I treasure mine. I do. I don’t miss the lusting, that unrelenting appetite for another. Nor do I miss the physical intimacy. It is enough with this platonic, tender loving. It is all I’ve ever really wanted. The rest was chaos. It took me to places I didn’t want to go. It was unholy. And I long and search for holiness. Cleanliness. And I oh so love to sleep alone. In those white sheets. Celibacy holds me. It is cool, pure and kind. Sex isn’t. I never found my way with it. I wanted it love and it never brought me that. Ever. I am grateful for this self-containment. Forever so.
I lived in flats many times. I like it. I like being part of a community that I don’t necessarily have to become intimate with but I enjoy watching its comings and goings. I give names to these strangers, I make up narratives about their lives. At this time of the year I see lights shining in their windows. There are Christmas trees, garlands and wreaths on doors. I live vicariously through their home-making. One such is the family across the bridge from me. I can see into their first floor window. The room has a proliferation of decorations. Tinsel hangs from the walls, there’s a tree and the child’s (aka Moaning Mathilda) cut-out snowflake shapes have been stuck to the window. It is sweet. I like the care and the wish to celecrate with light and innocence. Last evening I caught a glimpse of the mother. She had a pair of reindeed antlers on her head. They were lit up with fairy lights. Perhaps she was wearing them to please the child. Or maybe, just maybe to excite her partner. Who knows. For all it’s naffness, I like it. I really do. (And I never got that crescent snow scene that I so hankered after).
It didn’t rain as promised this morning and I am glad for it. My leather gloves have become hard and rigid from all the drowning they’ve had. I made a drawing and then continued to walk along North Road and up the hill behind Alexandra Hall. The wind was building as I walked. I love that sight as I gain the crest of the hill and look down onto the sea. I was magnificent this morning, all churning and wild. Glorious.
Sometimes it feels like my heart isn’t working very well. Yes, I can scale that hill in Bath at quite a rate, and carrying a bag, but with mornings like today when I am on my feet cleaning for what seems like hours it does struggle to work. My legs get heavy and my breath is laboured. It passes. Fresh air helps as does walking. But it catches me short. I need to take care, know my limitations. And travelling and all the disturbed nights that it brings are not good. I don’t thrive physically, even if mentally I find it so thrilling. Time for rest now.
I called him. He didn’t recognise me at first. He is a stiff man, rigid, taut. Or at least that is how he has always seemed to me. I have to push through my instinct to avoid. And yet, I want to know him. And my feelings towards him are warming. I am beginning to see beyond the outer coolness. His son has it too, and I suspect, his daughter. They show little. But he warmed to me too, even making a joke about Northerners. I want to learn not to judge or, as I say, avoid people who are not like me or don’t reveal how they feel. I am safe with them. And they are safe with them. I feel immensely protective towards both him and his wife. They are going through a fearful time. And there are no clear signposts as to how to deal with it. Can I help? Probably not, but I can listen and pay attention. And draw.
We visited his sister yesterday. It was a good visit. I drew and they chattered away. There is ease now. They are beginning to really know and love each other in a way that I suspect neither did before. Something has been released. Perhaps Cis’ death his allowed this intimacy to blossom, who knows. Either way I am glad. She is happier, though maybe that is the wrong word. Too strong, for one must acknowledge how much she has lost. Her life is reduced, immeasurably. She has lost her beloved husband, her home and her indepence. She cannot walk or even get out of a chair unaided. But she can read, she still has her wits and her wonderful humour. And she is so loved both by family and, as it appears, by the carers who tend to her needs. I am glad for that too. She is accepting of it. Just as she accept that tat that they hung on her on door as a gesture towards Christmas. Would I in her situation? She is gracious, where perhaps I wouldn’t be. I can only admire her for it. All of it.
Some mornings it is just there, that underlying dis-ease. What’s wrong? he asked when I went in to wake him for breakfast. I tried to come up with explanations – I’ve a lot to do, a lot of my mind, it’s the winter, the cold, the unexpected rain and so on. And yes, it is all of those things but the truth is I can’t put my finger on it. I’m just frazzled. Is that OK? Perhaps I should just yield to it, and not struggle to smother it. Let it be and maybe it will pass. Who knows?
He often reads to me while I am preparing supper. It is mostly from online newspapers, and predominantly The Guardian and The Times. I have my favourites. The political sketch writer, John Crace is certainly one as is Andrew Rawnsley. And I used to enjoy piece written by Matthew Parris and William Hague but their blind belief in Rishi Sunak and their, seemingly, entrenched Conservative values make such reading stick in my craw. Last night he read an article by Matthew Syed about cruelty. It’s focus was on the bear-baiting inherent in reality shows like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Naive, as I am, I had no idea that it involved viewers vote and pay for one of the contestants to participate in a Bush Tucker Trial. It sounded appalling. Syed’s piece was a plea for a return to authentic kindness.
We had our second instalment of The Father last night. Cruelty was rife there too. But his cruelty (the destroying of his daughter’s self-control) was perhaps more forgiveable because he clearly has dementia and losing his wits. His biting sarcasm was shocking, nevertheless. Does dementia make a kind person cruel or does it merely increase their already nastiness? It is hard to say.
Another one of Thomas Debaggio’s words. Is is American for bartering? I don’t know and don’t really care. I like being outside of words sometimes – just enjoying the sound and look of them without the commonplace-ness of meaning. I continue to relish his book. I catch, grab only snatches during breakfast, in between the constant getting up and sitting down of peeing (water pills) and attending to him and myself. It’s OK, I choose it. But oh, how I would love to devote a day to reading. Can I?
I watched a man who is clearly moving in to one of the flats in the estate wrestle with the base of a two-seater sofa. He’d brought it in a hire van and it took him some time to get it out again. Then there was the manoeuvre of humping it onto his back so that he could carry it. He was a tall man and wore a long herringbone coat. He looked Eastern European. I watched him from an upstairs window wondering if I should run down and help him. Though whether I’d be strong enough to offer much help was doubtful. He managed it. And walked, no struggled, looking like a sofa with legs, with it to his new home.
I’m reading Thomas Debaggio’s book ‘Losing my Mind’. He is writing about his being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. It is a book of loss, of grief, of disorientation. He writes in blocks of text. The short, staccato paragraphs tell of the present and the past and are interspersed with data and scientific reports about the disease. It is both a jarring and intensely potent juxtaposition. He writes well. He also introduces strange words that I’ve never come across before – like ‘scofflaw’. Perhaps they are common vernacular in the States. The difference between us is striking. I am deeply moved by his story. For the present he can only see the loss. I hope that with acceptance brings a peace for him.
