ellen bell

I’m trying to learn acceptance. It’s a lifelong challenge but I think I am better at it than I was. Perhaps it is an increasing awareness of my mortality and my smallness. I don’t matter a jot so why should my hopes, my ambitions, my longings and wantings matter either. They do and they don’t. Having a plan feels nice. As does having a path to follow. It’s there, that thing that I want but it maybe it isn’t meant for me. If so, should I have something else in place just in case? Or, does that take some of that energy away from the wanting? It’s a magic thing, that I seem to believe is more likely to make it happen. It doesn’t. I am learning that the most I can do in these circumstances is my best. And then? To just let it be, whatever it needs to be. Some say that there is no real difference between failure and success, that they are just different journeys. Possibly. The latter tends to feel better than the first, but that’s our training, our rearing. Dreams are good, they light a flame inside. All those possibilities for adventure, that will probably never be taken. Like that little house that I hold inside, in readiness for when he goes. It is my solace, my consolation. The rest. Oh, yes, I still long to do good work. Make good work and to touch others, however lightly. And to make peace with her (though how I shall do this I have no idea). And just to love and forgive and make this little corner of the world a little better…

I’ve just caught sight of it. After yesterday’s utter greyness it is such a glory. The sky is still murky and threatens rain but there is the yellow, nevertheless. It licks across the yew tree and the clump of firs the lie towards the sea and then catches the back of South Marine. Oh, how I need it. The winter is a challenge. It makes me hungry for light. And now the rain comes and still the sun shines. Will there be a rainbow?

I’ve never liked taking them. They are bullish, unsubtle and they go through my system blasting all the good probiotics that I have planted in my gut. They make me feel unwell but it seems like I had little choice. My finger had grown very infected and my body, bless her, was struggling to heal it. I suspect the capsules that he has prescribed for me are not vegan and that makes swallowing them even worse. I have such an antipathy towards traditional medicine. I am not sure why. My finger is improving though it smells. Yesterday it smelt like blue cheese, today it is distinctly fish-like.

I don’t know where it came from. It is not like me. He caught a nerve speaking to me like he did. I should have pulled back, delved, found out why he was so angry, so touchy. It all came out. He’d felt stupid. He’d done something incorrectly and my response had made it worse. He takes things out on me. And why not? I am a safe place to let rip. I should shoulder it better, detach myself from the emotion and pay attention, listen and then wait. It will pass. It always does. The love is there. It is sacroscant. Safe.

Embrace uncertainty, she wrote in her Instagram message. And I cried. It is hard for me to do so. I hold life, and indeed myself, so tightly. I understand why and can have compassion for myself for doing so. The past has involved so much chaos. I need these tramlines. But research is about risk and the discoveries that such unknowingness generates. And intellectually I love this. I do. But there is still this need for safety and to know that I am doing the right thing and being a good student. I think she understands. Her kindness means the world to me.

We’re home. There was a point in this, let’s call it ‘adventure’, when I thought we’d never get back again. They all return, those memories that are so painful to carry and revisit, sparked by similar sensations of alienation, being trapped, having to sleep in mean rooms, being lost and helpless. Yes, helpless, that is the thing. The thing. Angels did come. They always do but sometimes that take so long. I will write it out. But not now. Not now.

Sometimes I just want to write about tiny details. Today those details are all olfactory. They are the smells I encounter in the dark. My sense of smell is heightened in the early morning before the sun has risen. I notice more, and not necessarily with my eyes, but with my other senses. My ears and my nose become more acute, more alert at picking up resonances. The first of these smells is the air. The morning air is, more often than not, sweet and clear and clean, though the direction of the wind can make a difference. I walked over the Buarth this morning, delighting at a reflection of three lit upper floor windows thrown across a neighbouring wall. I love to see the town from the height of the Buarth. I can see the sea, the town clock and the glittering of lights. Coming down the hill past Holy Trinity and then through the little passage that takes me towards The Avenue, I caught the sharp stink of new paint. Emulsion, I think. There’s no damp leaves smell yet. In fact, there aren’t many leaves on the ground at all. Walking along South Road and then cutting through past the trailer of gigs that is always there, I made my way to the harbour. Salt and fish and the mucky reek of stored nets and lobster baskets hit me, as it always does. Brine. Briny. The stink of the sea, strangely hot and sandy. Sticky like salt on the skin and the hair.

Was I a dog in a past life?

I’m beginning to write. I’m beginning to write about drawing. It’s an unearthing process, clumsy at first. I cannot find the words. I watch the ones that I write too closely, weighing them up, picking at them before they are even born on the page. Let it come. Let it all come out. And it will. It will.

Sometimes I notice things, little things I would generally overlook or just not see. It usually happens when I’m raised up, when I in another, slightly transcendent, state. Yesterday it was because I was walking in sunshine, some drawing had been done and a little of my anxiety associated with it had passed. I caught sight of it from the corner of my eye and had to double-back to check I’d seen it properly. It was a tiny, single pansy that had taken root as a seed in the crack between two paving stones. It was purple and yellow. A beautiful little thing. Growing and flowering as if it were part of some bigger scheme, a planted container or even a garden. A brave thing. A noble thing. It gave me joy.

I’m still being floored by it. I think about Joan Halifax’s meditations around pain, go into it, she advises, feel it, own it. I shall endeavour to do the same with my fear of the systems that LBU has in place. To me they are impenetrable. There are so many layers. I cannot navigate myself around them. I am hemmed in. To paraphrase Rilke, all about me is stone. Ask for help, he says. And I will. Though from whom, I don’t, as yet, know.

I walk into the rain in the dark. Another fear. I dress up for it. Layers of waterproofing that are heavy to heave around in. I do it. That is enough for today.

My body has had enough of oranges. It is time to return the comfort of warm food and tea. Soon. Another few days?