Uncertainty and confidence can exist at the same time.

If I write that I do feel a tiny bit better, I may jinx it and although superstition is not part of my life skills, I remain cautious. At least I was able to change the flight dates without any problems or extra costs. 

 

(At school, this was an often used response to a teacher complaining about not paying attention. It's by Heraclitus, one of the eminent pre-Socratic philosophers, hence extremely valid.)

 

 

As usual, distraction is the name of the game and for me that includes reading and listening to whatever comes my way, often suggested or linked by family members and friends, for laughs, stimulation, discussion and delight. Here is what has kept me entertained in the last week, I am writing most of it as I remember reading it, forgot to take down sources.

First, the obvious:

• Autoimmune disease is treated by immune suppressing drugs which in turn often can result in the body getting infected by all sorts of viruses and bacteria healthy people can fight against. Instead of getting dispirited every time that happens, maybe look at these as a side effect of your immune system trying to protect you. The immune system gets to know us even before our parents do, and until the moment we die, it does everything it can to heal and protect us. 

Next, who'd have thought. 

• The neocortex - the part of the brain that plays a significant role in intelligence - is particularly large in monkeys that live together in large groups. Dolphins address each other by name, obviously in dolphin language and using dolphin names. Goats can recognise and teach each other symbols and bonobos master a previously unimagined form of syntax. And then there's that standard test used by science to detect complex thinking in animal species, namely the ability to recognise yourself in a mirror - or in other words, the ability to distinguish between the self and others. And squirrels and crows hide their food while no one is watching and then make a big show of digging a big hole for their stash while every creature looks on. The proper term for this behaviour is perspective-taking. At least I think it is.

Also:

• There is a reason fascists ban books and not guns. Guns are a tool for one thing, books are tools for everything. 

And a recent headline from the Guardian:

• World’s longest-married couple reveals key to a lasting relationship: ‘We love each other’. 

 

Finally, kids are clever. 

 

 

 

 

perspective taking

It's cold outside.

The last couple of weeks:

After the fairly mediocre head cold and the course of antibiotics and the subsequent restoration of gut health, something else hit me that required a ten day crash course of oral cortisone with the full array of side effects regarding sleep and mood and digestion - again - and still not much better, although, in the words of the doctor, at least not worse. Some of it is very familiar, which means I am hopeful that with all the fucking rest I am taking my body will miraculously realign itself into a shape of recognisable physical fitness. And I am not talking marathon running fitness here, just making it up the stairs at a brisk pace. 

It's a shitty symptom, this lack of energy.  You simply cannot get anything done, no matter how trivial and believe me, I do try. But the man watches me like a hawk and has raised his voice in alarm more than once. Bless him.

Anyway, in ordinary times, I would lean back, listen to some decent audiobooks, read some decent novels, watch some decent movies and let myself be expertly looked after and otherwise entertained by the man in my life. I am retired, I can take my time. Been there, done it before etc.

Only, I am booked to fly halfway across the planet in a few days. Obviously, not possible, also because I am scheduled for a minor invasive cardiac exam in ten days. Every morning I log into the Singapore Airlines app ready to press the buttons for "change flight dates" and then I stop myself. One of these days I'll have to. We are insured to the hilt, it's not about money, it's just about self confidence and limitations and regret and the weeks of preparing and expectations. And the fact that I am holding on like mad to the hope that I'll be able to travel and be healthy enough to be a real granny for a couple of months, eating ice cream while looking across the South Pacific.

In other news, we are celebrating xmas in the ususal fashion, ie not at all. I can recommend it wholeheartedly. However, there is an expensive Veronese pandoro - not pannetone - waiting in the kitchen.  We also watched the live stream of the winter solstice sunlight beam snaking its way into the chamber of the megalithic tomb in Newgrange, Co. Meath, Ireland, and the dedication of the people artists who imagined and built this structure a good five thousand years ago put a sense of perspective back into my muddled brain. It also means that soon there will be a good stretch in the evenings, as the saying goes.

 

 

 

reminder

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted on this day in 1948  in response to the “barbarous acts which […] outraged the conscience of mankind” during the Second World War.