He’s always had one. Alcohol made it worse. Not these days. I know what brings it on. He gets frustrated with himself and I get caught up in the crossfire of it. Like yesterday. I shouldn’t have shouted back. I lost my temper too. It doesn’t last with me. And I always cry. I am sorry for him. He gets so angry at what he sees as his incapacity – usually dextrous. I should’ve been kinder. Always.
He makes it sound so plausible. So simple. Raze an area to the ground, send its people elsewhere, rebuild it as a riveria and hand it over (while regaining control) to another country. Simple. So simple. It is chillingly so. My heart bleeds.
He is fretting, perhaps only a little. I am not sure. He is losing weight. A pound a week. He thinks it might be cancer of the prostate. He might be wrong. He looks well. Is fit and active. He reads stuff on the internet, that doesn’t clarify but obfuscates. He doesn’t know what to do. He will see the doctor in a few weeks. I hope it eases his mind. Live, I suggest. Am I also listening?
I’ve been accepted and am to give a paper on drawing’s negative spaces. The white has a dominant place in the work that I make. It is the space inbetween, the unsaid, the unpopulated space in the busy-ness of my thoughts. Here is the loss. Here is what I cannot describe. The thing that circumscribes what I can.
There was an image on the front page of The Guardian of two Palestinians, sitting on what looked like wall. They were clearly man and wife. I forget the exact headline but it said but read something like: we walked for two days only to find our home is gone. Bombed out. Obliterated. Gone. I cannot know how that feels. Though I have an inkling. Poor loves. Who will help them? Oh, I wish the world were kinder. Can it ever be so? What can I do? Show me.
He asked her. I was unsure how she’d take it. Was it too maudlin a suggestion? Was it inappropriate to ask now, just after her suspected TIA? She seemed taken with the idea. Endorsed it, even. I am glad. I want the thought to give her some ease. Now I just have to learn their names.
I thought about it as I bathed this morning. Should I ask her, or get him to do so? And what are my reasons for offering? Such things are always loaded. I don’t want stuff but I do want to honour and care for what she honours and cares for. I want to draw them naturally. That impetus is always there. Always, sadly. But I also want her to know that they are safe. Would it help?
I’ve thought of them. Are they home yet? And if so, what is that home like? I caught a picture on Instagram of a bombed-out tower block from there. Nothng remains but its shell and rubble. Blown-through. Blown out. Blown away. My heart is heavy for them. So heavy.
I caught a glimpse of the video of them over his shoulder as he was watching it on his iPad. Thousands of them walking, trudging, and carrying their meagre belongings with them back home. A semblance of home. A home that is at least, for now, theirs, albeit it a bombed-out home, a devastated one. It is theirs. What will they find? I cannot imagine. Or how it will feel when they do. I no longer know what to pray for, except that as many of them as possible find some shelter, some peace and something like an ordinary, fruitful life again. I wish them that. As I wish it for all. Let this be an end to the fighting, the killing. Let it be an end.
Another storm is coming. It’s been a winter of storms. We have it easy compared to some, but still such weather makes me edgy. I find it hard to concentrate. I prickle with fear.