There was a note left in my studio for when I got up. Sorry, it said, I’ve dropped the iPad and it no longer works. I was touched by the ‘sorry’. The pain and frustration is his not mine. He uses it daily. Relies on it. He’s handled its loss well. I am proud of him. I love his steadiness. It is my ballast. Always.
He crows about the possibility of a peace deal. Peace, a beautiful thing, he says. But at what cost? My heart breaks at the smaller man having to go cap in hand to the big one. He has lost so much. Must he lose more? When will this darkness end? And then there are the women and girls of Afghanistan. How could I have forgotten them? Denied education and a life beyond the home. Who can save them? And those of Gaza? What can be done for them? What a mess we have made.
He’s paused military aid. Whether this is out of spite or a wish to instigate peace whatever the cost for that poor beleagured nation, who knows? Whatever the reason it sends a chill through me. Let something happen, anything to protect him and his people. Let there be light, and goodness, and kindness and a willingness for harmony. Can it be? Ever?
It was a cathedral of sound this morning as I walked. Initially it was a lone blackbird’s song that appeared to echo and ricochet off this town’s terraced houses. It was a warble followed by a whistle and then something like a little laugh, a guffaw before the warble began again. As I returned home others had joined him. I cannot name them all but there were more warblings and whistles but also clickings and tickings. Maybe a robin, some tits and possibly some chiff chaffs. I don’t know. Does it matter? It was glorious.
I felt a frisson of hope, or at least a sense that there is a trace of goodness and loyalty in this ever-increasingly harsh world. The King is to invite that beleagured leader to the Palace today. It’s a show of support. A standing-by, a nation next to another. I am glad. Let it bear fruit.
He told me that his wife was a dental hygienist. It wasn’t what I’d expected. It pleased me. A normal job, a grounded one, a caring, doing-something-for-others kind of a job. A nine-to-five, regular kind of job. Yes, it pleased me. And it wasn’t what I expected.
We’ve been re-watching Still Alice. This must be our third viewing of it. I like revisiting films, one notices things one’s missed. I thought about the title yesterday at breakfast. Of course it applies to the fact that though she is living with Alzheimer’s, she is still herself, still Alice. But I mused about the way in which she and her husband are portrayed as forever doing – working, running, socialising whatever – and that her affliction will enforce a stillness upon her. She will have to stop, as all of us will, eventually. To slow down. To be stilled.
He admitted that it was the coffee. He was the same with wine. Something clicks, switching his mood from jovial to touchy. I tread carefully. I always have done. It passes quicker now. In the past it could be hours. The love is there, running like a constant seam of ore. But I am sensitive to these mood changes. I grew up with someone who was equally volatile. I was scared then. I’m not now.
There’s a scene in The Father in which his daughter’s flat is empty. The shelves are bare. She has gone. And the camera pans in to the kitchen tap, dripping. It’s that noise, that slow heartbeat of a drip, that seems to epitomise loss for me. And if not loss, abandonment, certainly. It’s a left-behind sound, a vacated one. Forgotten. My bathroom taps are dripping. I cannot tighten them enough to stop it. Water is leaking away. Wasting. It hurts me.
I cross them off. One job, one chore after another. I get no real satisfaction from doing so. For there is always another following close at their heels. I am doing this to myself, I know this. My sense of not doing enough, not being good enough, not being enough is sharper than ever. Will it ever stop? Does it take death, or at least the nearness of it, to make it stop?