ellen bell

My alarm clock stopped ticking yesterday. It’s happened to two now. Is it me? Is it a sign? An omen? I miss the beat, the pulse of it.

I didn’t know him personally, I just used to follow him on Instagram. I thought of him yesterday, wondering how he was and why he hadn’t posted for awhile. He’d implied that he was ill, but that he was going to hang around as long as he could. His wife wrote a message on his Insta page saying that he’d did 4 weeks ago. Poor love. Such a loving post. There but for the grace of God go I. Wrap her up in love. All of them. And J., rest in peace. E

I think about it all the time, but a lot more lately. “Even if I’ve got something,” he said, just now, “we’ve still got a few more years.” Yes. That must be so, mustn’t it? I want him to be well but more I want him to be happy. I will do what I must. And accept what I must. But walking in that sharp east wind, I feel the impending loss of him keenly.

He was evidently shocked by the news. Oh, no! he said, as he came upon his daughter’s WhatsApp message. He wasn’t a close friend, but he’d known him since school. And he didn’t know that he was ill. The same age too. It’s shaken him. Or it did last night. Death becomes commonplace in your seventies, even sixties. R.I.P.

It was a phrase that was being said in my dream just before I woke. I repeated it as I rose, pondering on its meaning. Can words spoken in a dream translate into our living reality? I am not sure. I don’t think it meant political right but more a moral rightness, but I cannot be certain, or indeed, who was saying it. They promised sun for today but now it is to be cloud. Heigh ho.

He’s losing weight. Not dramatically, but probably about a pound or so a week. He says he isn’t too concerned. Sometimes I think he is and other times I think he isn’t. He says he wants to keep on living. I am glad. Is that enough, that will to do so? I think of his death daily. How can I not? The void that is coming is impossible to contemplate.

The moon was visible tonight. As it still is, even now, though brighter yet. a yellow-white behind a trace of cloud.

I miss it when it is masked by clouds. Its light is a marvel. I saw it yesterday, nearly full, shining into my studio. Its a white light, clean, sharp, sometimes almost ghostly. Such things, such big things steady me, reduce and yet enlarge me, making me more than I am.

Drawing early this morning I heard a voice. I was standing on the corner of Bridge Street just along from the dip that leads down to a wine bar and then to the sewage treatment works. It was a shouting voice. It swore, it called something ‘nasty’, it sang and then shouted again. It sounded like it was someone lying on their back. I drew hastily as the voice seemed to get louder. Should I go and help the thing, that now sounded like a troll about to appear from its cave? Not sure of what I’d encounter, I decided against it. It wasn’t a shouting of pain, after all, just inconvenience, or maybe disorientation. It was an intoxicated voice, certainly. Was I being unkind?

My reaction to it came later, hours later. I started to shake, then weep and go hot and cold. I was frightened, not only of the pain but of what I couldn’t do. I slept in the end. It helped. As did pain killers. I am still sore. My knees are stiff and swollen as is my wrist and shoulder. But I walked, and made breakfast and I was able to get out of the bath unaided. I even did some yoga, though getting my body up off the floor is a challenge. I am lucky. My body is strong, defiant even. As indeed am I.