I wonder why it is referred to as feeling blue, being blue or blueness. Why that specific colour? Anyway I feel it today. I feel blue. Is it winter, the rain or this relentless, seemingly going-nowhere work? I must just put one foot in front of the other and be brave, and hope that the passage of time will lift me. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.
I live with the prospect of his death daily. I cannot help it. I must know it, though I can’t. And so, when he comes into my room in those early hours, still so alive, I am often surprised. It takes me a moment to adjust and be thankful.
I had almost the same dream last night as I had had the night before. There was that same mountain of plastic bags full of stuff to sort out or throw. And in a series of which were those interminable sandwiches that he’d bought but not eaten. In each dream I never get on top of it all. Never.
His voice sounded urgent. I’d just woken him and on opening his eyes he immediately started talking, something about Latin America. It was a trip, he said, that I’d mentioned on my website and it would need to be changed. It seemed plausible, coherent. He was awake, his eyes alert. But it was from another experience, world even. And not mine, his. Is that nonsense? he asked. No, I said, it was just a dream. Just a dream.
It was so clear this morning, sung with a clarity that I haven’t heard since last autumn. He was singing from an eave somewhere along North Road. It was too dark to see exactly where. I hobbled and wobbled along, my knee still rigid and sore, but hearing him helped. It was good to be out, to smell the air and hear his song. She can’t do this. Not any more.
I wasn’t expecting it. A few minutes before he and I had bickered and I was cross or at least out of sorts. And then suddenly I was upended, feet heading upwards and falling, hitting my wrist, my left knee against the tarmac. I was lucky. Nothing was broken. He drove up behind me, taking some time to roll down the window and ask what had happened. He took the umbrella and I continued my walk, shaken.
He said my name. I heard him say it twice. And later, when I played it back, I heard him say it a third time. Then he played my request. It was a lovely thing. I felt chosen, just for a moment, a delicious moment. Thank you.
What would it feel like to accept all that the world does, makes and perpetrates? Though, of course, it isn’t the world as such that is doing all this, but us, its inhabitants. What would acceptance of all that men and women do feel like, or even look like? There is so much that I cannot change, try as I might. Is acceptance of this an act of positivity, an empowering thing or the opposite? Acceptance feels like a going towards something, or at least a willingness to look at that which frightens, appals or even disgusts. Sometimes there is no other option, other than turning one’s face away completely. And I cannot do that.
It went well. They seem pleased with my progress. But it didn’t abate my anxiety, if anything it increased it. He tells me to take pleasure in how far I have come. And I can see he is right, but the fear, that overriding fear of failing next time still dominates. It’s in my power to change such an attitude, I am sure of it, but how to actually bring that about is, at present, beyond me. I dreamt of being in darkness, of not knowing the address of where I was, and of not being able to locate the light switch. It is all symbolic, clearly, a represenation of how I am currently feeling about my next chapter. I need courage. Will it be forthcoming?
I ventured out in it. It looked a different place. I saw noone except a couple who seemed to be up to something in the block of flats opposite. My boots crunched satisfyingly in the snow. There was no wind, nothing stirred. I felt braver than I did yesterday.