I wonder if you know Oliver Sacks's book A Leg To Stand On.
It's an interesting and illuminating exploration of neurological functioning, like all his work.
In this book, he explores how proprioception works, traced through his own experience of breaking his leg in a hill-walking accident.
He was in hospital for a while, then had to convalesce; during the recovery and rehabilitation, he lost the proprioception of his leg.
Proprioception is where your body recognises one of its parts as integral to the whole organism. When proprioception is lost, the nervous system rejects that body part as something that doesn't belong to you — a horrifically disconcerting experience. Sacks describes occasions where patients have discovered what they perceived as the leg of a cadaver in the bed with them, and tried to throw it out in disgust — only to find themselves inexplicably on the floor with it (since it was their own leg).
He describes how some people lose their body memory in this way, and can only do simple actions like drinking a cup of tea by conscious focus and effort. It really is a book that opens your eyes.
Sacks had a miserable time recovering from his accident; the physio sessions were challenging and his progress slow.
Then one day a friend came to visit him, bringing the gift of some recorded music (back then, a cassette tape for a Walkman, I imagine). It was a favourite — Mendelssohn, I think he said. gratefully and appreciatively, he listened to it. Then it was time to go for a physio session, where t his astonishment he found he progressed much better than usual.
The music continued to play in his consciousness during the physio session, facilitating the integration and healing of his nervous system. He began to get better.
He discovered by these means that the nervous system operates, as he put it, like a kinetic melody. Playing music supports it.
After I read that (some decades ago) I began to hum tunes to myself when I had to go into environments that tend to stress and fragment my nervous system — supermarkets, for example, or urban driving — by overwhelming levels of stimuli.
I found that some tunes and types of music particularly help and support my functioning in such environments. Schubert's Trout Quintet does the trick, and some rock and roll music — I think it's the strong rhythmic beat, that I experience as cheerfulness.
I've just discovered a new song to add to my Neurological Proprioception Playlist — José Feliciano's Feliz Navidad. As it's also seasonal, for your enjoyment — here it is.
Saturday, 14 December 2019
Thursday, 12 December 2019
Wednesday, 11 December 2019
Finished it!
I've finished the book I've been working on, and it's ready to send in.
It felt like climbing a mountain, writing this book.
There were (as always) moments when I wasn't quite sure I could do it.
But now it's done.
May its way into the world be blessed and may it be a blessing.
It felt like climbing a mountain, writing this book.
There were (as always) moments when I wasn't quite sure I could do it.
But now it's done.
May its way into the world be blessed and may it be a blessing.
Sunday, 8 December 2019
Taking responsibility
Hastings, where I live, like all coastal towns has steep hills. That means the houses are built into hillsides, resulting in odd levels. A lot of the gardens rise up in terraces behind the houses, and many homes have spaces underneath at the front but not the back (or the other way round). When I moved back to Hastings after a spell of time living near Oxford, near the top of my list in choosing a home was level ground — roof and guttering maintenance is challenging and very expensive (scaffolding costs) if you live in a tall Victorian house and the land drops away making the top even harder to reach.
At the time I married my second husband Bernard, I lived in a tiny apartment in an Edwardian house. My home was built into the two ground floor reception rooms, what would once have been the drawing room and dining room — which meant I had huge windows filling my home with light (another important feature of my list in finding a place to live). The land dropped away at the front of the house, so my apartment included the space underneath — a garage plus some dead space I used for storing wood for the stove. I converted the garage into a studio for ceramics and stained glass, for Alice and Hebe's use. In front of the garage was a hard standing for a car, that I turned into a garden. My bedroom window overlooked the little garden I'd made. The context was an urban street.
My husband Bernard died of a horrendous illness — pemphigoid — an auto-immune condition that broke down his mucus membranes internally, reducing his airways and the passage from his mouth to his stomach into open wounds that healed into occlusions so he could neither breath nor swallow. Always thin, he went down to skin and bone, and a tracheostomy eased his breathing.
During our marriage, Bernard and I lived in his cottage on the edge of a wood in a country lane. He had never moved more than three miles in his whole life, and was a countryman born and bred. he loved the trees and the wild animals and birds, and his soul had a deep connection with them. It was his wish to die in his cottage, and we were able to make sure this happened.
But for about a month in the last year of his life, Bernard was in the hospital. You would, think, would you not, that a hospital was the very best place to take care of a person's physical needs; but I did not find it so.
This morning in my quiet time I found myself thinking back on those days. When his tracheostomy was put in, Bernard staying in the High Dependancy Unit for a day or two, where they looked after him superbly. Then he came back onto the regular ward where things went very differently. The nurses washing him turned him carelessly so the tube came out of his throat, and they hurt him when they unsuccessfully tried, several times, to ram it back in. He had to return to the HDU to have it re-inserted. Each time this happened he had to be sedated, but he could still feel under the sedation, only not respond, and he suffered greatly. When he was sent back from the HDU still under sedation, the ward staff were meant to keep him under observation as his consciousness returned. They did this by hooking him up to a blood-pressure machine that beeped every fifteen minutes, so every quarter hour they silenced the machine. That was the observation. As a consequence, in the confusion of recovery he pulled out the tube in his throat — and they tried unsuccessfully to ram it back in, and he had to be returned to the HDU to be sedated and have it reinserted. Every time this happened it hurt him and he couldn't breathe.
I realised that the only way to manage the situation was if I personally sat at his bedside as he recovered, to watch over him and stop him pulling the tube out. That went okay but, though I went in every day, the hospital staff never told me anything that was happening to him — I only had Bernard's account of it, which was confused by all the anaesthetic toxins coursing through his system, making his understanding like a waking dream, so that he thought he had been arrested and was in a prison. I never knew what was factually correct in what he told me, and in any case he had to write it all down because he couldn't speak any more.
I got very tired.
On one occasion I was with him when a nurse came to wash him. He used to ball up a pair of socks and put it under his testicles, sitting in the bed, because he had got so thin that his testicles fell uncomfortably between his legs. I remember the nurse pulling a "What? Weird!" kind of face as he took out the socks so he could be washed. I explained to her. I felt such a surge of anger that she didn't understand and couldn't empathise.
There came a night when he went into absolute crisis. It was one more occasion when his tube was dislodged, and the sedation affected his thinking and he thought he was in prison. Desperate for my help, he begged them to fetch me, but they wouldn't because it was in the small hours of the night, too early.
But a fox came to fetch me.
This has never happened before or since. I was so tired during that time; I had a full-time job pastoring four churches as well, and taking lots of funerals to keep up my income — I used to sleep very deeply. I locked up his cottage and stayed in my little apartment in the town, near to the hospital and near the churches. I was woken from sleep by a fox standing under my bedroom window, looking up at the house and barking, barking, barking. After I woke and looked out, it went away and never returned. So I knew something was up with Bernard. By the time I got there at seven in the morning, things had calmed down a bit but he was desperate to come home. After that he started up with a cancer that went romping through his body, and though the hospital staff said they could take out his kidneys (where it had begun), he and I decided enough was enough and I brought him home to his cottage to end his life in peace. We managed brilliantly, me and my girls, as a team, and he died contentedly and beautifully.
I also looked back, this morning, on the end of my father's life. He hated being interfered with in any way — cut his own hair, never went near the doctor unless he had an absolute emergency, avoided the dentist like the plague. When his tooth fell out he glued it back in with superglue, attached to the one next to it, and that worked well for a while.
He had a couple of medical emergencies in his life — gall-bladder infections that nearly killed him for which he needed surgery, and an enlarged prostate that blocked his bladder and created an emergency for which, again, he needed surgery. The prostate was not cancerous, and the operation should have been straightforward, but the after-care on the ward was slip-shod and he ended up with septicaemia that nearly took his life. We had an occasion when we were all gathered at the hospital while they transfused him throughout the night, and managed in the end to bring him through. It changed him. It was after that he moved out from living with my mother and went to live in a cottage on his own. I think, at that point, peace became of paramount importance.
In those last years, he was determined to do things his own way. The local council required that residents sort their trash for recycling — and he wouldn't. He was the only man in Hertfordshire for whom they simply had to make an exception. He drove his car well beyond the time it was advisable for him to be doing so — his driving was distinctly dodgy towards the end. He went into the town to get money from the bank, and refused to acknowledge the parking restrictions. He preferred to pay the sixty-pound fine from the traffic warden than park where they said he could. He'd park outside the bank and that was that, fine or no fine. He just needed to do things his way.
His death in the end was quick and simple. His heart artery split, and I thank God that he was spared any more goes round in a hospital or any kind of nursing facility.
My mother, who lives in a kind of dream world of her own these days, housebound and semi-hallucinatory, is utterly determined to stay in her own home. Thankfully she can, because she has the world's best and most dedicated carer, who comes in at least twice every day and watches over her like guarding the Crown Jewels.
What I observed, in seeing Bernard and my father grow old and reach the end of their lives, was that hospitals and doctors do not provide solutions in the way you might hope. I've learned not at all "doctors are useless", but that they cannot offer the remedial support I once expected. They sorted out some problems but substituted new problems of their own devising. The care was hit-and-miss, often rough-and-ready. Some nurses were excellent, others dire. The surgeons were skilled and effective but not holistic in their thinking and approach. When a man's body is disintegrating, "We can have that kidney out on Monday," is not helpful.
And there have been some things — like xanthelasma, varicose veins, fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, tonsilloliths — for which my doctors had either no solution at all to offer, or none that proved effective. But that didn't mean no solution existed, just that I had to track it down myself.
I have seen that physicians and surgeons can save my life — they have done so for both my father and my mother — but watching my mother, I have also understood that I might not want my life saved. What one can cling to is not necessarily desirable.
So I realised, I really, really do have to take responsibility for my own health. By the grace and mercy of God, the Internet has come along to help us with this.
I'd never known before that general anaesthetics trigger or advance dementia in elderly people. I never knew until this last year that rheumatic disorders, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, joint inflammation, Alzheimers, fibromyalgia, mental illness, neurological malfunctioning (ADHD, ASD etc), Parkinsons and obesity are all linked together, and are to a significant degree the legacy of wheat and sugar — and for many people, dairy products, too — and we have the power to address these health scourges in our dietary choices. I didn't know about the opioid effects of modern wheat. I didn't know about the importance of adapting your body to relying on fat not sugar for calorific energy. I've learned about the effects of rest, and conversely of stress, and discovered the tool of intermittent fasting.
All my life I've had a sweet tooth. Left to myself I'd live on bread and jam, with the occasional ham sandwich or pizza, and sometimes swapping out the jam for lemon curd.
Learning to live on a diet of (wild or organic, pasture-raised, high welfare) fish/meat/poultry/eggs, nuts, mushrooms, non-starchy veggies, salad, low-sugar fruit, herbs, sea salt and coconut/olive oil, has been a dietary revolution for me.
But I have seen first-hand what hospital care is like, and so far as it is possible I want to take responsibility for my own health for as long as I possibly can. I have learned to my great surprise that the care of experts is sometimes inferior to managing my own care myself. In becoming an elderly person, how I look at it is this: every passing day I can successfully retain control of my health and independence is one day less to live at the mercy of patchy care from hospital staff.
There is also the wider spiritual dimension, which I keep in mind. God watches over me. There were angels present when my youngest child was born — her sister saw them. A fox came to tell me when Bernard was in trouble and needed my help. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy," remains true. If I also take responsibility to live in alignment with the flow of grace, allowing God's Spirit to course through my being day by day, then all things — even the hard times and the suffering — will work together for good.
But this I know. Nobody can live my life for me. I have to take responsibility.
In recent times, I have observed another thing. Happiness is a crucial component in all of this. Some decades ago I came upon a quotation from Archbishop Michael Ramsay, saying that at the end of one's life God would have only one question: "Did you enjoy your life?"
At the time I heard that, I thought it was nonsense; it offended me. I was a young woman then, while Ramsay was an old man. Only the perspective of age could reveal the importance and truth of it. However hard you try, however meticulously responsible you are, if you yourself are not happy you will a) get ill, and b) not be able to make other people happy. Reaching for your own happiness is as much a responsibility as diet and exercise. Happiness is not selfish and it isn't an optional extra.
Happiness is like love — there's enough to go round. A mother can love four children as much as each other and as much as two children. She doesn't run out of love. Happiness is not a commodity. If you are happy, it doesn't mean you've deprived a homeless man in your country or a person in rural Africa of the happiness they could have enjoyed. And you cannot buy happiness. It is not monetised. Happiness comes from God not Mammon. It proceeds from an orientation of your life. If you live in the flow of grace, you will be happy. Nobody should ever feel guilty for being happy or for wanting to be happy. It's what God meant you to be.
One final thing and then I am done. You know the expression, "Not my circus, not my monkeys"? It's important. "Thou shalt not steal/covet" applies to problems as much as to anything else that belongs to your neighbour. To love is mandatory, so is kindness and forgiveness — without these flowing through you, you will never be happy. But respect and boundaries are vital too. You have to maintain your boundaries, and respect your neighbour's existential responsibilities.
You have been given one life and one only. It is an immense and glorious opportunity; and one is quite enough.
At the time I married my second husband Bernard, I lived in a tiny apartment in an Edwardian house. My home was built into the two ground floor reception rooms, what would once have been the drawing room and dining room — which meant I had huge windows filling my home with light (another important feature of my list in finding a place to live). The land dropped away at the front of the house, so my apartment included the space underneath — a garage plus some dead space I used for storing wood for the stove. I converted the garage into a studio for ceramics and stained glass, for Alice and Hebe's use. In front of the garage was a hard standing for a car, that I turned into a garden. My bedroom window overlooked the little garden I'd made. The context was an urban street.
My husband Bernard died of a horrendous illness — pemphigoid — an auto-immune condition that broke down his mucus membranes internally, reducing his airways and the passage from his mouth to his stomach into open wounds that healed into occlusions so he could neither breath nor swallow. Always thin, he went down to skin and bone, and a tracheostomy eased his breathing.
During our marriage, Bernard and I lived in his cottage on the edge of a wood in a country lane. He had never moved more than three miles in his whole life, and was a countryman born and bred. he loved the trees and the wild animals and birds, and his soul had a deep connection with them. It was his wish to die in his cottage, and we were able to make sure this happened.
But for about a month in the last year of his life, Bernard was in the hospital. You would, think, would you not, that a hospital was the very best place to take care of a person's physical needs; but I did not find it so.
This morning in my quiet time I found myself thinking back on those days. When his tracheostomy was put in, Bernard staying in the High Dependancy Unit for a day or two, where they looked after him superbly. Then he came back onto the regular ward where things went very differently. The nurses washing him turned him carelessly so the tube came out of his throat, and they hurt him when they unsuccessfully tried, several times, to ram it back in. He had to return to the HDU to have it re-inserted. Each time this happened he had to be sedated, but he could still feel under the sedation, only not respond, and he suffered greatly. When he was sent back from the HDU still under sedation, the ward staff were meant to keep him under observation as his consciousness returned. They did this by hooking him up to a blood-pressure machine that beeped every fifteen minutes, so every quarter hour they silenced the machine. That was the observation. As a consequence, in the confusion of recovery he pulled out the tube in his throat — and they tried unsuccessfully to ram it back in, and he had to be returned to the HDU to be sedated and have it reinserted. Every time this happened it hurt him and he couldn't breathe.
I realised that the only way to manage the situation was if I personally sat at his bedside as he recovered, to watch over him and stop him pulling the tube out. That went okay but, though I went in every day, the hospital staff never told me anything that was happening to him — I only had Bernard's account of it, which was confused by all the anaesthetic toxins coursing through his system, making his understanding like a waking dream, so that he thought he had been arrested and was in a prison. I never knew what was factually correct in what he told me, and in any case he had to write it all down because he couldn't speak any more.
I got very tired.
On one occasion I was with him when a nurse came to wash him. He used to ball up a pair of socks and put it under his testicles, sitting in the bed, because he had got so thin that his testicles fell uncomfortably between his legs. I remember the nurse pulling a "What? Weird!" kind of face as he took out the socks so he could be washed. I explained to her. I felt such a surge of anger that she didn't understand and couldn't empathise.
There came a night when he went into absolute crisis. It was one more occasion when his tube was dislodged, and the sedation affected his thinking and he thought he was in prison. Desperate for my help, he begged them to fetch me, but they wouldn't because it was in the small hours of the night, too early.
But a fox came to fetch me.
This has never happened before or since. I was so tired during that time; I had a full-time job pastoring four churches as well, and taking lots of funerals to keep up my income — I used to sleep very deeply. I locked up his cottage and stayed in my little apartment in the town, near to the hospital and near the churches. I was woken from sleep by a fox standing under my bedroom window, looking up at the house and barking, barking, barking. After I woke and looked out, it went away and never returned. So I knew something was up with Bernard. By the time I got there at seven in the morning, things had calmed down a bit but he was desperate to come home. After that he started up with a cancer that went romping through his body, and though the hospital staff said they could take out his kidneys (where it had begun), he and I decided enough was enough and I brought him home to his cottage to end his life in peace. We managed brilliantly, me and my girls, as a team, and he died contentedly and beautifully.
I also looked back, this morning, on the end of my father's life. He hated being interfered with in any way — cut his own hair, never went near the doctor unless he had an absolute emergency, avoided the dentist like the plague. When his tooth fell out he glued it back in with superglue, attached to the one next to it, and that worked well for a while.
He had a couple of medical emergencies in his life — gall-bladder infections that nearly killed him for which he needed surgery, and an enlarged prostate that blocked his bladder and created an emergency for which, again, he needed surgery. The prostate was not cancerous, and the operation should have been straightforward, but the after-care on the ward was slip-shod and he ended up with septicaemia that nearly took his life. We had an occasion when we were all gathered at the hospital while they transfused him throughout the night, and managed in the end to bring him through. It changed him. It was after that he moved out from living with my mother and went to live in a cottage on his own. I think, at that point, peace became of paramount importance.
In those last years, he was determined to do things his own way. The local council required that residents sort their trash for recycling — and he wouldn't. He was the only man in Hertfordshire for whom they simply had to make an exception. He drove his car well beyond the time it was advisable for him to be doing so — his driving was distinctly dodgy towards the end. He went into the town to get money from the bank, and refused to acknowledge the parking restrictions. He preferred to pay the sixty-pound fine from the traffic warden than park where they said he could. He'd park outside the bank and that was that, fine or no fine. He just needed to do things his way.
His death in the end was quick and simple. His heart artery split, and I thank God that he was spared any more goes round in a hospital or any kind of nursing facility.
My mother, who lives in a kind of dream world of her own these days, housebound and semi-hallucinatory, is utterly determined to stay in her own home. Thankfully she can, because she has the world's best and most dedicated carer, who comes in at least twice every day and watches over her like guarding the Crown Jewels.
What I observed, in seeing Bernard and my father grow old and reach the end of their lives, was that hospitals and doctors do not provide solutions in the way you might hope. I've learned not at all "doctors are useless", but that they cannot offer the remedial support I once expected. They sorted out some problems but substituted new problems of their own devising. The care was hit-and-miss, often rough-and-ready. Some nurses were excellent, others dire. The surgeons were skilled and effective but not holistic in their thinking and approach. When a man's body is disintegrating, "We can have that kidney out on Monday," is not helpful.
And there have been some things — like xanthelasma, varicose veins, fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, tonsilloliths — for which my doctors had either no solution at all to offer, or none that proved effective. But that didn't mean no solution existed, just that I had to track it down myself.
I have seen that physicians and surgeons can save my life — they have done so for both my father and my mother — but watching my mother, I have also understood that I might not want my life saved. What one can cling to is not necessarily desirable.
So I realised, I really, really do have to take responsibility for my own health. By the grace and mercy of God, the Internet has come along to help us with this.
I'd never known before that general anaesthetics trigger or advance dementia in elderly people. I never knew until this last year that rheumatic disorders, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, joint inflammation, Alzheimers, fibromyalgia, mental illness, neurological malfunctioning (ADHD, ASD etc), Parkinsons and obesity are all linked together, and are to a significant degree the legacy of wheat and sugar — and for many people, dairy products, too — and we have the power to address these health scourges in our dietary choices. I didn't know about the opioid effects of modern wheat. I didn't know about the importance of adapting your body to relying on fat not sugar for calorific energy. I've learned about the effects of rest, and conversely of stress, and discovered the tool of intermittent fasting.
All my life I've had a sweet tooth. Left to myself I'd live on bread and jam, with the occasional ham sandwich or pizza, and sometimes swapping out the jam for lemon curd.
Learning to live on a diet of (wild or organic, pasture-raised, high welfare) fish/meat/poultry/eggs, nuts, mushrooms, non-starchy veggies, salad, low-sugar fruit, herbs, sea salt and coconut/olive oil, has been a dietary revolution for me.
But I have seen first-hand what hospital care is like, and so far as it is possible I want to take responsibility for my own health for as long as I possibly can. I have learned to my great surprise that the care of experts is sometimes inferior to managing my own care myself. In becoming an elderly person, how I look at it is this: every passing day I can successfully retain control of my health and independence is one day less to live at the mercy of patchy care from hospital staff.
There is also the wider spiritual dimension, which I keep in mind. God watches over me. There were angels present when my youngest child was born — her sister saw them. A fox came to tell me when Bernard was in trouble and needed my help. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy," remains true. If I also take responsibility to live in alignment with the flow of grace, allowing God's Spirit to course through my being day by day, then all things — even the hard times and the suffering — will work together for good.
But this I know. Nobody can live my life for me. I have to take responsibility.
In recent times, I have observed another thing. Happiness is a crucial component in all of this. Some decades ago I came upon a quotation from Archbishop Michael Ramsay, saying that at the end of one's life God would have only one question: "Did you enjoy your life?"
At the time I heard that, I thought it was nonsense; it offended me. I was a young woman then, while Ramsay was an old man. Only the perspective of age could reveal the importance and truth of it. However hard you try, however meticulously responsible you are, if you yourself are not happy you will a) get ill, and b) not be able to make other people happy. Reaching for your own happiness is as much a responsibility as diet and exercise. Happiness is not selfish and it isn't an optional extra.
Happiness is like love — there's enough to go round. A mother can love four children as much as each other and as much as two children. She doesn't run out of love. Happiness is not a commodity. If you are happy, it doesn't mean you've deprived a homeless man in your country or a person in rural Africa of the happiness they could have enjoyed. And you cannot buy happiness. It is not monetised. Happiness comes from God not Mammon. It proceeds from an orientation of your life. If you live in the flow of grace, you will be happy. Nobody should ever feel guilty for being happy or for wanting to be happy. It's what God meant you to be.
One final thing and then I am done. You know the expression, "Not my circus, not my monkeys"? It's important. "Thou shalt not steal/covet" applies to problems as much as to anything else that belongs to your neighbour. To love is mandatory, so is kindness and forgiveness — without these flowing through you, you will never be happy. But respect and boundaries are vital too. You have to maintain your boundaries, and respect your neighbour's existential responsibilities.
You have been given one life and one only. It is an immense and glorious opportunity; and one is quite enough.
Saturday, 7 December 2019
The power of being whole
Bethany, who reads and comments here sometimes, got in touch with me today after reading my post called Contribution.
She sent me this lovely poem she'd written, and I wanted to share it with you because it's so good.
She sent me this lovely poem she'd written, and I wanted to share it with you because it's so good.
Bethany's poems are brilliant. Her wonderful book The Breath Between came out of her reflections on working in a hospice context. I think you'd love it as much as I do.
Friday, 6 December 2019
Contribution
In choosing a life path of hiddenness and simplicity, a small and lowly track of quietness, there remains the question, "What, then, will be my contribution?"
Because I believe we are here to breathe out as well as breathe in, to give back as well as receive.
Even if you are breathing so quietly that people think you might actually be dead, there still has to be an outbreath as well as an inbreath.
So I try to find something that I can contribute every day to make life better for someone, somewhere. It might be writing something here, or sending an encouraging email, or even just praying for somebody going through difficult times, or making sure to speak kindly to the people I live with, and encourage them.
It's a big world, and even if I were the Prime Minister or the Queen, I would be more limited than I might have thought in the difference I could make to the way things are. There are forces in the universe individuals cannot realistically resist — the river is huge and its current is powerful. But as I swirl helplessly along, carried by the tide whether I want to go or not, it may be possible to scoop up a kitten clinging half drowned to a fallen branch, and carry it warm and safe against my heart.
I can make very little difference to everything, but I might be able to make a big difference to one small situation, today. And so might you, of course. I wonder what it will be.
Because I believe we are here to breathe out as well as breathe in, to give back as well as receive.
Even if you are breathing so quietly that people think you might actually be dead, there still has to be an outbreath as well as an inbreath.
So I try to find something that I can contribute every day to make life better for someone, somewhere. It might be writing something here, or sending an encouraging email, or even just praying for somebody going through difficult times, or making sure to speak kindly to the people I live with, and encourage them.
It's a big world, and even if I were the Prime Minister or the Queen, I would be more limited than I might have thought in the difference I could make to the way things are. There are forces in the universe individuals cannot realistically resist — the river is huge and its current is powerful. But as I swirl helplessly along, carried by the tide whether I want to go or not, it may be possible to scoop up a kitten clinging half drowned to a fallen branch, and carry it warm and safe against my heart.
I can make very little difference to everything, but I might be able to make a big difference to one small situation, today. And so might you, of course. I wonder what it will be.
Thursday, 5 December 2019
Frustration and sticky blood
There are some circles you cannot square.
I am 62. On my 66th birthday I will be eligible for free bus travel. Until then I am not.
My husband is older than I am, so he already has a free bus ticket, but he almost never uses it because he prefers doing things by car.
We live in a sprawling coastal town with steep hills. Our house is at the top of a hill plunging down into a beautiful park. Walking in the park is nice but there's an almighty hill to climb whichever way home you take.
My work is very sedentary, and doesn't pay much so I have a small income so I rarely go anywhere. Holidays, trips out, weekends away, are not a thing in my life. I don't mind this at all — I have a very happy life, and I have certain health routines that make staying away from home a problem. Also my legs aren't good for sitting in trains/cars/buses for any length of time. My feet have to be elevated or ambulant. But with all this not really doing much, I notice my muscles atrophying significantly as they do in people of my age group. When I climb a set of stairs the muscles in my legs burn. When I climb a steep hill I feel like I'm going to die. I need to walk more. But I need to increase it gradually, starting somewhere flat. The seafront is flat, and long; perfect. But the seafront is about two miles down the steep hill at the top of which we live. By the time I got there I'd be knackered. Too tired to walk by the sea. And then I'd have to walk the two miles back up the steep hill.
Ideally I'd catch a bus down to the sea front, walk a couple of miles along it, then back up the hill as far as the station and catch a bus home. Which I will do, once I've got my bus ticket. In three years time.
I can get a monthly (paid for) bus ticket which gives travel at a reduced rate — £56 for 28 days. I have a special card for this, and can top it up online. You have to allow two days for any top-up to take effect. How the hell do I know if I will want to go for a walk in two days time? It might be bucketing with rain, I could be right in the middle of working on an important bit of text while it's still in my mind, there could be a notification of an Amazon delivery...
Alternatively, I could buy a daily rider for £4.50. Today the sun is shining. I want to go down to the town to buy some tooth powder from the new scoop shop. I don't know how much the tooth powder costs, but it'll be very expensive tooth powder indeed if it has £4.50 added to it for a bus ticket, won't it?
I could walk down, but there's that very steep hill to climb back up, and I just feel too old and too tired. Unless I'm with someone else and we can walk home together. Which scenario does not exist.
My husband points out to me that on Friday we will be going down to the town to get my mother's groceries and I can get the tooth powder then. I know this, but the reason I want to go down on the bus is so I get the exercise of walking to the bus stop, then up the hill to the station in town to get the bus up the big hill, then walking home from the bus stop. It's easy enough to get tooth powder, but I want a reason that will take me out of the house and make me walk. But not if it trebles the cost of the tooth powder — that would be silly. But will I have any muscles left at all by 2023 when I can have a free bus ticket?
I walk to Asda, which is at the end of our road — not much of a walk but at least it means moving instead of sitting still, and it's not at the top of a hill that feels like it's going to kill me.
I think I'll grow a beard and develop a deep voice and use my husband's bus ticket. That would solve the problem.
Well, I wrote that yesterday afternoon, then last night my blood started clotting in my leg veins. When this happens I can usually fix it with yarrow oil, which is brilliant and fast, but I've run out — got some on order but it won't arrive until Friday, so I've stocked up on aspirin instead and drinking lots of water. I do have yarrow in the leg ointment I make, but sometimes you need the undiluted and undispersed stuff put straight on. And of course there's none growing in the garden at this time of year; the juice from the plant doesn't pack the punch of the essential oil, but it works. Anyway, it kind of solves the conundrum — nothing like agonising pain when you try to stand up, as a gentle reminder from on high to drink more water and get some exercise! 'You've gotta move when the Spirit says move.' I went for a walk late, when it was starting up, but the thing goes inexorably through its course. I have, as you might say, varicose veins to die for. I'm going to get that bus ticket...
... I made myself some rosemary tea, took some cayenne pepper, went for a brisk walk round the park as soon as I could actually stand on my legs, pinched some hawthorn tincture from Ted the cat (who has a heart murmur), had some raw garlic, and all that has helped considerably. I think it was the long evening sitting in uncomfortable theatre seats at the ballet, and travelling to and from on the train, that probably set it off.
I am 62. On my 66th birthday I will be eligible for free bus travel. Until then I am not.
My husband is older than I am, so he already has a free bus ticket, but he almost never uses it because he prefers doing things by car.
We live in a sprawling coastal town with steep hills. Our house is at the top of a hill plunging down into a beautiful park. Walking in the park is nice but there's an almighty hill to climb whichever way home you take.
My work is very sedentary, and doesn't pay much so I have a small income so I rarely go anywhere. Holidays, trips out, weekends away, are not a thing in my life. I don't mind this at all — I have a very happy life, and I have certain health routines that make staying away from home a problem. Also my legs aren't good for sitting in trains/cars/buses for any length of time. My feet have to be elevated or ambulant. But with all this not really doing much, I notice my muscles atrophying significantly as they do in people of my age group. When I climb a set of stairs the muscles in my legs burn. When I climb a steep hill I feel like I'm going to die. I need to walk more. But I need to increase it gradually, starting somewhere flat. The seafront is flat, and long; perfect. But the seafront is about two miles down the steep hill at the top of which we live. By the time I got there I'd be knackered. Too tired to walk by the sea. And then I'd have to walk the two miles back up the steep hill.
Ideally I'd catch a bus down to the sea front, walk a couple of miles along it, then back up the hill as far as the station and catch a bus home. Which I will do, once I've got my bus ticket. In three years time.
I can get a monthly (paid for) bus ticket which gives travel at a reduced rate — £56 for 28 days. I have a special card for this, and can top it up online. You have to allow two days for any top-up to take effect. How the hell do I know if I will want to go for a walk in two days time? It might be bucketing with rain, I could be right in the middle of working on an important bit of text while it's still in my mind, there could be a notification of an Amazon delivery...
Alternatively, I could buy a daily rider for £4.50. Today the sun is shining. I want to go down to the town to buy some tooth powder from the new scoop shop. I don't know how much the tooth powder costs, but it'll be very expensive tooth powder indeed if it has £4.50 added to it for a bus ticket, won't it?
I could walk down, but there's that very steep hill to climb back up, and I just feel too old and too tired. Unless I'm with someone else and we can walk home together. Which scenario does not exist.
My husband points out to me that on Friday we will be going down to the town to get my mother's groceries and I can get the tooth powder then. I know this, but the reason I want to go down on the bus is so I get the exercise of walking to the bus stop, then up the hill to the station in town to get the bus up the big hill, then walking home from the bus stop. It's easy enough to get tooth powder, but I want a reason that will take me out of the house and make me walk. But not if it trebles the cost of the tooth powder — that would be silly. But will I have any muscles left at all by 2023 when I can have a free bus ticket?
I walk to Asda, which is at the end of our road — not much of a walk but at least it means moving instead of sitting still, and it's not at the top of a hill that feels like it's going to kill me.
I think I'll grow a beard and develop a deep voice and use my husband's bus ticket. That would solve the problem.
Well, I wrote that yesterday afternoon, then last night my blood started clotting in my leg veins. When this happens I can usually fix it with yarrow oil, which is brilliant and fast, but I've run out — got some on order but it won't arrive until Friday, so I've stocked up on aspirin instead and drinking lots of water. I do have yarrow in the leg ointment I make, but sometimes you need the undiluted and undispersed stuff put straight on. And of course there's none growing in the garden at this time of year; the juice from the plant doesn't pack the punch of the essential oil, but it works. Anyway, it kind of solves the conundrum — nothing like agonising pain when you try to stand up, as a gentle reminder from on high to drink more water and get some exercise! 'You've gotta move when the Spirit says move.' I went for a walk late, when it was starting up, but the thing goes inexorably through its course. I have, as you might say, varicose veins to die for. I'm going to get that bus ticket...
... I made myself some rosemary tea, took some cayenne pepper, went for a brisk walk round the park as soon as I could actually stand on my legs, pinched some hawthorn tincture from Ted the cat (who has a heart murmur), had some raw garlic, and all that has helped considerably. I think it was the long evening sitting in uncomfortable theatre seats at the ballet, and travelling to and from on the train, that probably set it off.
Wednesday, 4 December 2019
Psalm 91
The terror by night
the arrow that flies by day
the plague that stalks in the darkness
the scourge that lays waste at noon
Tuesday, 3 December 2019
Violent and gentle death
On Sunday I saw something that really surprised me.
After chapel we called in to the supermarket to pick up a few bits and pieces we'd forgotten. It has its own small approach road, passing its own fuel station. On Sunday this small road is very congested with traffic (weekend shoppers), some turning in and out of the fuel station, all moving very slowly — further slowed by a pedestrian crossing between the fuel station and the supermarket itself.
Along side the road there are lots of shrubs and some trees planted, and mature trees grow all along the back of the car parking area. So there are often birds around, looking for crumbs that people might have dropped in the car park.
As we drove away from the supermarket back along the approach road, rolling along slowly like everyone else, a line of cars was coming in the opposite direction towards the store, also travelling really slowly. The front car was hardly moving at all, and we saw a bird — a wood pigeon — pottering about on the road in front of the car, pecking for food. Pigeons are not the most alert pedestrians. I assumed the driver of the car had seen the pigeon and was going so very slowly to give it a chance to move out of his way — and I think this was probably true.
But then, exactly as the pigeon moved in line with the wheel of the car, ignoring the presence of the vehicle completely, the driver rolled forward. He would not have been able to see the bird, and if he knew it was there I imagine he thought it had moved off to the side. I don't know why it didn't. Within a couple of seconds, what had been a beautiful pale grey bird with a softly coloured buff breast and dark grey collar, was reduced to a tangled lifeless mess of meat and feathers.
Tony cried out involuntarily, "Oh, no!!"
It felt so terrible sad, and so unnecessary, and I ranted on for a while about why people can't be more careful and check to make sure, and I searched my heart to see if it would be realistic never to step inside another motor vehicle again. But no it wouldn't, and in any case I rely on other people driving motor vehicles for everything that supports my daily life.
I was still thinking about that poor bird yesterday, but what surprised me was this: its death was both horribly violent and mercifully gentle. I don't fully understand how that can be, and I would never have thought I'd bracket violence and gentleness together, but it was so.
The bird was contentedly going about its business, apparently oblivious of the danger from the car, ignoring its presence completely, unperturbed and unafraid. Then two seconds later it was dead. Its death was swift and immediate. It was completely squashed, because it was exactly aligned with the wheel. No struggle, no injury, no fear.
It made me re-think the way I categorise life events.
After chapel we called in to the supermarket to pick up a few bits and pieces we'd forgotten. It has its own small approach road, passing its own fuel station. On Sunday this small road is very congested with traffic (weekend shoppers), some turning in and out of the fuel station, all moving very slowly — further slowed by a pedestrian crossing between the fuel station and the supermarket itself.
Along side the road there are lots of shrubs and some trees planted, and mature trees grow all along the back of the car parking area. So there are often birds around, looking for crumbs that people might have dropped in the car park.
As we drove away from the supermarket back along the approach road, rolling along slowly like everyone else, a line of cars was coming in the opposite direction towards the store, also travelling really slowly. The front car was hardly moving at all, and we saw a bird — a wood pigeon — pottering about on the road in front of the car, pecking for food. Pigeons are not the most alert pedestrians. I assumed the driver of the car had seen the pigeon and was going so very slowly to give it a chance to move out of his way — and I think this was probably true.
But then, exactly as the pigeon moved in line with the wheel of the car, ignoring the presence of the vehicle completely, the driver rolled forward. He would not have been able to see the bird, and if he knew it was there I imagine he thought it had moved off to the side. I don't know why it didn't. Within a couple of seconds, what had been a beautiful pale grey bird with a softly coloured buff breast and dark grey collar, was reduced to a tangled lifeless mess of meat and feathers.
Tony cried out involuntarily, "Oh, no!!"
It felt so terrible sad, and so unnecessary, and I ranted on for a while about why people can't be more careful and check to make sure, and I searched my heart to see if it would be realistic never to step inside another motor vehicle again. But no it wouldn't, and in any case I rely on other people driving motor vehicles for everything that supports my daily life.
I was still thinking about that poor bird yesterday, but what surprised me was this: its death was both horribly violent and mercifully gentle. I don't fully understand how that can be, and I would never have thought I'd bracket violence and gentleness together, but it was so.
The bird was contentedly going about its business, apparently oblivious of the danger from the car, ignoring its presence completely, unperturbed and unafraid. Then two seconds later it was dead. Its death was swift and immediate. It was completely squashed, because it was exactly aligned with the wheel. No struggle, no injury, no fear.
It made me re-think the way I categorise life events.
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