We’re watching it again. And I’d forgotten how much it gets under one’s skin. I see Laura’s face in my dreams and when I meditate. Well, the actress who plays her, that is. And yet, it is Marian who I most relate to. Though I lack her courage. It a mish-mash of gothic horror and suspense, but nonetheless compelling for it. These films are my escapes. And, for now, they are enough.
The pavements and roads are sodden. They shine, are made patent leather-like in this relentless rain, and my feet don’t feel steady on them. My soles slip and slide and my legs, in anticipation of this, jar and stiffen. I am no longer fluid.
She left me a message on Instagram saying that she hadn’t been around for a while because she had been hiding. I think of her, as I think of many of those whom I follow on that social media site. Some have died, others have or have had cancer. Some I know personally, most I don’t. It’s strange, some feel like friends. She certainly does, or, if not a friend someone that I care about. She spins of web of intrigue by the words that she uses to describe her life – always through drawings, always. As mine is. I hope that she is Ok and not under threat. She writes of bureaucracy, of rules and of landlords. I worry for her.
He asks her afternoon about what she had for lunch. It amuses both him and her, I think. He asks her what score she will give it. Mostly it’s nothing or, if it is cauliflower cheese, as it was yesterday, she might give it 0.5. Turkey or Lemon Sole both get 5s. Small things. Small happenings but they frame her day. I like hearing them talk together. It’s a good, good thing. A belonging thing.
I’ve been writing about it and last night I dreamt of it. It was the juxtaposition of my mother, a series of books and that. So appalling, that it woke me. I know it is all symbolic and that in dreams one’s values and behaviour doesn’t follow the same codes and strictures. I want to get to the bottom of it, but I also don’t want to think about it. A problem indeed.
It gave me a pang when I read Paul Hogarth saying that, as a young man, all he wanted to do was travel and draw. Oh, how I want that too. I don’t have his skill, at least not yet, what would ten years of doing just that do for my draughtsmanship. I miss the seeing, the escaping and that kind of fresh-eyed drawn reporting. Can I do it?
I love the sparking that reading and discussing those texts gives me. I do. Truly. But sharing my thoughts, tentative though they are, leaves me feeling skinned for hours afterwards. It’s also the online thing. Seeing my face, talking. It unnerves me. It is not what I am used to. And I cannot get the balance right – do I say too much, or say too little? Are my contributions facile or worthwhile? I cannot tell. Does it matter? It shouldn’t do. Why are my interactions with other beings so excruciating?
What is that liminal time between sleep and waking? It’s a pulling, a being prised from a shell feeling. I don’t like it. I am adrift. Proust described himself as “stupid with sleep”. I am too but also brought low. I cannot rise to the occasion of a new day, I must steel myself, present my thanks but also prepare for my engagement with the still dark and all that dread.
Is it bickering? We snap and carp, not often, but sometimes. It’s usually because one of us is tired or in pain or just irritable. He gets sleepy at breakfast and I made scratchy by fears of the work that is to come. I wish it were otherwise. It isn’t elegant. And it belies the love we feel for each other. Perhaps I just have to let it be.
He was meant to have met up with friends but didn’t turn up. When they went round to his house they found him dead. He’d died alone. A heart attack possibly. So sad. So very sad. An awkward man but one who evidently sought company. R.I.P And then there is the little girl going back to school, her face puffy with steriods. And then there is the woman standing outside the coffee shop telling me that she’s had a health scare. She’s been bleeding for four months, said her partner. Poor love. Her eyes carried her fear, her stress. What can you say?