I know that there has been a shift towards a more secular approach and that to focus on a specific religion such as Christianity is now frowned upon. But I like it. It is familiar to me. I like the marking of ritual and festival even if I don’t attend church anymore (if I was still in Bath I would, I would). It represents a structure, a safe reassuring measuring of time passing. And Lent is one of those. I don’t personally see it as a time for self-denial but one of reflection. The darkness imposes that, don’t you think? It’s a going inward period. I hear them mark it on the radio both Radio 3 and Classic FM. I appreciate it. It’s old school, of another era. And long may it last. Oh how I miss the Abbey…..
It was on a radio news bulletin. An Italian, a rescue-worker from the Red Cross, I think. He was talking about the people, many of whom drowned, trying to reach the shores of Italy. Hundreds of them in a wooden boat. A small boat, too small to hold so many. They said there were in a small wooden boat. What did they pay the people smugglers for the privilege? Was there room to sleep, eat or even sit? Was there a canopy against the elements? I heard someone say that it is mostly young men who make these hazardous journeys, but I can imagine that there are whole families involved. Parents with small children, grandparents and young couples, all trying to escape hardship, oppression, war and hunger. We label them as ‘boat people’ as if they are a particular species distinct from ourselves and therefore need not empathise with them. They are not, they are sentient beings as we are with the same physical and emotional needs – the need for refuge, security, order and the possibility to flourish . What can we do but stop, think and feel for them – the desperation of their plight and the abuse of those who set them out on this treacherous journey and hope that if they do survive that they are met with kindness, generosity and love? The Italian man’s voice was full. He stumbled for words. The ones who were pulled from the sea are traumatised, they cannot articulate what they have been through. “They are destroyed,” he said.
It never feels enough. It never feels good enough. I never feel good enough. Just do your best, he is forever saying. You did your best, that is all you can do. It reassures for a while. I like to hear him say it, for I cannot do so for myself. I just don’t feel it, I never have. I don’t feel I was ever good enough as a daughter, a mother, a sister or a friend. Funnily enough, I do feel good enough as a wife, well, his wife. He shows me that. I sink in the evenings. I am tired and when I look back over the day I cannot see that it has been good enough. The work done, the writing or the drawing is never enough. The problem is mine. A hand-me-down sort of non-esteeming. I know this. I will try to circumvent it. I will. I promise.
I managed to steal some time a few days ago to sit in the sun. It wasn’t warm even though I was wrapped up in what he calls my Tellytubby suit. I wanted quiet but alas there was the woman with the baby standing by her car, jiggling it about as it wheedled and griped and the family (including grandparents) of the Sri Lankan doctor, who chose that self-same moment to file out of their flat and head for the back lane. It was a noisy business particularly as the father was insistent about negotiating the pram down the sleep slope also. I waited for peace. It came for a moment. And then my phone rang. Did you call me? he asked. No, I said. Funny he didn’t even know I’d gone.
I was over-tired. Not enough sleep makes me cranky. And her asking me if ‘I was up for another’ was the last straw. I wanted to stop. I needed to stop. To implode and have some empty space ahead of me. I could’ve said no, and was childishly petulant when he wouldn’t give me permission to do so. I don’t want to infantilise you, he said, with his usual wisdom, adding, even though at this moment you want me to. And he was right. I wanted him to save me, to carry me. He cannot do that and when I am strong and well rested I don’t want him to. So I said yes. Of course I did. It is my living. Nevertheless, I heard all those petulant voices in my head, longing to snap and carp at him. He is sanguine. He knows me. He knows that my crossness is short-lived and that I will think again, evaluate my behaviour and be remorseful. As I was and am. And I am grateful for the work. Always. It was a learning day, certainly.
Do you know of an NHS dentist around here? asked the girl who’d I’d been drawing in Costa Coffee in Newton.
I told her I didn’t. She had an Irish brogue – very subtle. She told me she was from Dublin but gave no reason as to why she was in that small Welsh town.
I had to have a tooth out, and I need to see a dentist for my wisdom teeth and some are rotten, she continued, almost to herself. I haven’t been to a dentist for years. Do you see an NHS dentist? Oh, yours is private is he? Is it very expensive?
She’d moved tables since I’d drawn her. Now she was sitting quite close to ours. She’d been consuming (eating rather than drinking) a large frothy drink with what looked like crumbled biscuits on top. I’d watched as she’d got up to get a spoon. Her hair was a mass of tangles and piled high on top like I sometimes wear it. She seemed edgy, a little high-wired. I could sense him tensing a little. I wanted to help but couldn’t.
I like your hair, she said, it’s like that actress on Desperate Housewives, she wears it like that sometimes.
I wished her the best of luck with finding a dentist.
A young man walked ahead of me along the main street this morning. I say walked. He didn’t, he lurched and zig-zagged. Spidery-thin, he kept falling towards the town houses to his right sometimes being lost to my view completely. Is it sadness that makes them drink so heavily, or a need to fit in? Turning down Thespian Street, I went home the other way. On one of the doorsteps either by intent or mistake, someone had left a bouquet of apricot roses. They were still in their cellophane.
She is lost to me. Though she shared my womb and my bed, she was never really mine. Not really. I never felt it to be so. Was that my fault? I never felt good enough for her, or her. Was that it, that perpetual failing that moves so naturally and habitually from one relationship to another? She said she loved me, that I’d always been there. But that was the day she cried after her lie was found out. It was guilt, I suspect. We pussyfooted around each other. Nothing was ever really said. She’s said it now, via FB, in staccato paragraphs, not stopping for breath. It won’t disappear. It is still there, haunting me. Tell me you’ll do something about it, says a distant relative from America. Life is too short, she says. Yes, it is but I don’t know what to do. I am so vulnerable to the hurting of her. I was from the moment she emerged, greasy with whiteness, crying for succour. We do not know each other. Nothing holds us. She was lost to me then, and sheis now.
I am a fusspot. I fuss too much. I want perfection, order and control. He is forbearing. He doesn’t have the same need as I have but he tolerates mine. But sometimes, just sometimes he snaps. It is fair enough. I push him too far. I know this. He loses his temper, I slink off, a dog with a its tail between its legs. I am sorry. He is still smouldering. We do make up. I am sorry and he forgives me. It will happen again. I try to temper it. He doesn’t know all the times I keep my mouth shut. How can he?
It struck me yesterday as I walked how much this arthritis in my hip has sapped my strength. It’s a slow drip sort of discomfort with real pain at times. My walking is slow, measured and a bit of a chore to be honest, yoga practice is the same. I just keep going on, what else can I do? And I am mindful that an operation to alleviate it is not a promise. It may not happen, and if it does it may not make it better, it might even worsen it. I have to accept it all. He told of how the Cambrian News were reporting on the orthopaedic department’s trial with a robot who mends hips. He was excited, I am more, what is the word, sanguine or is doubtful? I don’t want it but I want to feel stronger.
I caught a glimpse of a group of people leaving C block last night. They were clearly going out for supper (or at least that is what I imagined was the case) for one of the women had a bouquet of flowers in her hand. It prompted me think about when we used to do the same. I never looked forward to it, nor indeed enjoyed it much when there. I loved the conversation but there was much awkwardness around food, and being tired and wanting to be home and safe. The book I’m re-reading had a paragraph where the main protagonist had just seen a opera and it standing in the foyer afterwards watching the audience mill about getting taxis, putting on coats and so on. She recognises that she suddenly feels very lonely. How I know that feeling. Too well. I’ve been to those theatres, those occasions where the drama is over, the dream is spent and it is cold and wet outside and there’s that journey home….
Do I mind this now interior life? Do I miss the metropolis? He mentioned a review that was in the paper about the new Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam. He wanted to go. Shall we? he asks. Oh, yes, now that I could and would do. Shall we?
I heard his phone go after I’d got into bed. The caller’s voice was loud, cheery. It was one of our elderly neighbour’s son calling to ask if he could go down and turn off her TV as she couldn’t do it. He is always so obliging. I call him the boy scout sometimes. He loves to please, to be of help. And I adore him for it. Don’t be too long, I call out. He is away over 15 minutes. It isn’t just her TV apparently but another gadget that amplifies her phone for her. Fixing it is beyond him. She uses his appearance as an opportunity to have a moan. And why not? This time its about the carers’ practice of giving her a bed bath each morning. At my age! she says to him. What do I want with a bed bath every day? I can see her point, though I’d want it. Her body is old, fragile and it must abhor all that jostling and rough use of wet flannels. They mean well. And her indignance mustn’t make their job any easier. But they seem kind. I’ll never forget watching one of them brushing her hair so lovingly.
Ah, the kindness of strangers, like the artist on Instagram offering me those encouraging words. He didn’t have to.
