It’s only the second time that they’ve been here. They appear to come alone, to be with their father and not their mother. But I don’t know. It’s neighbours’ stories, that’s all. Made up, surmised. I heard them last night running about below me. It was late for them but for me it was. It has to be accepted. This is, after all, the downs and ups of sharing a space with others. I hope that they were having fun.
Last night I was conscious of watching myself write, of trying to form the words and of reading them. It was all in Norwegian. And I was using a red crayon. It was a bad night. Restless and tense. This morning has continued to be so. My body is rigid with anxiety. It could be the full moon playing its tricks. Sitting here, ready to work, is all I can do. I must face and move into the fear in order for it to dissipate. I know this. So be it.
There is something a little humbug about my personality. Today it is the space launch that I can’t get excited about. Or is it that I won’t? It seems such a great waste of resources and time and for what? There is so much down here that needs attending to and there they go bursting into the skies trying to conquer what they don’t understand. Hmmph.
I watch as he grows older, sometimes daily. He calls it his decreptitude. Does he watch me as I age too? When he is sleeping I see him as he will look in death. Sometimes I am fascinated, others scared. My life will be upended by the loss of him. I know this. But I cannot stop it happening. There is little grace in it. And this needs to be accepted.
I’ve been reading and writing about meaninglessness. It is an uncomfortable place for me to be in, especially given what the USA has unleashed on the world. I struggle to pull myself from the bleakness it promises. Alain de Botton’s books help, a little.
The town’s cemetery is awash with prirmroses. Their delicate yellow dominates the green. And along the avenue, amid the rows of narcissi the celandines are beginning to open. Even in the rain it is an uplifting sight. Even when there is war.
I mis-timed it all and got up at the usual hour. However, I caught up with myself and am sitting at my desk at the usual o’clock. I’m tired though. It was a a restless night, probably brought on by the huge half-gibbon moon, that yesterday glowed red. The news brings word of more misery, more uncertainty and more madness. How to be in all of this, that’s the question. I don’t know, do you?
There’s to be no Saturday morning visits to the coffee shop or cafe this month or next, or possibly even the next. Deadlines loom and I become anxious about missing them. He says that I never have. And he is right but I worry nonetheless. I always have. She used to say that I was a worrier. It touched me that she’d noticed and acknowledged it. How I loved her.
I often try to read things in my dream, letters, books or signs, but it is an impossiblity. I see the marks, the graphics of the words but I cannot decipher them. I appear to accept this, though generally the note, or as in last night’s dream, the hand-written letter is given to me or arrives just before I wake. What is its import? I will never know.
Outside it rains and rains. A mist clouds all. Though according to BBC Weather, the town is due to reach 27C today. That’ll be nice.
I often dream of them. I think I read somewhere that in dreams they are meant to represent the soul. I’m am usually sharing them or moving from or to them. Nothing is ever static. Last night I was in a doorway, then I was up close, feeling and looking intensely at a wall. Stuck. Is that it? Hemmed in? Stone close to my face, like the Rilke poem?