After two weeks of whatever, I was back at work today. There, I did it. Other people go to work - have to go to work - with more dramatic symptoms. I had forgotten to what level fatigue can rise and how it can knock me over once the door has been opened. But I made it. Frankly, I have no idea how but never mind.

And the sun was out today after such a long time. 

Last Thursday I sat with a friend who is having a hard time coping with the sudden death of a young niece. Now, that is what I would call a hard time and she is struggling but underneath she has this tremendous trust, in life, in recovery. We sat close and hugged and held hands and I wiped away her tears and I was hoping that some of her trust will rub off on me.

But in the end I just felt sad. And a bit afraid of dying. But only a little bit, for a short while.

I read about this study with the 75 healthy male volunteers at the University of Hamburg. These happy and healthy men were randomly assigned to two groups and half of them were given a nasal spray with oxytocin and the other half were given a nasal spray with salt water. But of course, nobody knew who got what. Some time later, a nice male doctor comes along and rubs two identical ointments on two sites of a participant's arm all the time explaining and identifying pretending that one of these is an anaesthetic ointment that reduces pain and that the other one is just a control cream (but we know that they are both the same). Then the doctor does some elaborate mumbo-jumbo setting up something to measure pain stimulation. Next,

 a series of 10 stimuli of the calibrated intensity was applied to each of the 2 sites in pseudorandomized order. Each stimulus lasted for 20 seconds, followed by a rating procedure and 40-second rest.

 And here's the thing:

Despite identical thermal stimulation on both sites, pain ratings for the placebo [anaesthetic ointment] site were significantly lower compared with the control [ointment] site across both treatment groups.  

So just because they were told that the cream was reducing pain, they felt less pain. Well, yes, I have been a mother to a small child, I know that trick. But there is more:  

The placebo analgesic response was significantly higher in the oxytocin group compared with the saline group.

In other words, the participants who got oxytocin trusted the doctor's instructions, believed him and felt less pain. 

I've got a long way to go here. Obviously, no oxytocin is coming my way and thanks to all heavens and skies, I have very little pain. But still, I wish I could trust my doctors, just take my meds and do as told and rest assured that they know what's happening and that I will be ok - whatever that is - and never once let any or all of these nagging worries and questions enter my mind and spread through my body like an electric current. Being unwell can turn into an endless session of existential questioning and struggling to hold back the what if scenarios. All that stuff that theoretically I have long left behind.

So what else is new.

 

My mother's body was tiny, she was by now extremely thin, her skin so very pale, smooth and translucent. Her head was turned to the right at an odd angle, her eyes seemed to be staring into the distance and her chin had dropped, leaving her mouth open. Someone had tried to close it with a strip of muslin dressing but it must have slipped when they pushed her bed into the small storage room. Here, in this quiet stuffy windowless corner, without the feeding tube stuck in her throat, she looked strangely restful. Finally. 

But I was not there. My brother told me all this. Or maybe he did not, maybe he mentioned some of it and I have fabricated the rest over the years. He was trying to sound calm, his voice on the phone going on and on, about the dressing, the eyes, the cold room. About the one arm hanging off of the side of the bed, almost touching the rubber wheel. He apologised that he waited until sunrise before he called us, his sisters. He could not bear to stay in that room which in my imagination was crammed with the spare things of a hospital ward, stainless steel things stacked on a trolley, drip stands in the corner. He sat on a bench by the car park, smoking and waiting for the first light before he made the calls. But even that I don't know for certain. When I asked him, some weeks later, he could not remember.

I did not see any of this, her lopsided body, her limp hands, the room stuffed with clangy metal. The last time I saw my mother, maybe two weeks earlier, she was very agitated. At least that is how it seemed to me watching her shrunken body strapped onto the bed, with the humming noises from the monitors, the quiet hissing from the respirator. It had been months since my last visit, when my sister had picked me up at the train station and we had started to argue straight away. Not in so many words, of course. But in the best family tradition of snide remarks, little patronising gestures, tripping each other up. Look, I can hold her hand so gently, almost the loving daughter. But I brought a tape of what I guess is her favourite music. Wait, smell this gorgeous massage lotion I got her. And so on.

And again, that last time I wanted to be the one who really understood her, who could finally read the urgent messages that I thought I could fathom in her eyes, darting here and there, staring at the ceiling. But I could hardly speak, afraid to say the wrong thing. As always. So instead I sobbed. Knowing that in her good days, she would have been disgusted with me. When I did freak out, it was purely for my own benefit. 

I left the room, her bed, in tears, furious. By the time I had calmed down we were already on the  motorway. Four hours later I was home and she was once again out of my life.

Sometime last year when I realised that I had forgotten not only what year but also what day she had died I found out that it was actually the same date when I met R, twenty years earlier.  It never registered. But then I am not big on significant dates.

Right now, I don't seem to feel any of the old anger. We had abandoned each other long before. But I feel curious, when did it start, when did we stop being mother and daughter, when did the space between us become this dark and ugly distance.

be patient - listen

Today is a beautiful day. Beautiful.
Not because of the weather, the grey fog that has now turned into rain and sleet.
Not because of the blue jays sitting in the trees, although they are very impressive.
And certainly not because a total of three immunologists discussed my symptoms resulting in two of them speaking to me over the phone. And definitely not because I am back on the cortisone mountain for a couple of days.
Today is absolutely beautiful because it's her birthday. My girl, this young woman, so alive, so at home in the world. Skype-laughing with us, the antipodean summer all around her. Always lucky, eating fresh strawberries on her birthday in November.

Day seven of my latest adventure into the realms of ill health. The general theme here is boredom. And trying not to fabricate something grave and serious out of my quirky little mix of symptoms. Still, after much hesitation, I have booked a telephone meeting with the immunologist. But she is not calling back. Is this a sign? Let's get all worked up about it, shall we?

Hang on, this is only day seven, much too early.

I listen to my father's voice on the answerphone. One of his heroes, a sharp and much admired political commentator, actor and writer died last night. Of course, my father would not speak about this, death is never mentioned. Instead, he informs me of his various plans, a dinner with so-and-so and a concert tonight. I roughly calculate that this means he'll be driving for two hours home in the dark close to midnight. I check the forecast, yes, snow. He thinks he is invincible, in his big shiny car with all its multiple front and side impact airbags and whatnot steering. With his one blind eye, deaf ears and his walking sticks safely stored in the boot. Of course, no mobile phone. He thinks he has the lucky gene of longevity and endless health. The thing is, my brother tells me, that he'll probably take someone with him when he crashes. Could be a bus full of people.

I stop the answerphone but I don't delete the message. Not until I speak to him in person again. Just in case.

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.

This is what happens when you brag about cycling and fresh cold air, when you paint this picture of a healthy active woman. Which you are no longer and will never again be no matter what. 

It starts with a slow feeling of something crawling up your neck, something hissing in your left ear, you break out in very cold sweat, shivering, and then the earth moves under your feet, the room tosses about and around and the nausea begins. 

You breathe in and out, you try to concentrate and slowly start to count and before you know it, you are on the floor and you hear yourself cursing. And you really know how to curse.

Some time later, you are not quite sure how, but you are on your bed, holding your head in an akward position because for now all you want is that the room remains still for a while, you start to hear music. 

This is the future.

Not only is Amsterdam one of my favourite cities, I am also a cyclist - have been since my father put me, aged maybe not even 12 months, in the little seat behind the handlebars of his big black bicycle. I have cycled wherever I have lived so far and I plan to do this for a while longer. Daily, if possible, like right now once I post this. Today is cold, just above freezing, but the sky is clear and blue and I'll put on a double pair of thermal mittens. I don't cycle for fitness or as a recreational sport thing, I cycle to get from A to B and back again. Sometimes, this can take a couple of days or even weeks. And I don't wear a helmet. Don't ask, I would only get worked up about risk assessment and behavioural studies and I have the statistics right here somewhere.

On a day such as this with its jumble of bad sad news and fog and the effects from maybe something I ate it makes sense to go to the vet. 

This vet specialises in pets, so no horse, cattle or wild bird in the waiting room. Instead, there is an elderly lady with perfect blue-rinse perm and the obligatory string of pearls and her two grey greyhound-like-poodles. She is doing something elaborate with flash cards and little treats. Corn, she says, moving the flashcard with a painting of corn in front of the dogs' milky eyes. Car, cat, sunflower, and so on. I try not to stare. The door opens and a large man starts bringing in seven (7!) transport boxes. He stacks them into a neat tower and eventually sits down wiping off the accumulated sweat from his face. Time for the annual shots, he informs all and sundry. Today the cats, tomorrow we bring the dogs. Nobody asks, how many dogs, but we all begin to speculate quietly. 

On my way out, clutching the box of flea drops, I almost crash into the toddler with her pet rat in a Barbie box.

Nothing unusual, I tell my little cat when I get back in, you know, just the odd nutters. She yawns and goes back to sleep.

An age is coming when machines will be able to do everything. “Ah,” you say, “but they will not be conscious.” But how will we know a machine is not conscious – how do we know another human being is conscious? There is only one way. When it starts to play. In playfulness lies the highest expression of the human spirit.

This is the stuff kids teach us.

Days like this one are what gives November a bad name. Seriously. 

Phone calls, mails, the cranes heading south all day in their large v-shape formations, the news. 

That hollow feeling in my chest because I miss my child too much today. My grown-up woman child.

Sometimes I think I was a good mother. She tells me so, often. I know R has been a great father, I watched him, I learned from him. It was like playing house, we walked into this without a plan, no school of thought, no rules, our confidence so brash it echoed off the walls. 

Just show her the tools, teach her how to use them, love her, praise her, cherish her always, roll out the carpet of trust wherever she goes and let her go, watch her being authentic, always generous, curious, independent.

And now I find myself studying her face on skype, counting the freckles on her forehead, quite unable to comprehend. Where has the time gone.

happy birthday Joni Mitchell

This is it what it will be like for the next four months, dark. Probably mostly wet, hopefully not too much ice and snow but things have been changing, winters have become unpredictable in this mild river valley.

I really want two handsome and strong torch bearers to run ahead of me when I cycle home after work through the dark forest. All afternoon I tell myself that I will take the road, never mind the detour, the tram lines, the traffic lights, the big black cars without indicators etc. but then I go out there into the dark bicycle lock-up and I feel like some sort of Arctic explorer and by the time reason hits me it's too late. I am in the dark tunnel with the dripping dark trees, the path covered in slippery leaves. And I tell myself that nobody in their right mind - and certainly no creep or criminal - would want to be here, getting wet waiting to attack a lone middle aged female cyclist. At times, I have to sing at the top of my voice just to make sure that all the ghosts and fairies get the message, too. Mostly, I just curse my stupid stubborn self.

Another stormy day. I cycled for about two hours, leaning into the wind, pushing and forcing myself to be fit and healthy, my hands and face stinging with the cold air. Now of course I am exhausted, my arms and legs like lead.

When I met my immunologist last Friday she would not hear my polite pleas of lowering or maybe - please - try to go without one or even two of the cocktail ingredients. She explained it all very nicely but still. There are days when I really really want to be the fool who believes it's all in my head. After all that time, yes.

There is always the option risk to close in on myself, like a soft animal withdrawing into a small, dark tunnel. Nursing my fears, my losses, my ill health. Well, it's November, what do you expect. My sister has been going on about it for weeks, with every hour less of daylight she prepares herself for mental breakdown. But what if it doesn't happen this winter, I want to ask her. What if everything will be fine for a change? Maybe we are completely sane!

Someone mentioned last week, as a sort of by the way thing, that death is really easy, that he is not afraid of it at all because people all over the world manage it. Sick and healthy, stupid and clever, young and old, rich and poor, and so on. And for a split second I had this reassuring sensation that maybe even I will eventually achieve some form of calm and age appropriate insights. 

Whatever. But not yet.

market day late October

In 1973 I was mostly bored and lonely. My grades started to drop and I think I spent a lot of my time after school listening to AFN, pretending to do my homework and fighting with my sister.

Copying someone's homework on the bus in the morning, trying to stay awake during lessons and so on. All that time wasted on Latin irregular verbs, the finer aspects of the Thirty Years' War, morphological traits of the European swifts and that black hole called maths. Never enough money. 

Lou Reed's Transformer was one of the first albums I bought and I remember holding it in my hands on the bus home, reading the track list on the back cover and the curious looks from the person sitting next to me. Well, I was 14. And since my English was very poor I hadn't a clue what he was singing about. It was the doo-doo-doo, doo-doo chorus that got me hooked. But within a very short time, Lou Reed provided education, valuable, seriously needed and liberating education. A glimpse of a strange, mad, wild freedom. 

my life of luxury

The week that started with rain (here and - more importantly - on the Italian slopes of the Alps) and a variety of physical calamities which I will not dwell on as a matter of principle but which for a change affected R more than me (and when I say affected I mean affected because that man is hardly ever sick and clearly hasn't developed my superior suffering skills - nor will he ever do so) has been full of wonderful twists and turns. First, we cancelled our trip to the upper Italian lakes. Obviously. It would be far too straight forward for us to actually travel to the fancy destinations we book weeks and months ahead. And as I mentioned some time previously, I am quite good with all that cancellation business. This time, someone called Paola from the Italian hotel apologised to me and promised a discount should we want to come when the weather forecast is a bit less rainy and stormy. Maybe she confused us with someone rich and famous. Or maybe she is simply a nice person. 

And so we sat over breakfast, contemplating the possibly rainy week ahead, midterm break, no work, a cancelled Italian holiday and cheered each other up with nice little suggestions (museum, maybe a short bicycle trip, composting, library, jam making and general anarchy). 

And then...

Less then 24 hrs later, this is what we looked at: 

 

And all the Bavarian cliches were in place, the blue skies, the white clouds, the clear water, the people so full of themselves. We talked our way into the opening ceremony of a local film festival, were offered fancy drinks and even fancier finger food and when one of the local head honchos in his traditional Lederhosen gripping his Porsche key ring began to wax lyrical about this being the best place on earth, we ran, giggling, into the night and the head lights of the fast cars in endless traffic jams were shining all along the lake like a string of pearls. 

The rest of the week involved a good bit of cycling, a panic inducing trip ontop a mountain in a tiny two seater swinging (!) gondola which took almost forever (and I seriously contemplated walking back down until someone pointed out that it would take me four hours at least), more lakes and tiny Baroque chapels, cows with bells grazing on very green meadows and all the hills were alive with the sound of music. Well, almost.

vine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

aptronyms

In the early 1990s, the New Scientist asked its readers to send in examples of aptronyms, or so-called nominative determinism (when people have a name that fits their profession) and it was always a good read.

"We recently came across a new book, Pole Positions - The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman. Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London - A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench. So it was interesting to see Jen Hunt of the University of Manchester stating in the October issue of The Psychologist: "Authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname." Hunt's example is an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology by A. J. Splatt and D. Weedon. (This really does exist. We've checked it)."

Think of William Wordsworth being a poet and you get the idea. Obviously, there is Freud (joy) and Jung (young) and Adler (eagle).
And today I found a paper by Dr. Doolittle and Brumm (hum) on the musician wren (cyphorhinus arada) which is this shy and gorgeous bird in the Amazon rainforest. (I know, a bit far fetched, but listen.)

Nobody owns life but anybody who can pick up a frying pan owns death.

William S. Burroughs

As quoted in a death notice (for nobody I know) in one of big national newspapers. Maybe a cook?

the last blueberry for this year

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.