We talk about philosophers over breakfast, Heidegger in particular. He doesn’t want me to read the actual text but resort to idiot guides to make sense of what he is trying to say. I want to read the text. He gets frustrated. I never did, he says. I need the immersion. I know this. Let it be, my love. Let me try.
The upcoming full moon is playing havoc with my dreams. They are graphic and intense. Last night, I dreamt that I was working in an institution for children and adults with learning difficulties, and during much of the dream I was wearing someone else’s trousers. They were white with a lacy pattern embroidered into the fabric, too big and too short. At one point I looked at my bottom in the mirror to see what they looked like. Terrible, but I kept them on.
Some might call me a puritan and possibly they would be right. I do edge towards the austere, the pared-back. But this is purely medicinal. I want to get better, feel better inside and out. A rice fast might work. I’ll try it. It is simpler, less fiddly than my usual food. Just three days. That’s all. But no tea.
I’m stuck. I’m stuck and my body is stuck. Stuck in a fug of fear. And it makes me, as he told me this morning, “bad company.” I know this, only too well. I suggest he goes away for a bit, visit his brother. He says he doesn’t want to. If I could, if it wouldn’t unsettle my work regime, I’d go. I want to take this cross little body of mine away. I want to nurse it, tend it, and refind my courage. Would escaping help? Probably not. I fantasise about going with a bag of books and reading alone, the day stretching ahead with noone to do for but myself. A fantasy, I know. Live here, now, in the fug and find your way out.
How do we dwell in this world where starving people are shot at as they queue for food? How do we dwell in this world in which children are abused and hurt? How do we dwell among those who are cruel, mean and callous? How do we dwell here, on this earth, with all that we are? I just don’t know.
I long to go. Go anywhere but here, that is, here in my head with all this fear. But I can’t. And if I did it would only make the fear worse. I need to sit it out until it passes. Do the work, face it and be brave. Find my courage and trust that all will be well. He believes it and so should I. Let it be, Ellen. Let it be.
As I walked I thought about what failure might feel and look like. Would it be so bad? Can I, could I live with it? He says I can’t fail. That they wouldn’t let me. Is this really the case? Am I held more than I believe? Can I rest in that, let my back and my colon relax? Can I?
They’ve told me I must stop, stop what I’ve been doing. Stop and behave differently. Stop. Stop what I have become and become something else. It is timely. My back tells me. But oh, it is so so difficult.
I’m not. I’m not managing this very well at all. I thought I’d be more stoic, be able to exercise more self-control but it’s gone on too long. I am undone by it.
I used to anticipate journeys with pleasure. Now, though I like to get away from the structure of my life that holds me in place, they tire me. There’s a tawdriness to them, I feel awry, dirtied, adrift. And then coming home, there’s all that adjusting to do. Yet, they must be made and wisdom is found in their discomfott.