Back home in my prison of convalescence once again and I am trying hard to stop acting the spoilt child, whining and feeling sorry for myself. Get a grip, woman. It's a virus. Yes, only that. That and all those tedious precautions that come with it. 

Of course I never wanted this part of my life at all. I don't welcome any of it. I could wail and scream, how unfair. Right now, I am not one these saintly people who gracefully and gratefully accept their fate and pretend it's all an opportunity for - seriously - growth. Oh, it is fun to pretend I am one of them when I feel healthier than today and I am the first to admit that I love the vocabulary: survival, blessings, mindfulness, embracing the shattered self, letting go...

It goes on and on until my mouth feels all sticky as if I've eaten too many sweets.

Well, I am done with growing. The only growth that's left here is growing old and that seems to be happening at a rapid pace. The drama of it. All in my head.

Honestly, I am my own worst enemy at times like this. I would even fight with the couch I am forced to lie on. Maybe I am just bored. Bored with this pretence of you look so well or - worse - you are such a strong woman. Stop admiring me, I want to shout out. But instead I smile, showing off my ability to suffer gracefully. This is the movie version.

And yet.

And yet.

There are a million of ways that it's possible to live a life. A delightful life. Even with an illness that came out of nowhere, unwanted, uninvited. (But of course, no illness ever is.) What choice do I have? Who said there was ever a choice, anyway?

The way I see it is that one of three things can happen. Things can stay the same, which is not ideal but it's manageable. They can get better, which would be great. Or they can get worse, in which case we can discuss it further. 

in laws

The feeling of chewing on cotton wool. After three days of polite conversation and pretending that we like each other. Still, family and memories to share. But I am getting better at this. I have not raised my voice once and occasionally I actually couldn't give a damn. And quietly moved the milk carton from under the sink into the fridge. She loves her comforts and after I showed her how to watch Downton Abbey online all was well.

Tonight the bonus of eating out by the river with the lights twinkling in the water and the chuck chuck noises of the barges, even crickets. A salad of wild lettuce, figs, walnuts, pear fried in butter and cherry tomatoes. 

It's over 20 years now that she spat in my face, I don't care about the will, you will never get any of it.

But I can be a really mean bitch, too.

We humans, we preach compassion, we sometimes even act compassionately, we raise our children one way or another, we brush our teeth and obsess about nutrition and weight loss, we get mad when the noises from the new bypass disturb our evenings in the garden, sometimes we are concerned about the working conditions at the industrial plants in the far away countries where our electronic gadgets, our cheap t-shirts and running shoes are made, and no, we would never buy a carpet made with child labour, we are very conscientious, we read and we discuss and we are well informed, oh yes.

But we don't read last week's IPCC report (the what??), not even the easier-to-read versions. Not now. There are more important things going on right now. As always.

copyright: Joel Pett, USA today

The report basically confirms what has long since become a truism: Climate change is THE biggest problem. Once the Himalaya glaciers have melted, 1.4 billion people in Asia will be without drinking water. Once the acidification of the world's oceans has reached critical levels, first the mollusks than all fish will die. And when the sea level rise in Europe continues, 70 million people will lose their homes along the coast and the salty swills will destroy our inland farming areas in the not too distant future. 

Believe me. Every other problem is minimal in comparison. Whatever we are concerned about right now, it really has only to do with the way we humans live together, as communities, as nations, internationally, while climate politics will decide how much of this shared human life will actually remain possible. 

Right now, there is a heated debate in my local newspaper about the authority's intention to introduce one-way streets in a populated suburb with about 15000 inhabitants. The main complaint is that for many the short drive (!) of 300 m to a shopping mall will now turn into a drive of 1 km. The obvious question - why drive at all - doesn't figure. 

The Green Party just suffered huge losses after it suggested that we all cut down on meat and have at least one vegetarian day per week. The outrage, who are they to tell us what to eat! So what if one third of the grain produced globally is used to feed animals, who cares about the rain forests in South America (that old caper) and the greenhouse gas emissions from the fertilisers. Politicians who insist on informing us about stuff like that must not be surprised if we don't vote for them. No wonder.

When we think that freedom implies we can drive 300 m to a shopping mall, eat meat every day of the week, we are in fact absolutely rational. Driving is comfortable and not driving would not change anything right now. I think economist call this the rationality trap. I happen to believe that politicians should show us the way out of this trap. But they don't, because this is 2013 and the trap hasn't killed any of us, it doesn't even hurt us - yet. We can ignore it. Ah bliss.

We want the politicians do something about evil bankers, the fixing of petrol prices and taxes. 

Climate change is boring.  And politicians are just like any middle of the road business men, all that stuff about adapting supply to demand and low risks. 

In another context, one of the big and powerful politicians said earlier this year: Politicians will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change you want to see. 

All well and good, but this is just another rationality trap. Instead, I would find it most rational for politicians to confront their people with the impositions of realistic climate politics.

But that's irrational.

And I give up.

It's Happy Reunification day here, also known as: a day off for what was it again?

My dead mother would be in tears today and my very much alive father would probably say something meaningful and prosaic but I have no intention to spoil his day and call. He had his share of historic dramas and memories.  Let him enjoy the sun and the football match on TV. No doubt he will fight his own demons at some stage today anyway.

I don't spend much time thinking about it but when I do the effect is enormous, way beyond my scope of understanding because you see I ran away in disgust not only from my family but from this country and all its mess and I had no intention to ever return (ha and bloody ha).

We forget. Of course we do and for all the best reasons. We forget that on the 9th of November (due to a couple of convoluted reasons we are commemorating this on a 3rd of October) in 1989, close to midnight, a handful of border guards (who were also members of the GDR secret service) no longer wanted to protect their failed state from its own people and opened the gate at the Bornholmer Strasse border point in Berlin. And so WWII was finally over.

Watching it here (start at 4:18 with the shouts of open up and we'll be back and no violence up to 7:18 with the bewildered face of the border guard) I am reduced to my mother's tears.

But otherwise it's glorious autumn and the Irish visitors are out there climbing hills and medieval castle towers, tasting the new wine and generally having a ball. 

While I am supposedly editing something urgent and almost past its deadline but thanks to events across the pond where a gang of renegade morons, so it seems, is spitting venom and fighting life and reason, I cannot access the Medline database to verify the references. Instead, together with people involved in medical research across the globe I get to read this message:

PubMed is open, however it is being maintained with minimal staffing due to the lapse in government funding. Information will be updated to the extent possible, and the agency will attempt to respond to urgent operational inquiries. For updates regarding government operating status see USA.gov.

It feels like a Disney movie in comparison.

October

The first visitors of what feels like a long string all the way up to Xmas have arrived. Joking, eating, drinking, long discussions into the night and with it a terrible tiredness, upset stomach, sore throat. I push away any feelings of loss as I drop them off at the museums, the galleries, the outdoor music events, watch their energy and their eagerness, something I used to have so abundantly. Back home I wrap myself in blankets and drink more fennel tea before I start making elaborate dinners and gear myself up for another night of laughter and talking.

I turn on the radio and I hear 

Oh life, is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me

and I start to cry for a short comforting moment. Autumn is here.

autumn equinox

Very still air, the fine spider nets of early autumn everywhere, even on my bicycle. 

Today I ate the last apricot, most likely also the last damson of the year, while the last wild peaches went into the crumble with the first blackberries. Green beans and freshly harvested carrots tonight.

I walked down to the primary school to cast my vote (general election today) and remembered this day four years ago. That time, I held onto R and my head was spinning and roaring, waves of fever making me sweat. We had no idea what was in store, we were having a laugh, look at me, all shook up with a virus (so we thought) performing her civic duties, doing her bit for democracy.

Today I just walked there and back in a couple of minutes counting my lucky stars and thanking the experts and the drugs under my breath. And everybody was politely queueing  in the school hall with the children's paintings of harvest along the wall, friendly smiles. We can take it or leave it, we are so lucky. I would be totally bankrupt by now, or dead, four years later, without the health care system we all take for granted. The cost of the drugs, all the tests, the hospital stays, the lot. These friendly smiling people, out to vote after their Sunday lunch, they all paid for it. I could get quite emotional.

in which I praise my mother - at last

She was brave. She was determined. She was courageous. She was cunning and beautiful. She loved adventure. 

She was clever, smart, intelligent. She loved science. She loved agriculture. She was an expert gardener. She could identify birds, plants, rocks, clouds, insects. And name them all in Latin. She could be a really good cook. Her yeast doughs never failed. She could sing and play the piano. She could speak four languages. She could solve the most cryptic crossword puzzles. She could knit, sew, repair shoes, wallpaper, paint, plaster, sand entire sitting room floors, chop wood, recite French poetry and make wine. And she could beat four egg whites into a stiff mound on a plate with a fork. Within a few minutes. We thought that was magic.

Some mornings start like this. I look into the bathroom mirror and I see my mother. I grin, I smile, I move my fringe from left to right and back again. I bare my teeth, turn my head this way and that and still she stares at me. How dare she. 

Of the three of us, I am the one resembling her the most. I know I could play her in the movie version of her miserable life. 

And then of course, I look in the mirror and I see my age. Things are getting worse. Oh theoretically, I am all for aging, for women showing their true beautiful age and all that crap. But still. I fake it mostly. I race up stairs, hurtle through the rainy forest on my bicycle, dance in my kitchen (on good days), dress up in faded jeans, suede boots, ethnic scarves, chunky silver rings, whatever it takes (and whatever I can manage) but no matter what, my mother looks on, she sits there inside my bones somewhere. I can hear her condescending little tsk tsk noises ringing through me.

Sometimes, the sounds from the new fridge remind me of the sea, the soft swishing noise of waves on smooth sand, coming and going. As a child and long before I ever actually saw the sea, one of my life goals was to live by it. I grew up in a place with flat sandy soil, forests of pine trees planted in neat rows by 18th century land owners, carp ponds and streams full of tadpoles and hot dry summers. My mother's lawn would turn yellow during the weeks of water shortages. We held competitions to see who could walk the longest on the hot soft tarmac. 

But that new fridge with all its space ship looks of grey stainless steel is dodgy. It bangs about, expanding and whirring, sending shots of noise through the night making not only the cat jump. The smart young service technician laughed at me while we sat there in front of the silent fridge and he emptied the cup of coffee and shook his head again, you can always try and record it, send it by email, but frankly... and off he went.

Of course R did just that and now we are waiting for a replacement fridge. The thrills of modern living.

The iron supplements are getting me there, I think. My batteries are charging it seems but frankly... The cat was not amused when I abandoned opening the tin of cat food last Sunday morning and instead ever so delicately crashed onto the carpet. Admittedly, it was a much easier and less dramatic spell than previous ones also because I am getting quite good at it. If I may say so. There are certain swishing noises and little shots inside my head (?) that precede it. 

My GP dutifully checks my pulse, my blood pressure and ties me down for one of these 3 min ECGs. But of course, all is well. I probably should get some smelling salts. Or instal CCTV in the house.

But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life
Together like glue

Belgian music

The last hot summer night for this year. The air is so warm and soft. Hard to believe that this is all going to be over by tomorrow afternoon - according to the forecast. I can hear the hedgehog  shuffling around in the dark.

If there was one thing my parents were very good at - and they were very good at many things despite the dark memories I have been dissecting here and maybe one day I will start listing all their incredible skills and talents and actually begin to acknowledge and cherish their positive influence on my life (well, this sentence was easier than I thought but mostly theory) - they paved the straight and narrow road to academic success for their three children with a high degree of diligence. They really knew how to hold up the stereotype. Our future careers were set in stone, discussion was only possible on the minor details: doctor, lecturer, scientist, journalist (but only on a gifted scholarship) and, if all fails, maybe lawyer/judge/attorney. There was nothing unusual about this arrogant outlook in my extended family and at that time in general.

When my cousin (the oldest of our lot) had failed his university entrance exams for the second and final time, he was swiftly shoved into police training and it was never mentioned again. For many years, my mother maintained a complicated and time-consuming friendship with the owner of a local bookshop with a high standing specialising in the classics and sciences in preparation for the distant possibility of one or - godforbid - both of her daughters not obtaining sufficient grades for the appropriate chosen university courses. From time to time she would dig out the threat of sending us into the book selling trade should we prove to be not worthy of her dreams.

For an entire year, I actually believed that I was exceptionally gifted and super extra bright based on one 4-page story I had written at age 11 which so impressed my teacher (a great believer in doling out black or yellow stickers for good/bad behaviour and who graded the geometric borders he insisted had to be drawn on the outer edge of the pages in our exercise books) that he sent a note home asking for my parents to see him. My mother spent a fretful evening questioning me about possible misdemeanours and since I didn't have a clue, she was eventually convinced that I must have done something really bad. So she put on her high heels and her hoighty toighty airs only to discover that this pitiable young man thought her middle child had promise. Quite. And there my fate was sealed as far as my parents were concerned.

The teacher we got the following year got me off my high horse with a short and sharp little speech and I can still see her sitting on, yes on, the desk in front of me, one of her hands resting on my arm, and in her quiet voice readjusting my world view back to community standards: stop acting as if you were better than others, young lady, because you are not. And I shall be forever grateful for this experience.

But as far as my parents were concerned, there was no escape. Not for many years. And I did try. 

And eventually I succeeded. Dramatically so. 

One of the more interesting jobs I tried out was in a small factory that manufactured cardboard cylinders, from the hard stuff inside a toilet paper roll to fancy soap containers. At lunch time I would sit and wait for my hands to stop shaking from the machines. I loved the banter and the loud curses of my mostly male coworkers. The skin inside my nostrils started to bleed from the silicone that was used to soften the cardboard edges and in my final week I fainted at the glue assembly and got sacked. But by that time my parents were already way off my horizon. In fact, I had delivered the decisive blow (after opting out of a variety of first class degrees ranging from classics to psychology) when I announced that I had enrolled in teachers training, followed a couple of years later by my wish to become a midwife - which to their eminent relief was impossible at the time due to a shortage of places and my lack of practical experience (a first in Latin was unfortunately not an essential requirement).

So it was downhill all the way for me. And what a wonderful journey it has been to this day.

At my mother's funeral one of our old neighbours cried when she saw that I - then aged 41 - was in fact not the demented drug addled hippie drop-out responsible for my mother's innumerable sleepless nights and miserable days.

Walk on air against your better judgement.

Where to begin? Seamus Heaney's writing has been with me for ever it seems. In so many ways his voice is Ireland to me. The gentleness, the quiet firmness, the soft voice with a strong message, the sadness behind the laughter, the courtesy throughout. Oh, he will be missed.

On 31 August 1993 when the IRA had announced its ceasefire (which eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement) Seamus Heaney had spent all afternoon listening to the radio hoping for words that would do justice to the event but instead had only felt more and more claustrophobic with all the meaningless chatter from politicians and commentators. So he went outside to collect his thoughts and suddenly a flap opened somewhere in the back of my head and the light came in. 

I remember that I started to cry when I read this sentence. Just one sentence that says it all, the anger and pain and the hope to finally be able and overcome 25 years of darkness, the terrible suffering caused and endured by all parties involved, the deaths and the hatred.

In 2009, it seemed that all of Ireland was celebrating his 70th birthday with him. On the day itself, the 13th April, Ireland's national radio station played the 15 CDs of Seamus Heaney reading his own poetry all day long. We were driving along the Connemara coast that day, a calm and sunny day with a clear sky, listening to his voice with just a hint of Northern Ireland accent. And whenever we stopped and rolled down the window to smell the sea, we could hear him from the other cars parked along the pier and later on, in the pub in Roundstone over the loudspeakers. 

A week later as I was queueing for the check in at Dublin airport, taking off my boots for some ludicrous security clearance, there he was again, this time a rerun of him reading his poem St. Kevin and the Blackbird on The Late Late just after he had received the Nobel Prize in 1995. Where else would you have a poet laureate addressed as just Seamus and thus expressing the admiration and the respect and the love that surely was felt by all who watched. 

So walk on air against your better judgement
Establishing yourself somewhere in between
Those solid batches mixed with grey cement
And a tune called "The Gravel Walks" that
conjures green.

Syria

This afternoon, a tall and handsome man was crying in my office. He tried to blink away the tears and look all composed and tough. But in the end he just broke down. When you watch the news you see what is happening in my country. But I feel it.

into the sky

 

deck chair summer under the wisteria

Dropping the ball - again

A bit of rain, so what. I am eating a most delicious peach while the little cat tries to decide whether to stay in or go out. The garden is shiny wet in all its glory, a very fat and noisy hedgehog has been licking the bowl I use to feed stray Ginger in recent nights and the most stunning dragon flies are trying to make up for the lack of butterflies. No butterflies, none at all. What is going on? Well, for starters, but...

Last night my sunny red haired child who is working in the halls of politics and diplomacy explained to me what the phrase drop the ball means. And no, it has nothing to with rugby.

I have been rereading - again - the information leaflet for the iron supplements this morning. I wish it would work faster but I suppose ten days is nothing. In the early hours of the mornings I speculate if have been hit by another yuk disease. The passing-out-while-sitting-in-a-meeting disease, the too-exhausted-to-sleep disease with the heavy arms and legs and the cold shivers on a hot day symptoms. There is a lot of reassuring murmur and guesswork coming my way. Your iron storage levels are extremely low almost non existing, probably due to a low impact source of internal bleeding, they tell me. Intestines, most likely. Not your stomach (oh thanks). We will schedule a colonoscopy, an ultrasound and some more tests to keep you entertained. No need to be alarmed, we keep an eye on things. In the meantime, you can do what you want as long as...

I know (yawn), don't overdo it. Overdo what? Life? How does one not overdo life? A bit like not eating too much? Not sleeping too much? Not thinking too much? Don't tell me, rest. This is so boring, so tedious.

Totally unrelated, some of the statues that watched me cycling past last week in Franconia:

Applaus Applaus

It is no longer hot, but warm. This mellow, hazy, sunny August warmth with spider nets and withered lavender blossoms. In the morning I collect a handful of blueberries from the front garden and as I walk out to the back patio I pick a fresh fig on the go. The cat is lolling below the pear tree, showing off her fluffy belly hair. The bin man walks down the road whistling Applaus Applaus while he rolls the empty bins back onto the drives. Never mind the bleeding gums, the cracked lips, the shaky nausea thanks to the new iron supplements (miles better than the infusions). This day looks like a winner, I think I better get ready to tackle my downbeat disposition.

three summer days in Franconia

Late evening, just before sunset and we are all sitting down together for dinner. The air is so beautiful, clear and balmy, a crescent moon has just appeared, the trees are full of birds. We have ordered our drinks and hearty Franconian beer garden food, spicy sourdough bread, fried chanterelles, potatoe salad with fresh chives and horseradish, smoked beer and local red wine and so on. It has been a pleasant day, not too hot but we can all still feel the sun on our arms and faces. We were very polite all day, careful not to mention any tricky subjects. No accusations, competitions, no nasty remarks about our kids. We even managed to cycle next to each other occasionally.

My sister has been doling out funny anecdotes from our happy childhood for most of the day. Earlier today when we were resting in the shade of yet another beer garden after we had raced each other up and down the vineyards I told my brother that I remembered him to be much smaller and everybody thought that was a great joke. 

And now my sister has us in stitches with the story of how she tried to make soft boiled eggs for the first time in her life. Oh, what a funny story, how she watched the eggs boil for ever, testing with a wooden spoon for softness, again and again. We are laughing and I am so very tired. I wish I could leave. For a very brief moment I catch her eyes and I am tempted to ask her to tell us all the whole story. Of that day and the tears and the snow, of how it was already getting dark outside, of my mother who hours and hours ago had locked herself into her bedroom together with our baby brother. 

Instead I just look at her and suddenly there she is, my big sister, almost six years old, with her long plaited pigtail coming apart, still in her pyjamas, standing on a kitchen chair by the cooker, her serious face bent over the steaming pot, trying to figure out how to make dinner for us. 

And I want to say something so badly, so urgently but of course I can't. None of us can.

Anxiety doesn't even cover it. I think I am coming out in a rash and my intestines, oh don't ask. This is day two in our short little pretty getaway cycling holiday and my big sister is on her way here.  I think right now I actually hate her. Once that particular emotion will have died down I will pity her, which is more painful of course and in fact downright condescending and that's not what I want to feel at all. Way back during the big freeze and snow my brother suggested this little tour, just the two of us with our spouses so to speak. All about having neglected each other for too long etc. What a surprise, nice. Until our big sister found out and without a second's thought decided not only to come along incl. her man but also to take matters into her hands and organize it properly. And so we are here in this pretty little town with the geranium window boxes and the Roman stone bridge across the river and now she is on her way and any minute she will be here, in full cycling regalia, helmet and Lycra and all the proper maps and we will follow like the little ignorant ducklings we are in her presence.

The first bit of cool air for what seems like ages. Already it is hard to remember how hot it has been only 24 hrs ago. During the past week, a large pale ginger tom cat from somewhere down the road has slowly made his way into the garden and - well, obviously - I have started to feed him. Although I read somewhere that ginger cats are usually male one of the neighbours tells me that this could be a female. Strange looking creature, pale green eyes and almost silent croaking voice, very hungry and fearless. Just now I heard this tiny clicking noise and there he was, sneaked in below my radar, eating our little old cat's dinner (who is not interested at all).

My girl would love this, put her heart into it with great urgency and so I imagine her easy laughter as I quietly talk to Ginger, carefully checking his fur for ticks and cuts, wondering what his story is.

Sunday lunch

After Sunday lunch we were sometimes allowed to choose dessert. But first, all the stars had to be aligned just so. The state of the bathroom was a major contributing factor. We were hopeless, we were careless, too many puddles, open toothpaste tubes, scrunched up damp towels. Some days the bathroom problems were simply insurmountable. The entire Sunday with all its hushed up quiet and boredom could become a nightmare thanks to a few stray hairs in the sink. Sometimes it was easier to just accept defeat.

Then of course, piano practise, we were hopeless, we were careless, too fast, too loud, wasting her good time and money, or suddenly brilliant, gifted, her proper little Mozarts.

Next, the setting of the table without squabbling, the heavy white linen cloth just so with straight corners, napkin rings in the correct order and the matching  - what did I tell you???

And so we were keeping our breath in case of faulty oven thermostats, lumpy flour, overripe onions, wrong spice mix, all the mysterious kitchen disasters she had to face, only to feed us. Us. Who in our ungrateful selfishness spilt greasy gravy on the freshly starched white linen. And once again we were not worth it, all her sacrifices, her time and energy, for nothing.

And as she stubbed the half smoked cigarette on her plate and started to cry, we knew that all was lost. Again. 

And yet, there were Sundays when we made it to dessert as a somewhat intact family and my father did his eeny meeny miny moe thing and the lucky winner would then be allowed to go down into the basement larder and choose one jar of my mother's bottled fruit: peaches, apricots, cherries with almonds, plums, pears with cinnamon sticks, applesauce with lemon drizzle.

My brother was scared of the dark basement but quite unable to admit this would run down singing and huffing while my parents smiled at each other with pride.

For maybe far too many years I was convinced that this is what happened on Sundays in all my friend's houses, that up and down the street families were steering that same treacherous course through blame and anger and fear.

the whole universe

You are something that the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing.

Alan Watts

The weather forecast is dodgy. Last night, early morning, hot strong winds, trees bending in the moonlight, three drops of rain and then silence. And now, another hot and humid day and the rains have just begun. Across the garden I can hear my neighbour's teenage daughter wailing in despair at her mother, cups are flying across the patio and the church bells from down by the river join in. 

Was it that difficult with us, I asked S last week and she very diplomatically replied, no Mum, never. It is a blessing, this selective memory. But then again, there always has been and will be too much love between us. Enough to blank out the difficult bits. That's what this love is for. 

My mother never liked or loved her children. I know there are people who hate me for saying this. Didn't she make these lovely matching coats for us? Her vegetable garden, the bean poles, the field of strawberries to get lost in after school? The one (and only) time she went with us all to the movies (Cinderella)? Come on. 

For a long time after her death I would meet her. She called on me and she watched me. 

One day she was a shiny black crow suddenly landing on the uphill forest path, forcing me off my bicycle. We looked at each other for some time, silent and completely motionless until she turned her head and flew away.

Another time, she was a young hawk who suddenly swooped down on me with a loud screech, almost reaching my hair with her claws. Only I was faster, cycling on with my heart leaping out of my throat.

Some winter Sundays, she sat silently on the bare branches of the pear tree, staring through the kitchen window in her shiny blue jay glory.

Most often, though, I met her as a stringy old pigeon, one eye missing, deformed toes, picking through the crumbs and cigarette buds under the chestnuts by the outdoor cafes in the city.

That was then. 

The birds I meet these days are young and cheeky, like that fearless blackbird with the odd white feather sticking out sideways. The noisy green parakeets flocking the garden in big swoops. Magpies with their messy nests.

It is not just that we see birds as little versions of ourselves. It is also that, at the same time, they stand outside any moral process. They are utterly indifferent. This absolute oblivion on their part, this lack of sharing, is powerful. 

A man tells me about the seemingly endless time he was stuck inside the wreck of his car, which had slipped down a muddy slope, rain pouring down, darkness. I don't remember if I called out, he says. I have no recollection, no idea how long I was down there, but then someone shouted: We can hear you! We can hear you! And these two sentences were the most wonderful thing I ever heard in my life.

And his face is so kind and sad and when he starts to smile, all I want to do is fold myself into his arms and cry for a long time. But of course I don't. I don't know this man, we never met before. How did we get to this topic? I have no idea. The door opens and the receptionist calls my name. I get up and he turns to continue reading his newspaper.

This could be the day when I slowly start to forgive the oral surgeon for all she has done to my mouth two, almost three weeks ago. In fact, I may even start to think that she and her colleagues were completely correct with their diagnosis. 

Admittedly, I have a hard time trusting experts in the dental/oral surgery department. Mostly I think they are all tossers who do it for the money. And with all their big white teeth smiles they surely have never ever experienced any discomfort, ache or pain (here I said it) and are thus obviously ill equipped to offer the appropriate supportive treatment. 

Come to think of it, I distrust most doctors. I occasionally wonder whether our family GP is actually able to see the Bigger Picture and even my lovely immunologist seems to smile far too much considering the severity of my fate. Oh, the nights I have wasted convincing myself of misdiagnosed heart attacks, lung failure, shrivelled-up kidneys, even tumours hidden in secret cavities. But I don't double check anymore, I no longer discuss the myriad details of how this illness apparently affects is slowly but surely destroying my body and mind. I have long since stopped going back to the experts like a lost pet dog looking for scraps of food. Nowadays, I just think that I'll show them how wrong they were provided I survive the night.

I know. Foolish.

But today I kind of seem to get there. Some form of normal has returned. Despite the fact that it's one hell of a scorching hot day. I got into work as early as I could and even my Heidi Klum colleague agreed that we put on the fan at full force. She worries a lot about drafts, the lovely Heidi. But thankfully not today. Still, I am aiming for an even earlier start at work tomorrow, just after sunrise. Provided I survive the night.

One way to start the day. A phone call. I hear R talking to whoever it is, all reassurance and lots of yes, yes, yes and something stirs. This is what happens when your child calls you during a 6.9 earthquake. 

Eventually we all, incl. the earth, calm down somewhat and in our well tested family fashion we resort to jokes and funny memories incl. cats. Still, we all check http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt every couple of minutes for a while.

A beautiful day. I put the box with the pain killers back into the medicine cabinet. It's been 48 hrs now without and I tiptoe out of the bathroom. Careful now, no lifting, no running etc. they said. For a couple more days at least.

Eventually this will pass, this feeling of being delicate, fragile, not quite whole. Not yet. I pull the deck chair to the most overgrown part of the garden, where the bryony has almost covered all of the bramble hedge. Its little yellow blossoms are teeming with bumble bees. I look up into the summer sky and my mind opens wide.

Once upon a time when I took health for granted, my days were full, like a doctor's appointment book, slots of 10 minutes max. The things I could stuff into 10 minutes, shower, breakfast, laundry, rain gear, lunch box, cats, quick phone call, whatever. Now I am a 30 minutes person at a stretch. Some days it works. 

The blackbirds in the garden are fearless this summer, hopping around me, picking raspberries and twinkling at me with their little shiny eyes. The cat pretends to be asleep. And I will pretend to be healthy.

correct me if I'm wrong

Because this is happening so far away, yes. And you know, I am a biased and ignorant fool when it boils down to it and all I know about Florida is what I learned from watching Miami Vice in the 1980s. In other words: nothing.

And yet, the arguments around this case seem almost more bizzare than the case itself - from my laid back European distance. So, when all commentators cannot stop stressing over and over again that it's not about race, that this is just a law and order case, well it just rubs it in, doesn't it? That it is in fact all about race. I haven't followed it in all detail but it appears that every benefit of the doubt was given to the shooter, while not a single one was given to the victim. I read that the victim was tested for drugs but not the shooter who was on prescription meds with known side effects of triggering aggression. After the trial, the black community but not the white community was warned not to riot. The shooter had a restraining order after he had attacked his girlfriend. And more.
I read that it's a criminal justice thing and that black people have a problem with it. But never the white guys, they have no problem with the system. I read about gun laws and stop and frisk laws - and I feel stupid in my disbelief: the sense that an entire system is turned against black kids as a whole. Don't get me wrong, we do have our share of xenophobia and racism in this part of Europe, but an entire system? And then my distant cousin across the Atlantic points out to me that there is this case coming up and before I can catch my breath, she sends me this and I just want to run.

A & E

Complications, abscess, antibiotics, but I was in and out in one hour. Most people were lovely. The rest is pretty shitty.

bounty

 

and again

this will always be my secret song

bees and Dutch custard

This healing takes time, sometimes I think I can feel the shifting and rearranging of cells, other times I just take a pain killer, I am not tough. I can hear my mother, pull yourself together and stop making such a big deal about a bit of pain. (Let's not go down that memory lane for now.)

The circulation is dodgy, sometimes the ground moves under my feet, my ears begin to hiss and I give in and stay put in the deck chair under the wisteria. 

So I distract myself (or panic for a short little while).

The little cat stays by my side, probably because I supply her with empty vla containers. Dutch comfort food for the chewing-impaired. That and porridge with one of R's smoothies. Come to think of it, my nutrition has never been better.

 

On Sunday afternoon the garden was suddenly buzzing with hundreds and hundreds of bees and by the end of the day a colony had settled high up in the Douglas fir. It sits there now, a large brown teeming drop, shiny and calm, just the occasional humming. Eventually the distraught bee keeper arrived, in shorts, sticking his pale bare legs out to reassure us that there was no danger. He has only been doing this for a year and apparently this is the second time a rebel colony has left his garden down the road. He frowned as he looked up into the tall tree and mumbled something about a ladder but we haven't seen him since.

And I have been watching all seven parts of Top of the Lake and now I am trying to convince everybody and the whole world to watch this. In one go.

the bigger picture

the vast blue sky

Behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky.

Listen carefully, my heart, as I will only say this once.

Your kind dentist took a careful look at the various x-ray images and before he said anything you could read it in his serious face. Still, you did not expect surgery and hospital and general anesthetics. But so be it, you will sit in the waiting areas, you will fill out all the forms again and again, you will explain patiently that you have a rare autoimmune disease, you will hand over photocopies of all diagnostic reports, lists of the drugs you have to take, you will smile a lot, remember, you will smile whenever you can. You will really try to like everybody you have to deal with.

 

And from now on you will only mention any pain you may feel if asked. You will not, absolutely not make pain a subject of conversation. In fact, you will not dwell on it at all. 

You will enjoy tonight's dinner and eat all the strawberries R picked this morning and nothing will spoil your enjoyment, no thoughts of what your mouth may look and feel like in the coming weeks. 

And tomorrow you will just walk into this adventure with an open mind.

.

I give in or maybe I give up? This is nothing. I will not spend my waking hours (and there are too many of them) worrying whether it's an infected dental root or just massively inflamed gum tissue. One minute I am convinced of the latter and the next minute I freak out at the thought of root resection. But I very carefully and wisely push away any thought of the possibility of extraction.

Anyway, all this is history, no more fretting. From now on I am just an ordinary woman with a hot face and a couple of aches and a touch of fever probably due to any old virus. Which thankfully helped me to secure a sick cert. 

Instead I am going to be utterly calm and all zen about it. From now on. The frivolity of it! Let everything happen to you, the beauty and the terror etc. (thank you once again R. M. Rilke) only this isn't terror, doesn't come near it. Beauty? Nah. Just my own little hamster wheel.

So. A bit of a fever, a crimson red cheek, sore gums and throbbing upper jaw. Today is Sunday and the sun is out at last. The week's laundry is drying outside. Woke up last night just before dawn. Tooth ache and this song in my head, I swear. I will postpone the rest of my life until I have seen the dentist tomorrow. I am scared shitless. But what else is new.

and I don't feel too good

After all those serious talks and tests and drugs over the years tooth ache stills floors me like nothing else did. This evening I was waiting at a traffic light and cried I was so fucking scared. 

The friendly dentist - as gently as he possibly could - had just tried to fix another one of these ongoing gum inflammations with some of his magic, drilled and sanded away a tiny spot of decay. The next couple of days will be a bit rough, he said. 

I am 55 years old and have only 24 teeth left in my mouth. Four were sacrificed for beauty when I was a kid (my mother loved orthodontics) and another four got lost in the great dentist disaster of 2007 and today I have been told that maybe, maybe not, another one is at risk. This one could definitely be collateral damage. The drugs keep me alive but I pay for it with my teeth.

(Now, I am a dental hygiene fanatic. Always have been one. If there is anything I am really proud of as a brainwashing mother it's the fact that my child has almost perfect teeth.)

I have been told that my liver could pack up within years, that my kidneys are at risk, that without the drugs my hearing could go in an instant, my eyes, my heart, my lungs, all the parts of my body supplied by small blood vessels - basically everything apart from maybe nails and hair. Serious, but, well, yawn.

But tooth ache makes me weep like a lost child. And so I sit in the car with my tears running down my sore red cheeks when someone knocks on the side window, makes a sad clown face, a funny clown face, blows me a kiss and runs off. And I notice that the radio is on.

I have no reasons to despair. I don't even have any problems, at least no serious ones. I am presently not afraid of death despite the fact that soon enough I will be - again. As it happens every so often.

I worry, obviously. It's a habit, a game. I can get myself deep deep into worry. Like having a bath. Almost enjoyable but too hot and hard to get out of.

When TV series show women wearing low cut sleeveless dresses, those elegant plain coloured ones, beige, off white, grey, short and tight around the hips, while the male characters walking beside them are all tucked up in long sleeved shirts with sensible cotton T-shirts underneath, blazers, ties, even coats, don't these women freeze? I do worry about them, they must be shivering most of the time.

And then I worry about their ridiculously high heels, I see them stumbling over the Persian carpets, fractured bones, broken noses, pearls rolling under the sideboards or in one of these fancy offices, headlong across the shiny boardroom floor, iphone flying through the air, skull against the hardwood conference table, unconscious.

I worry about their eyes too. All those dark bushy lashes. Shaved baby skin all over and a regular forest sprouting around the eyes. Listen, it just takes a single bitsy stray lash getting under a contact lense or simply moving high behind the eye balls. Agony. Inflammation. Blindness.

And another thing: Stop turning to face and talk to each other when one of you is driving. Keep your eyes on the road.

One of the reasons I never go to the theatre is that I worry someone could forget their lines. And then what?

It started with the cat. Or maybe not. It started when I looked at the rain coming down in sheets thinking something along the lines of surely not here. Not again. And then I noticed the cat looking down the basement steps and acting weird. Yes, there was an odd noise. A gurgling sort of noise. The noise of water. Water coming up through the drains in the laundry room, through the cat flap of the basement door, through the tiny cracks in the stone floor, through the basement wall for heaven's sake. And I am standing in the middle of it holding up the lawnmower in one hand and the hoover in the other hand and the view through window of the basement door is of a magnificent waterfall. Down the garden stairs. Having shoved as much as possible as high as possible and with the water rising to mid calf by now, I try and find a phone that works. No luck. I run next door and even before they answer I can see they are worse off. We try to laugh. Eventually I get hold of R and then he is home and the rain stops, the water has started to run back out through the drains. We empty ten buckets out of the boiler room. I make a pot of tea, we look out over the garden basking in glorious sunshine.

Failure is just another name for much of real life: much of what we set out to accomplish ends in failure, at least in our own eyes. [...] Who told us we had to succeed at any cost?

Margaret Atwood

Nick Drake would have celebrated his 65th birthday today.

Now take a little while to find your way in here
Now take a little while to make your story clear
Now that you’re lifting
Your feet from the ground
Weigh up your anchor
And never look ‘round

The sky is covered with a stainless steel grey layer of thin cloud, the odd glimpse of hot sun shimmering from behind. Sticky, yellowish air, still and heavy, from time to time a current of exhaust wafts in from the main street up behind the trees.
I opened up all windows at four in the morning to let in whatever fresh coolness was out there. Walked out into the garden to feel the dew under my feet. By half past seven, it was already gone. Breakfast below the rambling rose with my cold porridge, a handful of fresh raspberries and a cup of tea. The little old cat was not interested in chasing the blackbirds busy in the currant bushes. We both sat there leaning into the faintest breeze.
Somewhere to the west, the thunder is rolling and maybe by night time it will have moved close enough for the sky to open up, like a boil releasing the thick fetid air in one long hiss.

Following a mention in last weekend's papers I have been reading about Jeremy Bentham and his Panopticon. From which follows panopticism and before you know it, you are right there with all that surveillance and spying stuff. Which of course is an attack on privacy, on the rights of the individual. This ugly busy body attitude that involves collecting data from anybody anywhere and at anytime - precrime as they say. Reminds me of Minority Report. And that is supposedly science fiction.

I imagine some people are disappointed with their man of hope, the one with the wide smile and the calm voice. That's a tough one. But he is not the only one, they all do it. The best democracies around the world love spying out their citizens.

But here I am, an indifferent, borderline exhibitionist user of the world wide web inmate of the panopticon.  It would be foolish not to admit that I knew all along that emails are not a safe form of communication, that cell phones reveal where we are, that every clip I watch on youtube, every read and written post, regardless of my so-called anonymity, leaves a trace. 

But who cares. I'll just go on as before. Let those nerds in crypto city read whatever they want. Let them drown in my data. 

I'll pretend I am blind and deaf. I don't want to give up the idea of a digital society with no hierarchy, of a transparent culture which some believe will one day transform the analogue world into a better place.

So obviously I will continue to write here, send emails, exchange pictures, post on my friend's fb pages.

Of course I understand that the definition of what is desirable, dangerous or secret data changes all the time. And shit could happen, governments could change, whatever, and who knows where I'll then be with all my stored opinionated emails and posts. 

But the real beauty - yes beauty - of it all is that while the prism nerds and their chums are predictable, I am not. They will always do what is barely legal and technically possible. 

But I will remain unpredictable. We all will remain unpredictable because we are so diverse, so alive, so human, so careless.

We could even switch off, write letters on paper and go outside and talk to real people.

summer