Prompt: Observe everything about the moment — tell yourself you want to remember it three years from now.
It is a cold for summer. Usually in February the sun beats down relentlessly forcing the temperatures into the thirties. But today there is a cool wind blowing off the ocean and dark grey clouds covering the sun. The sliding door is closed so the bamboo curtain designed to keep insects out doesn’t flap around in the breeze.
My boyfriend works beside me. He has chosen today to work from home. He seems to spend most of his time answering emails and phone calls. I remember what that was like — everyone else’s problems carving away at the day, leaving you with no time to do anything new or productive. ‘What should I do about …?’ or ‘How do I fix …?’ are the opening lines to a song that gets stuck in your head. I wonder sometimes how people are able to dress themselves in the morning without having to phone for help. ‘Where do I put the button again?’ In the fucking button-hole.
We are having trouble sleeping. Well, I am having trouble sleeping. I wake every hour and a half drenched in sweat and anxious. At that moment it seems impossible to remain still so I get up and go to the bathroom. Sometimes I go outside and have a cigarette on the balcony where the breeze evaporates the moisture on my skin, and sometimes I lay on the sofa, feeling the cold fabric against my back.
Last night I gave up at 2am and slept in the spare room. The queen sized bed is mine, the one I bought when I left my husband. It holds the imprint of three men— my married lover, my one night stand and the new man I have now slept beside for the past five years. I don’t think about any of them in the middle of the night, I just think about how much better it is to sleep alone right now. Somehow when I’m by myself the sheets don’t feel like hot slices of aluminium foil wrapped around my skin.
As well as the bed in the master bedroom belonging to my boyfriend, the desk I work on is his as well. It is a heavy, old timber desk that looks as though it was once a dining table. The vanish has grown dull and scratched — not all of it my fault — it came already damaged. We all come damaged to some extent. I’m not one for refurbishment, I like to see the age of something, the testament to the fact that someone or something has had an interesting life.
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