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.
The rain came but not the cooling air.
I saw him again this morning. I’ve seen him a few times in the early hours. He’s always carrying a plastic bag, usually full, and walking very slowly, his head sunk into his chest. I don’t know where he is going or where he has come from. I hope he is okay and got home safe.
I like what I see in the dark, coming into brief contact as I do with wildlife that is usually sleeping in the daylight hours. What have I seen? Foxes, a badger, moths and I’ve heard owls. Yesterday, I saw a hedgehog, not my first, but a delight, nonetheless. They seem such gentle beings.