In the last few months I have occasionally opened this page and contemplated posting, but inspiration always seemed to vanish before the screen. However, if one is not within reach of the screen, inspiration briefly visits. And then it evaporates.
So instead of creative or factual writing, I have let my mind wander around and float. Subjects and themes briefly visit and then just as briefly evaporate.
How much all of this avoidance of writing is due to being alone, I wonder. Solitude is my companion, inside the house. Outside is another condition. There are many things which occupy my mind and time. Singing, walking, housekeeping, Italian and other courses, and plenty of reading. But some degree of sadness is always with me. What more I could do to banish or reduce it?
I do not know. It is not as though I have nothing to do, or lack friends, interests and activities.But I am alone, and this will be my permanent condition. No family is nearby, and other than my children, no one visits. The initiative must be mine, it seems, and this saddens me. My siblings frequently visited my older sister, who died two years ago, after suffering from dementia for some years, but in the five years since Dr P died, I have had only one visit, from one sister, for less than 24 hours. I am sad.
One becomes invisible. I know solitude and loneliness afflict many, not just me. At least I have books and music. I do not sit around idly.
Much time has been spent - I use the passive tense here to avoid the incessant use of 'I' this or that - in reorganising the house and its contents. Quite a a lot of furniture went to the Salvos, and a man from the local market happily made off with the old Parker chest of drawers and mirror which had belonged to Dr P. Today a new blind was installed and new blackout curtains are being made for my bedroom. And I have partially pruned the bay tree and can now see the camellias behind it. However all the cleaning up and disposal of surplus items has had its costs, as I foolishly moved a 4 drawer filing cabinet down to the corner, for the council clean up. In so doing, I have damaged my shoulder. I should have swallowed my desire for independence, and asked for help from a neighbour.
Having had a new bookcase made, I am now busy reorganising the books, and have even managed to give some away. Not very many, though. Going through the contents of old files and old documents inevitably takes much time. My first pregnancy is thus still documented, with the doctors' bills, the rubella contracted early in the pregnancy, and the loss of my twin baby boys. I could not bear those memories to be obliterated.
I feel that getting rid of old documents, and letters, in a way destroys one's identity. There are letters from my first husband, which I keep, although I doubt that he would have kept my letters to him. I think he just wanted the obliterate the records and the memories. And my very old letters and documents from the first few years of my marriage.
I wonder whether we keep more records of sorrows than of joys.
And then there are photographs. Relatively few from my infancy and childhood, more from after the birth of the children, and masses once digital photography replaced film. Physical copies should be made. Electronic storage is all very well, but hard copy is better.
Enough for now.
