I cannot conceive of its impact on the people it has taken and the buildings it has destroyed. I want to. I want to feel with them and for them, but it is too much. Let there be succour, aid, food and care soon for all who need it. And let those precious homes that have been lost be rebuilt.
He is still losing weight. Not a lot, but some. He asks if I think it is alright that he is doing so. Yes, I say. It’s the new drug, he says. Yes, I say.
It is nothing compared to what some have to endure. I know this, even as I am enduring mine. My pain. I want to know it. To take it on. Not, I might add, in a war-like, combatitive manner, but to embrace it all. To know its ins and outs, mostly so that I might know when it is passing. I am made crochety by it. And I am sorry for it. I must try harder.
I know that others have worse, far worse. But this is your pain, he says at breakfast. Yes, it is. And I walk every step with it, knowing it and yet trying to detach myself from it, as it did when I gave birth to her. I listen to birdsong as I walk and am temporarily distracted from the sharp, rigidness of the aching. And then I remember and cannot believe that I forgot.
I’ve hurt my lower back. I am not sure how. It could be from lying for two weeks on a far too soft mattress. I’d hoped that it would heal the moment I returned home. It hasn’t. I think of Frida Kahlo and her constant pain. I must be patient. Wait. And try not to be be snappy.
It’s only been two weeks but feels like an age. I am adrift, askew. I have forgotten all the drill. What bowl do I use for breakfast? What goes where? I slept badly. Woke with a head after a dream about my mother. Uncomfortable. It takes time, this returning. Always. Let it be. Accept each stage, however clumsy, with grace. See what is to be learnt.
I’m not good at them. Even for just one night. I am dislodged by them. My centre is here, my core, my ballast, eventhough here is far from perfect and certainly not my dream. It is what I know. What I share with him. And leaving it is hard. Even for the promise of rest. Funny that.
There was a note left in my studio for when I got up. Sorry, it said, I’ve dropped the iPad and it no longer works. I was touched by the ‘sorry’. The pain and frustration is his not mine. He uses it daily. Relies on it. He’s handled its loss well. I am proud of him. I love his steadiness. It is my ballast. Always.
He crows about the possibility of a peace deal. Peace, a beautiful thing, he says. But at what cost? My heart breaks at the smaller man having to go cap in hand to the big one. He has lost so much. Must he lose more? When will this darkness end? And then there are the women and girls of Afghanistan. How could I have forgotten them? Denied education and a life beyond the home. Who can save them? And those of Gaza? What can be done for them? What a mess we have made.
He’s paused military aid. Whether this is out of spite or a wish to instigate peace whatever the cost for that poor beleagured nation, who knows? Whatever the reason it sends a chill through me. Let something happen, anything to protect him and his people. Let there be light, and goodness, and kindness and a willingness for harmony. Can it be? Ever?