The building where I work - sporadically in these pandemic times - has a helicopter landing pad on its roof. It is one of several landing pads, this is a university clinics campus after all. Sometimes, when a helicopter lands while I sit at my desk, the reverberations create this roaring noise that seems to keep ringing inside me for a while after it's over.
This evening as I was unlocking my bicycle, a helicopter was just about to take off after bringing a patient and as usual, several people stood and watched. Patients out for a walk, visitors about to leave, staff coming or going. I looked up and saw the pilot getting in, shut the door and then the racket of the engine started. I have seen this many times. I usually find it is a reassuring sight, a patient delivered to the trauma unit, in safe hands at least. Tonight, though, I was fighting tears.
I cycled through the forest. As the clocks go back this weekend, it was the last bright evening. For the next four months, it will be dark now when I leave work - on the days I don't work from home. At the clearing with the two big meadows, the horses were grazing and trotting about with the sun setting behind them. I stopped and took a picture and sent it to a friend who used to cycle along here with me, she has moved to Berlin and misses this forest badly. I also put on my mittens, once the sun sets, it gets really cold now. The end of October after all.
After dinner, the grandchild called and told us all about bottle feeding Daisy the lamb. We sang a few songs together before their day started in earnest and we settled down for our night time.
I watched the last episode of a tedious thriller on ITV, with an ending I have already forgotten, and switched to a German channel for yet another documentary about the deportations of German Jews during the last war years. On nights like this one, the weight of sorrow seems too heavy.
I am still on that weird path of further diagnostics, waiting for the next expert's review. It's a long and exhausting story. I don't sleep well. I wish I could find the words to comment on all your blogs.
Good to see you here today through your words, Sabine. I think of you often, especially this fall when I am out walking more than usual for this time of year, inspired by knowing you don't hesitate to give yourself the joy of riding your bicycle and breathing the fresh air. Not cold enough for mittens here yet but soon. Sweet to picture you and the grandchild singing. Sending love always.
ReplyDeleteSome days the sadness of the world presses in. Dusk is the hardest hour of the day for me if I happen to be inside. I made that photo big and fell into its details. Here we are talking to one another from opposite sides of the world.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you're stuck in limbo. Sending hugs.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to comment on all of our blogs. We will hold you in tenderness and wait with you.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad to know that you are here. I have been wondering/worrying a little...
ReplyDeleteBut you only have so much energy, I am sure, and you have to spend it living your life.
Take care, dear woman.
I think of you so often, Sabine. Always hoping for a post here with an update or simply your beautiful words of the moment, the view, the sounds of the helicopter, the conversation with your grandchild. We wait with you, at your side.
ReplyDeleteWe set our clocks back next weekend. I find it so weird that we keep playing tricks with clocks and time, as if we can fool the earth and the sun. Take care there.
You have such a heavy burden. And no clear indication of what it is exactly or what can be done about it. It's exhausting. And yet you carry on. But I suppose, what else is there to do. Wish I could find that magic wand.
ReplyDeleteI don't look forward to the falling back either. It's already barely dawn when I wake, soon it will be in the dark. At least I can adjust my schedule.
Warfare led to the discovery of the "golden hour" when it came to handling wounds incurred on the battlefield. Beyond that the benefits of treatment tended to fade quite quickly. More recently, and with particular respect to traffic accidents, the attractions of the "platinum twenty minutes" became apparent. Only the helicopter enables paramedics to take advantage of this precious cluster of time. I'm sure you knew all this anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhat caught my eye was the admission of tears. Your illness figures regularly in your posts but it is couched in stoic, detached, technical and objective language. I've always admired this. The tears were unexpected. With my own fish to fry I may have experienced something similar. We need light in both its actual and its metaphorical sense, don't we?
Waiting on results is emotionally exhausting.
ReplyDeleteWait - don't clocks get set back on the 7th?
What an emotionally moving time for you. I can imagine your feelings are on tender hooks and tears could readily flow. You are in my thoughts and I send positive wishes your way across the miles and ocean that separates us.
ReplyDeleteYour grandchild feeding a lamb uplifted me right away from the latest awful news. thank you.
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd check in, Sabine, to say hello and see how you are doing. Thinking of you.
ReplyDeleteStill thinking of you, Sabine. Sending love.
ReplyDeleteI am also thinking of you, Sabine. I'm wishing I could find the words to convey how much your blog means to me.
ReplyDeleteHow are you doing? Thinking about you and sending more hugs.
ReplyDeleteRemembering that today is your birthday. Sending love always.
ReplyDelete