Category: Writings

It was a mighty stink. He mentioned it first, smelt it first. I was in bed. Lying down. The smell took longer to reach me. Meat. Someone was cooking meat. And it stank. Was it coming from the flat below or from across the walkbridge. I thought it would never go. Fried onions superseded it. Then I must’ve slept. (Not before soaking a tissue in perfume and holding it to my nose).

I’m reading Tom Lubbock’s book about his dying. Such accceptance. It is noble, not brave, I think but above that. Spiritual even. I am awed.

I do my best. Sometimes that is all I can say. Nothing more. I see the holes. I see the mess, the not-quite in all the things I do. I have my limitations. I am sensitive to opinion, even when not overtly expressed. But I am also wrong in my interpretations. I know this. I just keep going on. Doing my best.

I’ve finished Marion Coutts’ book. I struggle with finishing books. Not because I can’t see them through, but because it requires that stepping out of a story that I have lived. It’s end is mine. She writes fiercely. There’s something feral about it, and I suspect, her. She catapults us to his end too. And then its over. New story. His.

I remember a herbalist telling me once that my heartbeat was like a tight guitar string. I am taut. My body is rigid. What’s wrong? he asks in his soft, still-in-bed voice. And I snap. I haven’t spoken to anyone for four hours and during that time (since getting up) I’ve got more and more tense. His concern makes me snarl. I can’t tell you. I shout. Wanting him to understand but not making myself at all clear. I cannot say what it is. It is all and everything. And all I can do is wait for it to pass. Whatever it is. Fear. Uncertainty, which is much the same thing. Wanting to run, to sleep, to do anything but bring myself here to this desk to work. So be it. The sun is beginning to show. The day must be lived, like the next and the next. Until there is nothing left. For me at least. Amen.

I saw it from my studio at about 1.45 am. It was huge, burning yellow and orange. A half-shape, not neat, but ragged and blurred. It burnt through the black, scorching. A hot place. Far away.

Ah death. I think about it, I write about it, I hear about it, I see it and I encounter it. We all do, but I am alert to it, watching. Waiting. I still walk to that cottage, that house on that island as I fall to sleep. Last night I saw another bedroom. It was on a lower floor. The bed made up. A big bed that filled the whole space, virtually. The landing outside was higher, the bed and the bedroom was slightly beneath me as I looked in. The duvet cover was floral. Pretty. Light. A little old-fashioned. Daylight was coming in from somewhere. A windo, that I couldn’t see? I climbed farther. My bedroom, the white one of my imagining was on a higher floor still.

The cut down the briar bush yesterday. The scent had been lovely, sweet, heady and pure. Some of it may come back, said one of the gardeners as she swept up the debris. It looks denuded, hacked. I loved its wildness. Yes, it was taking over but everything on this old school’s environs is being over-neatened, manicured like an American theme park. They do their best. For the meantime, the wildness outside our bedroom windows remains, though nore building has been mooted. The birds roost there, butterflies drink from the huge buddlieas, cats prowl and life teems in the undergrowth. I didn’t like it at first, now I do.

It floors me, sapping my energy and taking away any sense of achievement by a task done. I know the fault if mine. Always mine. But it is a hard pattern to break. I feel so clumsy, so awkward, suddenly the language I use and own, is not mine any longer. I am speaking foreign, a gobbly-de-gook of sounds. Oh, give me grace. Let me learn to stand back. It doesn’t matter, he says, over and over again. So what, is another. So what. If only. I got irritable with her, as she, no doubt got with me. She was the first one that I spoke to on the helpline that hasn’t been all patience and kindness. It’s not the way I do it, she said. Just help me. I wanted to implore. Help me to understand this. She didn’t. I fudged through.

She wrote about it. There are still things beyond language, she wrote. Sensations, pleasures. This is one of my mine. It doesn’t matter where. Just that heat. It slows me. Steadies me. Calms me. I need more.

He told me about bumping into her on his way back home from the car. She’d been carrying a bucket of soapy water with which to clean the seagull shit off the car. He said how she’d offered to do his too. A quiet woman, woman/girl really, she often blushes when she speaks. He said she’d asked after me. Anyway, she told him that she’s now to be called by another name. The old name was familiar, it did suit her, sort of. This one fits better. We muse over the reason for the change. Gender-neutrality, perhaps? Whatever the cause, good for her, I say. It takes courage to make such a shift in outward identity, particularly as by doing so you are drawing attention to yourself. Something that I suspect, diffident as she is, she might find difficult. Bravo.

He posted it on Instagram. I don’t know why. Perhaps he felt it was the best way to crowdfund. His daughter has cancer again. Poor love. Poor loves. It must be devastating. Death. Death is everywhere. Francoise Hardy died. And I drew in an ex-funeral home. I didn’t know what I’d find. I expect black shadows and gloom. It was gloomy, and dusty and dirty. Little remains. The two chapels were extraordinary. It was hard to draw in there. I didn’t really do it justice. Do I ever?

She told me that her ex-staff member felt nervous talking to me. Not a crush, as such, but awe. I don’t know what to do with that information except to protest that I am nothing. Not really. Nothing special. I like her. I see her awkwardness, her crankiness with people when everything isn’t under control. I understand it too well. Should I be touched? I am touched.