ellen bell

When he called her last night I asked him to ask her again what their grandfather had called Bread & Butter Pudding. I had forgotten or misheard what she’d said the night before. “Mrs Ducky Sunk,” she said. Lovely. No one knows or remembers why he called it that.

I walked on the Perygyl this morning, this first time in a long, long time. There was no rain and virtually no wind. It was glorious. And my legs worked well. I enjoy it while I can. Disordered clumps of students hung around outside The Angel or ambled their way down Great Darkgate Street. They seem oblivious to the coming cold. Oh, and they’ve hung the lights. “Not that they switch them on,” he said at breakfast after I’d told him. I wish they did, it would temper the bleakness of this drear month. So be it. Dark it is then.

He was on the phone to his sister and she asked him if he remembered what their paternal grandfather used to call bread and butter pudding. He said he didn’t and she told him. I couldn’t hear her voice very distinctly but it sounded like ‘Mrs Somebody’s Dunk’. He lived with them in his latter years. They talked about his wife who had died early, possibly as a result of epilepsy with which she was afflicted. He struggled with depression. Again family folklore has it that he’d been made ‘jumpy’ by the wartime bombing of Swansea. I think it was tricky for them all having him in their small house. He made toys out of wood for the children, including a doll’s house for his sister. He had to go to a daughter in the end when his sister reached puberty and needed a room to herself.

A windy morning but dry. The rain was torrential yesterday. It scares me, particularly driving over the mountains in it. It is elemental, mighty. I am made small.

Those oblongs or squares of yellow light are such a comfort to me as I walk through the early dark of the town. Hopper-esque these lit windows speak of insomnia, disturbed nights and restlessness. I feel a fellow-feeling for these non-sleepers. The rain was heavy when I woke but lightened a little when I left home. And now the wind is coming. They’re calling it Storm Debbie, a rather innocuous name for a storm but there you are. Morning begins through my studio window and a Monday opens up with all her usual busy-ness. Go to it….

We sat together at the table for yesterday’s two minute silence. We held hands. I closed my eyes, he kept his open, watching me some of the time, he told me afterwards. I asked him what he had thought about and it turned out we’d both thought of the First World War soldiers in the trenches. We can only re-image those scratchy newsreels and faded photographs, we weren’t there. They are borrowed memories. But they are nonetheless potent. What must it have been like, a form of hell, surely? The mud, the chaos, the gore and the fear. Bless them. And some so so young. Have we learnt anything?

I’m nearing the end of Joan Halifax’s book about being with the dying. It’s been a challenging read, particularly as it is as much about one’s own dying as another’s. I hold fast to it, that image of my own demise, though I am conscious that I have a rather aesthetically neat idea of it. When Halifax described lying amongst the rotting bodies on a Tibetan Charnel Ground I got a glimpse of my deep fear of viscera, of the disintegration of the body, of order, of the self. Is that why I am both fascinated by and horrified by the dotage of others? I will never forget how we found her, lying in all that faecal filth. My love, my blessed mother. I think of her dying alone. Did she know me when I came? Was her spirit still present as I held her? Did she want me there? Did she feel my love and forgiveness and compassion? Oh, I hope so. I do.

Another morning of pouring rain. I struggle to both get out of bed and to go out into that wet. And it is cold. Winter is coming hard and fast. I try to take comfort. There is some. (After all, most of us are not living in Gaza. Oh, bless them. What a hell they are experiencing). For me I find grace and comfort in the small things. Big jumpers are one such. I have two now – huge oversize lambswool ones from M&S. They enfold and encompass me. I am lost in them. It is good. And then there is the prospect of Advent and the lighting of those candles. And then there are the carols and all that sublime choral music to anticipate. Meanwhile, I continue to read about death. The Tibetans meditate on death daily. It is a good practice. We are nothing. I am nothing. I should remember this when I stir myself up so over those ten thousand things.

I walk out into the dark, wind and rain, not wanting to. When I am out there, and in it, I try to find some joy in the experience. Well, perhaps joy is too strong a word, let’s say benefit or beauty. The air is good. I like the feeling of its coolness against my face. I’ve used an umbrella these last few mornings, inconvenient though it is and I do enjoy hearing the sound of the rain on its taut surface (though when it blows inside out as it did several times today, I forget the pleasure of the pitter-pat). It is just weather, after all, and so many countries are, by comparions, parched dry. So I must celebrate the rain. It is a life-giver and the bringer of green.

I am becoming fascinated by empty spaces, in particular those who have been recently vacated by people. It’s the traces of presence and how they play out in these rooms, chambers and interiors that most interest me. What is it that is left behind? Are there smells, marks, even auras of the beings who have dwelt there? Do we make a room what it is, or does it have its own character separate from the one we impose?

There is so much I don’t know. And what I don’t know increases incrementally as I age. This I do know. And how uncomfortable I am with the not-knowing. Is it the same for everyone? It takes me back to my early school days and the hot sweaty panic I’d feel when asked a question by the teacher in class and not having the answer. Life was unfathomable then, as it is now. Can I sit with that? Can I accept my innocence, my naiveity and ignorance with grace? This new venture asks so much of me. It is a behemoth, a dragon, a monster and I must invite it in. Will I come through the other side? Possibly. Possibly not. My supporters aren’t scared. They know that I will do it. I must trust that. Meanwhile, the real world rages. And I ache for all concerned. So much grief, anger and death. Must it be so?

It’s a long time, or at least that is how it seems, since I had a long morning walk. It was pitch when I went out. All kitted out, I expected rain but it didn’t come. The wind, however, was strong, particularly on the Prom. I pushed through it – a metaphor for all the internal wrangling that is filling my head at present. It was good to be out. The air smelt good, churned up, but good. And I was alone. I walked along South Marine, comforted by the sight of now familiar windows with all their bits on the windowsills. I like these brief encounters with other peoples’ lives. One ground floor flat shone with a purple light. That was new. The B&B is still going but no on-and-off Christmas decorations yet. They will come soon, no doubt now that Bonfire Night is done. I look forward to the Christmas trees, some comfort in this dark adventtide.