midwinter is in the past

2015, all innocent

The river  burst its banks three days ago and this lunchtime, the water level reached orange alert  with red alert forecast for tonight. Like all good citizens, we duly made our way to see it with our very own eyes. Let no disaster happen without crowds to witness.
It was as expected, ducks and swans showing off their best plumage, a couple of canoeists paddling along where some eight meters below, we would normally cycle. Only the NE wind was icy cold.

In the morning, I can hear a timid dawn chorus, the days are getting longer, so R reassures me.

At nights when exhaustion has me in its tight wrap, I lie in the deep silence and although I cannot see the moon directly, I watch the blue light, the way it shimmers and shivers along the walls and across the ceiling and this longing for life comes over me, like an urge from deep inside of me that I had almost forgotten existed. 

from a wonderful man

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

Oliver Sacks on learning he has terminal cancer

good bye Doris Lessing

picture by Jane Bown

She may not have changed the world in quite the way she had imagined when she set sail for Britain all those years ago, and it may be far from the beautiful place she envisaged, but she has changed the lives of countless readers and, whether she liked it or not (and it's a fair bet that secretly she did), she helped change the way women are perceived, and perceive themselves.

The Golden Notebook was the second English language novel I read in my life, hunched over at the university library in Heidelberg, pretending to study for my exams, while at the back of my mind I had already started to change my life. Thank you.

so much life

evening sky

so small so big

when you lie down on the hot patio stones at night and watch the stars you realise how small you really are, how obsessed with the minutae of your little existence and how easily you lose sight of the enormity of life and the incredible potential presented to you

semi-realistic resolutions for 2011

• spend time with S
• work regularly again, at least part-time
• cycling into town
• gentle hillwalking
• reduce immune suppressive drugs
• stop listening to/reading horror stories about autoimmune vasculitis
• paint the kitchen
• make sourdough bread

realistic resolutions for 2011

• go easy on R 
• rest, rest, rest
• pay attention to the moment
• good food, careful diet to avoid more itisses
• listen first
• accept, accept, accept
  
• remember
• trust
• be grateful without getting soppy
• send S a huge parcel from home
• stop being so negative about yuk I cannot change
• give without getting exploited
• welcome challenges

in praise of nasturtium

It is mid November and almost all the leaves are down. Some of the nights it has been quite cold, a touch of hoarfrost now and then.

All summer the nasturtium were hidden by other beauties in the garden. When they appeared, it was a surprise but we soon ignored them. Usually, they turned out a mess covered by black aphids.

They started flowering in September, late. And what an abundance. The garden gate is almost entirely covered and they are climbing up the already leafless pear tree. Every morning when I look out into the garden I expect them to be killed by the cold night only to find them even more robust. I go out an pick a handful for the kitchen table and another for Rs desk and one for mine and they wink at me with their intense yellow heads.

autumn by the river

home

Niger

I just watched this beautiful documentary about the river Niger, retracing the journeys of Mungo Park. Resting on my sofa I was travelling to Djenne, Sansanding and Timbuktu, on beautifully hand crafted barges, crowded ferries and wading through fields of African wild rice. Women with shiny white teeth, the most colourful dresses and strong voices, I was wondering if any of them had ever suffered from an autoimmune disorder. 
They probably don't have the time for something like that.

so look at it this way

a lot of learning to do, lots and lots
I think I can do this
not all the time
not every day
sometimes I will try to run away
some days I won't be able to do this alone
but there will be learning every day
even in winter on dark days
I am still me
no idea where this will get me
just this much I know
looking back gets me nowhere

the universe

Yesterday we visited an exhibition on the wonders of the solar system in a very unique and impressive location - inside the giant decommissioned gasometer in Oberhausen, an enormously tall dome, almost dark, with sounds echoing from the walls and people flitting around on several galleries. Just below the top hung this enormous model of the moon, gently swaying in the air.

I listened to the Voyager Golden Record, sounds of surf and bells and rain and horse-drawn carriages, Beethoven, Mozart and Gregorian chant and a tiny child's voice saying "greetings from the children of planet earth" and felt so lost and insignificant yet comforted at the same time.

Later, I sat down for a while and watched some kids with sparkling runners skating on the platform below the moon. It was so dark, all you could see was the neon pink and yellow lights from their heels accompanied by their echoing shrieks of joy.
And I had to laugh and cry a bit, me and my stupid self-centered pity and selfish misery.

Sunday drive

We drove into the hills yesterday and I managed to go for a short walk - nervously at first, after all we used to go for proper hikes and here I  was resting after the first five minutes and we carefully turned back after a short distance. But what a joy! I had this urge to open my arms wide all the time whispering the names of plants and trees as I walked past: buttercup, hazel, sorrel, red clover, nettles, dandelion...

grateful

At the risk of coming across all esoteric or religious - and I am neither - I still feel this urge to note that at the moment I feel so incredibly grateful. Grateful for this slow unfolding summer, the abundance of fruit and blossoms, for R on my side, his patience and confidence, for lovely S far away and yet so close with her whirlwind ideas, for gentle N who despite all her personal upheavals has made the last 6 weeks so much easier, for being able to cycle down to the river every so often to watch this magnificent force of water flowing towards the sea, for pleasant dinners on the patio, funny or moving or crappy DVDs to watch in company, all the books to read and discover, to be able to sleep most nights, listening to birdsong when I wake in the mornings...

father

This is the strangest thing that being ill has brought me. He phones, he drives long long distances at the drop of a hat to bring me to and from doctors and hospitals. He messes about with car seats and air conditioning and a selection of cds to make the car journeys as enjoyable as he thinks he can. He gives me his strange version of pep talk and shows sincere concern and affection. I feel I never met this man before.
And even weirder is the fact that I cherish it all.

alive

Last nightI wrote to UJ about the clinic and my exhaustion and I asked her whether there was a good fairy for autoimmune patients. She directly replied, "I can assure you that this acute flare will one day be over even if it's an almost 'impossible promise'".
My heart made a leap. And all day today this simmering feeling inside of me: One day you will feel alive again, you will feel joy again, excitement, happiness... so much to rediscover behind this heavy black curtain around me. Switch on the radio and hear a song and start dancing. One day.