I thought about this town’s now long gone Pelican Bakery as I walked this morning. As with the two other bakeries that used to exist, the town is without the comfort of the smells of hot salty dough that used to emanate from them. The mediterranean cafe bakes its own bread and pastries, in the upper floor of its shop, but it is not the same. The supermarkets have drummed them out of business, and though I no longer eat bread, it saddens me. Is this progress?
Did you go out? He asks when I go in to the bedroom to wake him. Yes, I say and then share all the sights and sounds that I encountered in those still dark hours, like the two huge lorries parked outside the bank, lights blaring, as some sort of drilling and welding of subterranean pipes was going on. Or I tell him about the kids piling out of The Angel and heading for the Penguin Cafe, overtaken with hunger. It’s a different town from the daylight one. The one he knows so well.
The shower began and I grimaced at the sensation of heavy drops on my head and coat, and then it came. That smell. What was it? A revelation of contained warmth, of sun-induced dryness, made revelatory by the rain. The wetness made it manifest and, gorgeous.
I wake with them sometimes. It’s usually at the base of my neck, perhaps as a result of being hunched over my laptop or just this constant fear of not being good enough and not meeting deadlines. It’s in my gift to stop them but I don’t know how. It’s an inward-looking fearfulness, the other stuff is taken care of, I am safe, fed, watered, I have enough. Fear gorges on my time and energy. I must stop allowing it to do so.
I still have no energy. He says its because of the virus. I’m not so sure. Perhaps it is my heart, slowly giving up on me.
It’s most strident in the early hours, when endeavour of any kind seems nigh impossible. Then the weight of my task threatens to drown. I keep on though, keeping on. Cut it up into chunks, he says. And he is right. And I do try.
The bedroom clock just fell off the wall. Though a plastic thing, it still made a terrific clattering. Is it an omen?
I saw it on my bathroom wall when I first woke. By the time I’d returned in there to have my bath, it was in the water, drowning. I couldn’t save it.
My body is without. I am heavy with a tired, drained-ness. I cannot do what I normally do. I walked but wanted to return to bed. I should’ve done, but there is fear in letting things slide, of yielding to unwellness. He says that it will prolong it. He is probably right.
I’ve begun reading Alain de Botton’s book of the same title and he is right, architecture can make little real difference to our state of mind, but it can help. I think. I spend so much of my time yearning for other homes that I forget to look about me. Am I dry, warm, safe, held, do I have enough food, clothes, meaningful work, and if the answer is yes, then why the lack of happiness, or even contentment? These are not outer feelings but inner ones. The outer stuff of our lives only touch the surface. I need to stop and consider this…daily.