of it on Radio 4 Extra while I make breakfast. I didn’t want to listen. They made a short announcement beforehand warning that there would be material about abusing women, hurting women. I didn’t want to listen. I know it is important to know, to let it be heard. But do I have to hear it? I know of it. I dream of it, I see it in my mind’s eye. Is it enough? So I turned it over. I turned it over to Radio 3. Lieder and big pants. Wailing women and marvellous motets. Who knows? I’m sorry for my lack of courage, my lack of bravery. But sometimes I just cannot.

The wind was getting up. The Angel’s pub sign was pulling at its chain. I’ve never seen that before, a pub sign chained to a wall. It yanked and tugged, like a wild animal trying to break free from it tether. There was coarse sand on the Prom. No students this morning. No students climbing the fence into the sandpit and sitting on the giant deckchairs swinging their legs. I smelt charred wood in the wind. Someone had lit a beach fire the night before. It was still smouldering. A black smell, a warm smell, smoky. A lad crossed the street ahead of me. A tiny bit of lit ash flew towards me, still alight, a yellow-orange firefly. Then it was gone. He walked on the balls of his feet. I watched him. His heels never touched the ground. It was a bouncy, rolling sort of gait.

I want to let it go. The work is drying-up. No one calls. Can I find something else? Can I write instead? Can I use my talents? Work from home? See I am pro-active, sending out suggestions. A yes, today. That is good. And two more suggestions sent. All is change. Go with it. Let it in. Don’t fight it. All will be well. All is well. To work.

I walked with music in my ears this morning. I like it but I miss things. I am one step removed. I don’t hear the students’ chatter. There is a wall of glass between us. I thought it might help, fox my mind a little. It didn’t, not really. I had on shuffle. Kate Bush came on twice. Breathing. My Beloved. Her mother’s nicotine.

I irked him. We didn’t talk, just texted. I felt his rancour. Has it been resolved? Possibly. He probably won’t pass any on anymore, will I mind? No. He is a nice man. I am just prickly. There is so little to go around. I’m sure that he feels the same way about me. My shoulders carry my dis-ease. Like pins, like knives.

I found some more money. A ten pound note this time. I was sorry for the person who dropped it. What should I do? Keep it. A boon, a prize, a gift. I feel looked after, looked-out for.

She replied. It is going to happen. I will see her, and her. My loves. My beloved.

It was so long ago and yet hearing her voice made it just yesterday. Just yesterday when I was living with them and all their children. I couldn’t remember all their names. It was good to hear her voice. I always loved her gentleness. I cannot recall her ever shouting or raising her voice. So steady. So balanced. She just got on with it. All those endless meals, one ending and another being laid ready. All that sewing, mending and cooking. A quiet voice. An understated voice. What did she make of my mother? I’d like to see her, to see them. He’d only been given two days to live, she said. Imagine that? What resilience, I said. What determination. What a determination to continue. Was it fear of losing her? Of death?

It’s going to be a sunny day, today, he said by way of consolation. I am all agitated. I cannot say why. My body is fighting, jarring, every edge, every corner jagged. So be it. Let it be. My hips are tight, no movement, no going forward. Let it be. Let it all be. Pain is a great teacher. I get to know my body. What am I fighting?

Life?

It’s black as pitch out there and it’s past 7.00am. A crow caws. All else is still. We’ve breakfasted and I’ve done my admin. He’s gone back to bed and I sit here in my studio warmed by the yellow light of my angle poise and listening to the aching groans of my little halogen fire as it grows cold. Why is it that the dark makes me feel so bleak? There is nothing to be frightened of today. Not today. I finished the two reviews yesterday and she was pleased with them. Great as ever, she said. It is enough. I am satisfied. Today I shall sew. I’ve much to do. And I can relax, breathe, letting my hands take over. I’ve to go to work in between naturally. But that’s OK the money has to come from somewhere.

I got a text. A possibility, like the found fiver. Not to be. Not available. And it is so far. Would it be worth it just for a showing off and dressing up? And he would have to sit and sit. He does so much of that, bless him.

I caught the tail end of piece of drama on the radio yesterday as I made lunch. John Mcgahern’s Parachutes. A lovely piece. And from what I understand it’s about a man who has broken up with his girlfriend and he tags along on a sort of pub crawl with two friends. His thoughts invade their chatter. At one point he begins to notice tiny bits of thistledown floating into the Dublin pub. He calls them parachutes. I love the focussing in on such a little thing. He can’t understand where they are coming from. A tip? Is there a tip nearby? he or one of his friends ask. Something like hope or at least serendipity is being carried in on those seeds. Won’t everything be alright, in the end?

I’ve much to listen to, much to catch up, not least The Archers. A gentle day. I send out a wish. Just let it be, eh?

I shouldn’t really eat it, though I love it. It doesn’t sit well in my stomach or my gut. So I buy body creams that smell of it instead. I follow it’s perfume. I love its texture. Those carts on the Balcon de Europa selling it in wedges, with the trickles of water keeping it fresh. I don’t mind its milk in cooking but the taste of it raw is rather strange. Why is it that some foods agree with us and others don’t? Is it all psychosomatic?

I found a fiver. It was there amongst some litter by the Bar at the end of the Prom. Was it real? Should I pick it up? Should I take it?

I am edgy today. It’s my writing and the fears that overwhelm me at times. And the edginess makes me indecisive. Should I give it to the three homeless bodies sleeping top and tail in the Prom shelter? Should I give it to him? Should I put in the bucket for the Indonesia tsunami victims? In the end I put two pounds in the tub. And he bought a packet of Quality Street for the food bank. One pound for me. In my purse. Some spending money. A gift. Something to hold. He is more generous than me. Money is a flow with him. It comes and it goes. My relationship with it is more tricky. There is no flow, much constriction. But I recognise and acknowledge the abundance when it comes in. And it does.

We talked of her church. It is a large building and very cold. She has taken to attending a smaller one, but she worries what her former community may think of her. How old is she? I am always adjusting her age in my head. It doesn’t matter. She feels the cold. As do I.

She reminded me of the beastly child in Rev. She had the same cute blondeness though her hair was pulled back rather messily by a headband. She didn’t respond to my questions. She is ‘independent’ was clearly a euphemism for what? Rude? Can a young child be rude? She is wilful, knows her own mind. It felt like disdain. She didn’t engage with me and so I didn’t with her. I babysat from a distance. She talked to herself, her little wooden horse and the bits and bobs he’d pulled out of her pink rucksack that looked like they’d come from a dolls house. I was offended because I’d been brought up to behave differently. She wasn’t me and vice versa. It’s OK. Quite restful actually. She was safe. That was the main thing.

Someone had printed out the sentencing tariff for the possession of child pornography. It was chilling. And not so long ago he was in there, in front of the camera. I still feel compassion for him. How can I not? Surely it is a compunction beyond his rational mind? There must be forgiveness.

He writes to complain about marriage.

I’m sorry I say. Mine is a joy. And it is.

I drank too much tea. It steadied me, filled me, made me warm. I wanted more of their abundance, the detail of their sweet loveliness. Have you a cosy? I asked, knowing, almost completely knowing that they would. Of course, she said. It was a patchwork one. I placed it with something like pleasure over the china pot. The café was getting busy, alive with the voices of women more than a little excited. He had a toasted tea cake. I buttered it for him, just to catch the smell of cinnamon and sultanas.

When we got home my clothes smelt of baking.

I am rushing. I want to get on with work and I need to have my ten minutes sitting first. I am so tense. I have a review to begin and there is always this tension, this fear of that white space. Will it come? Will I make a fool myself, tripping, knicker-less over the page.

There was an A-board outside OXFAM bookshop reading “Welcome Students’ and in the window a selection of paperback cookbooks with titles like Use Your Noodle and How to Boil an Egg.

The same cacophony as I walked. They have not ceased their merriment, though one sounded like a howling beast, or a woman ululating at a New Orleans funeral. I couldn’t work out where they were. The sound echoed around the streets. Eerie.

Our neighbour opened the window as I stepped out. My stomach always sinks. I don’t want to talk, not then. The light clicks on and I know he is there before I open the door. You’re early, he said, you usually go out at three. Does he too want silence, and waits for my leaving? It depends, I said, trying to be warm. But thank you for keeping tabs on me, I said, jocularly. He laughed. Cheers now, and have a nice walk, he said.

I love the detail of my dreams. They have so many layers. At one point I was looking in close at the floor in someone’s home, I like terracotta tiles, she said. Then I was waiting at an airport for a gift that someone had arranged for me. The receipt was in Spanish, and the gift? A tiny bottle of Cherry Brandy. I don’t like Cherry Brandy, he said in my dream. I don’t either, I wanted to say but didn’t, but the thought, the kindness, was lovely to me. It warmed me.

I thought of him through the night. I don’t condone his actions but my compassion for his situation, for his wife and his children overflows. It is a dark world sometimes. I wish him and myself light.

My name means sunshine, she said. But don’t call me sunshine.

I won’t, even if you are.

That’s a sign of the end of summer if there ever is one, I said to him at breakfast, the Lifeguards’ hut has been packed away. What? he asked, looking up from the paper. What is a sign of the end of summer?

He says I mumble. Maybe I do, but it isn’t just me. His hearing is getting worse. We laugh about it. Quarter to two, he says, mimicking an elderly lady he used to know. Deaf as a post, she’d offer up time checks as a way of filling in the gaps of non-hearing. He gets by, tries to make sense of what is being said. What? he says rather too sharply. I want to say, can’t you say pardon? It is ingrained in me, that outward showing of politeness and ‘what’ is so sharp.

The box for the hut is still there on the Prom. All neatly packed away. White and shiny.

They don’t half drink. A girl called out to me along North Road. She was walking, her arm draped in that of her boyfriend’s and wore just a vest top. Hellooooo, she said to me, her head lolling like a rag doll’s. Then stumbling off the pavement she lurched at me, You OK? she asked. Yes, I’m fine, thank you, I replied. I don’t want to talk when I walk. I don’t want to puncture my role as observer. On the Prom a huddle of tall lads were talking. One was shouting above the rest delivering his little speech in an Australian accent. Alright you fucking cunt, he said, you’re asking for it. No? Then his voice changed and his friends laughed. A girl in a thin shorts one-piece, twirled and swirled like a leaf caught in the wind. Her phone was lit and held fast against her ear. She was silent, concentrating, or so it seemed to me, on trying to move herself forward.

I looked for the moon. It was tiny.

Off to review an exhibition later today. We like the drive.

It was gone. The bag with the three jam and buttered scones was gone when I walked past this morning. Who had taken them? A mystery. I will never know. The man with the floral counterpane was there this morning, but sleeping on the side bench of the shelter. Perhaps it was more sheltered from the wind that side. I would’ve been sad if they had still been there. I hope someone enjoyed them. I shall do it again. I promise.

She sends out regular emails inviting us to various events. I won’t go again. I like the ideas, her ideas in principle but I struggle with the intimacy of them. She invades with kindness and solicitude. I feel a rage inside of me as a result. A lovely kind woman, I can see how effective she is but I am not comfortable. Don’t I need to be? Isn’t it important? This last one was about a gathering in France and Germany managed by what seemed to be some kind of guru. I want it, I want the truth, the cleansing, the enlightenment they appear to promise but I can’t do the unravelling, not in public, it is too excruciating. Fuck that, he says when I try to describe it to him over supper. You don’t want any of that. No, I don’t. But what do I want?

I woke to heavy rain outside my window. My heart and soul sink at the prospect of going out in it. But by the time I’d put on all my layers including his coat, the rain had stopped and it was glorious. There was a keen breeze but the air was fresh and alive. I smelt gloss paint along North Road, someone had painted their front door scarlet. Trying to be one step ahead of possible rain I went home the back way hoping that the bakery smells would be wafted, carried on the wind as far as the station. Not so. But there was a lovely, sweet perfume coming from a shrub on the top of the little hill that takes us to Llanbadarn Road. I couldn’t work out what it was.

I am sleepy. I need to move. Work this morning, then home to sketch out ideas for this new project. We shall see, one day up the next day down.