At the theatre

At the theatre I get bored, watch the naked man strut ; as he walks around the stage, I think of the course I have been doing for two days on assessing suicidal behaviour. Before the theatre, we have met old friends, drunk coupes de champagne and eaten miniature vegetable kebabs : red, green and yellow roasted cubes impaled on wooden spikes. At the theatre, I listen to the machine-gun dictation of the French actors as they proclaim: NON, Non, non, non. At the theatre, I see the scarlet curtains, the exquisite back lit tableau of a shadow puppet wedding; toasted in black and white. At the theatre, sat in the second row, I hear a sudden gun shot. I Jump Right Out Of My Seat. Heart beating. At the theatre, we sit in a dull grey, muted silence as I long for the Shakspearean days, the Elizabethan theatre when people tossed rotten apples and walked free when they didn't like the play. In my theatre seat, I am itchy, bewitched and enjoying being in this dark live place; a double space to let my mind wander. Here. At the theatre, I feel sad and tired and suddenly remember all of the happy things that make my life worth living. I breath. At the theatre, I look at my watch - time ticks on and everything changes - I squeeze my lover's knee and surpress a giggle as the melodrama unfolds.

working through

I am working through the tiredness. It's sat in my bones this part week, clouding my vision, numbing my brain as I fall from stretched arms into tracing words, from a train to a tissue-wiped nose. Today we drove along the bay, watched the sky turn from ash to pencil grey ; drift back into cobalt blue. The sand was a somber muddy brown, then a startling, mustard yellow. The sea moving from milky green to a dark dangerous blue. Crouched in the rain, a man in a cadmium raincoat dug for seashells with a rake. Sheltering from the storm, we ate buckwheat pancakes filled with cheese, mussels and chips and drank dry cider and orangina. We giggled as I drank two coffees pretending to be dessert. I came home and showered while the little one slept. I put sweet lavendar oil on my tired skin, enhaled the comforting smell. I wrote emails, grabbed dates and time and refiled my life into a respectable chaos, embracing the beauty of the disorder which is mine.