Category: Writings

If I die before you, I said to him last night, will you make sure that it is in my bed so that I can listen to birds outside? He promised.

I’m not sure. I prevaricate, as always. Should we go or not? I want an escape. To just put my body somewhere else, if only to look back on where it usually is. And this hotel will do. It isn’t far. It’s comfortable, not plush or elegant, but comfortable. Not much will be asked of me. It will do. And I should and will embrace it. Soon.

I know why I dreamt of them. I’ve been reading about them during the day. The dream featured corridors, windy ones. I was with a group of people. I think H. was one of them. We were in a hotel that seemed to improve in decor and plushness the more corners we turned. And the more corners we turned the more chairs there were. Chairs grouped in pairs. Occasional chairs that nobody would ever use. I picked one up and began to carry it with me, presumably to put in my hotel bedroom. You won’t need that, said a member of the hotel staff, who had just appeared and took it off me. I woke then.

Can there be a positive take on such a word? What can endurance bring – hope? No, not that, but perhaps a sense of self-reliance, of a strength that was unrecognised. Is that enough to sustain? Possibly. It’s this seeking of happiness, even contentment and safety, that’s the bugger. Can such aspirations be let go of? Can just living do? The endurance of it?

Sometimes dreams can be seemingly full of portent, dark and unsettling, others they can appear utterly banal. Last night he and I talked about felt pens. He was in favour of them. I wasn’t sure. Though I did wake from the dream looking forward to using one that I know I have in my drawer. It all came from a drawing I’d made yesterday afternoon. The pen had been wrong, inappropriate. My subconscious was clearly trying to work this through.

I think that was what made me cry. His writing that life is miracle enough. And it was that notion of a miracle, just that coursing of blood through veins, and not feeling it, not rising to feel it that made me sad. And yet he had died so young and so tragically. And here was me outliving him by some years and not feeling that wonder. At least not yesterday. And I am sorry for it. For I know the gifts that I have, and his love especially. Forgive me my self-pity. It is not good enough. I will try harder. I promise.

I don’t know what it is that is causing it. An overactive, worried mind, perhaps? There is so much I haven’t solved yet and the fear of that niggles and jiggles in my head. Consequently I bring a befuddled brain to this morning’s writing. Oh well.

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.