Category: Writings

I was thinking this morning about who I matter to. He was at the top of the list, obviously. Then I thought about her, and to be honest, I can’t say. She might miss me in the abstract when I am gone, and feel a little guilty, but that will probably be it. As to the rest of my family. Again, the missing, would be in the abstract. We don’t need each other for the every day functioning of our lives. I have a few friends, of which only one would, I think, mourn me. The feelings are mutual. I don’t mind. My impact on others has been small and I never expected more. When I am no longer matter, all of this it won’t matter. And I am glad.

I don’t usually smell it, but this morning I did. It’s salty, yes, but also earthy. I smell its colours, green-blue, lots of greys and a black almost brackish in tone. It’s a smell that also leaves behind a stickness on the skin, just like salt. Smells remind me of my liveness, despite the sorrow.

I feel them these days. My body is tired. I push against it, willing my legs to go faster and my hips and back not to seize. And I manage it but afterwards the tiredness comes. How many more years? I often try to calculate it. I want rest. So much.

I yearn for simplicity, I always have. Nun’s cells make my heart sing. I fantasise about sloughing it all off once he has gone. All of it. And just keep the bare essentials, one chair, one table and one bed. My soul longs to do this. No more stuff. Just emptiness.

I fret too much, I know, but once it takes hold I cannot switch it off. I fret over what I don’t know, which seems legion. Just get it down, he says, and it can be edited later. He is right. And I should, but offering up something that it is far from perfect is an anathema to me. Will I ever learn?

We talk of it often. I need it. But we have different visions.

Mine is to fear. And when I am frightened my gut stops working. Nothing works. It is in knots today, even though I began the thing I was fearful of beginning. I just have to keep going, keep writing and it will happen. That’s all I have to do. Simple.

We watch a little every night. It helps me to switch off, to ease the anxiety that has usually taken full control of my body by then. We watch the same ones over and over again. I like that. I like the familiarity of it. But the storylines still play into my dreams. As yesterday’s did last night. And even now….

The town is a mass of newly fledged gulls, their keening richochets off the roofs and walls. It is a heartbreaking sound. The loneliness of their abandonment is palable.

They are drops in the ocean, as they say, tiny amounts, and given more to help us to feel better about another’s pain and loss than anything else. I know this. But I suppose if everyone gave a little it would soon be alot. Yet, there are so many disasters, so many war-torn countries crying out for help. How do we assauge all, help all? Can we? Or does the futility of even trying render us immobile, useless? I have no answers.