I was five years old when I saw the sea for the first time and it would be another five years before I actually stepped into it. Growing up in a flat country with sandy soil and endless boring pine forest plantations, carp ponds and small streams, sensing that blue line of the vast horizon was physically overwhelming. But on that first day, it was also frightening as my mother nervously stood watch over me and my little brother. 

Together with my grandparents, we had come on a day trip and were totally unprepared. I remember standing there between the crowds, in my Sunday best, eventually being allowed to take off my shoes and socks, tucking my pleated skirt into my knickers, holding on to a hastily purchased set of plastic bucket and spade until I finally dared to copy the crowds of kids around me and started to dig. But I did not touch the water as the waves seemed like fierce animals trying to snatch me. It was the most unusual day, everything strange and new. On the way back, I fell asleep on my grandmother's lap in the back of the car and was woken when - long after dark - we stopped at a motorway restaurant where I had my first strange taste of pommes frites.

Five years later, my parents having climbed up the social ladder, we arrived for our first (of many) summer holidays in a thatched beach house on the Danish North Sea coast. At the end of the road where the sand began, we all got out of the car and climbed up on the dune and it was like a magic door had opened and I ran and ran and ran towards the surf. 

We all loved and hated these long summer months by the sea, my parents fighting, my mother driving off in a huff for a day, sometimes even two, the banging of car doors and the shouting of threats, my father's strict schedule of daily card game tournaments and chess competitions, but also sunburns, racing down the dunes for a morning swim, grilling fish on the beach in the evenings, carefully doled out portions of vanilla brittle ice cream and noisy games of catch long after dark.

It was a time when we all had so many dreams, of a happy marriage, of success, of health, of living by the sea forever, of being a family. 

Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.

Susan Sontag

Today I had The Talk with my lovely immunologist and plan C (or was it plan D? whatever) is about to begin. Things can only get better. But first, a multitude of tests and a couple vaccinations to refresh. Followed by waiting and pretending, of course. After that, let's light the candles and keep breathing. But first things first. Which means, phonecalls, more waiting and so on.

I was taken for a ride today

and a short little walk

atrial fibrillation

My secret belief - the innermost credo by which I live - is that although life is loathsomely ugly and people are often terribly vile and cruel and base, nevertheless there is something at the back of it all, which if only I were great enough to understand would make everything, everything indescribably beautiful.

Katherine Mansfield

Last Monday I woke in the early hours with a feeling of urgency and dread like never before. I got up and as I walked to the window to find the moon I passed out. It was all very gentle, my legs slowly bending and folding onto the soft carpet. Almost elegant. For a brief moment only. I pulled myself up and that is when my heart started to race and skip and stop and start. These jolly occasional jumps have been scrutinised extensively in recent years. Extra systolic beats are nothing to get worked up about, they told me. Only, this was slightly massively more than an extra beat here and there. The regular and boring thud thud thud of my heart had turned into a wild jig and while I was lying there trying to decipher this new rhythm, which wasn't a rhythm at all, I felt quite curious, calm even. 

Anyway, to cut a tedious story short, I eventually had the unexpected  pleasure of the second ambulance ride of my life. I got the full treatment, sirens and all, and I was actually laughing, it was so exhilarating with trees and houses rushing by. Nothing like the first one three weeks ago when I was puking all the way. Hell no, this was great fun.

It was all very picture book really, like on tv, the monitors with the colourful curves and bleeps, the tubes and ports and needles and wonderful calm skilled people coming and going with reassuringly orchestrated regularity administering potions and performing rituals and - oh yes! - that weird gown. I really regret that I left it behind.

Sometime during the following night, my heart had enough of it and jumped back into its boring regular groove. And as it did so, all the monitors started to bleep and shout and flash and the night nurses came running and cheering and clapping and I called home and then took this picture of the heavens above me.

There are days - and nights - when you ask yourself all sorts of questions. And there is a profound difference between the daytime and the nighttime questions. In my case, I usually forget the nighttime ones, even or especially when I was able to answer them to my satisfaction. I go back to sleep having solved the riddle's of humanity and wake up in the morning to the same seemingly insurmountable obstacles to peace of mind.

You ask yourself, how did I get here? Is this still me? Is it happening now? Cells dying and new cells growing, nerve impulses reaching my brain and you remember reading about the way our brain corrects what is actually happening with imprints from our memory. And you ask yourself, is this happening now, all of it? Or is this just the product of layered memories? Does it matter?

Your mind is like water, a pond, most of it covered in duckweed. Sticky and sluggish. And yet, sometimes, a spark, a moment when you think, this is real. You are alive. This is your breath, these are your fingers touching your face. 

And then for a short moment, much too short really, you recognise that all this doesn't matter at all, that you are as unimportant as the duckweed or the falling leaves. 

I used to joke that I'll try everything once. Haha. Very funny. The joke doesn't work when doing unusual things twice, even with sirens and high speed as an extra.

Stil baffled I pretend to observe this fake reality show from behind  a one-way mirror. The night noises of an intensive care ward remind me of my vagabond days trying to catch some sleep while waiting for a delayed flight in a crowded departure lounge in a foreign place.

During the day I carefully keep my distances from the secret Information of sideway glances and whispered exchanges. If you have something to tell me, do it. If not , don't expect me to read between the lines and no, I will not fill the gaps. I will be the prfect patient for as long as possible. Polite and ignorant and not at all interested in anything but that potted plant at the end of the hallway.

Lonesome Leash

October

 Sheep's Head peninsula Co. Cork, Ireland (July 1983)

My world is no longer turning. That's actually quite a beautiful improvement. While the ground beneath my feet remains unsteady, I no longer need to hold onto walls when I walk and the staircase has become once again just a means to move from one floor to the other. In fact, I can look into the rainy garden and notice the wind in the wisteria and tell myself that this is just wind and not a mean trick of my damaged balance organs. But this is all surprisingly tiring. As I walk past the big mirror of my great-grandmother's wardrobe in our bedroom I stop for a moment to take a look. You are not well, I tell the person staring at me, don't fool yourself, you are sick. 

Last night in my dream I explained to my GP that I wanted to sleep for about three months, and she wrote an elaborate prescription on thick cream paper and handed it to me but I was too tired to take it and instead just curled up on the floor in front of her desk. I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember what happened next.

When I blow my nose in the morning, an impressive amount of blood appears probably from deep in my sinuses and inside my mouth, there is a spectacular number of open sores. 

The blessings of cortisone. Possibly. Hopefully.

Of course, this is all old hat.

Only this time - oh, I have no idea and I try not to speculate. Obviously, I have been pretty ill and have gotten better before and there is no reason to think that it won't happen again. Eventually. And as it stands, no vital organ damage looming on the horizon, just a somewhat major spot of bother in the ENT department and all sorts of accompanying odds and ends incl. exhaustion and the usual stuff like gastritis and so on. (But try and tell this to the scared wimp in my bed at 3 am.)

To drown out the double bass players in my ears I have been listening to some very interesting and downright lovely podcasts. Earlier today, I was back on the sheep's head peninsula, which has been one of our favourite places for many years, listening to gorgeous sing song West Cork accents describing the time in 1979 when the writer JG Farrell lived and died there. 

In fact, I just realised that on the day he died so dramatically, on Saturday August 11, 1979, we were travelling (on foot, hitch hiking and by boat) about 350 km north along the same coast, eventually reaching Clare Island where we struggled to pitch a tent in the evening, there was fierce wind and rain. I had met R seven days earlier.

Anyway, it's a sad story (the one about JG Farrell, not the one about R and me) but worth listening to. (Here is the link. And here another account of events.)

Sheep's Head 1983

Tough work, let me tell you. The recovery of my vestibular function.  It's taking its sweet time compared to previous experiences but the expert yesterday cautioned me to be patient because it is exhausting stuff.  Think massive concussion on a sailing boat at high seas and you get an idea. It is also noisy, there is a quartett of double bass players inside my ears.
Apparently, we are talking weeks - at least.
And yet, he did say recovery. Magical word.

So, here I am, reduced, battling the blues (sounds better than it feels) and generally trying not to drown in self pity.

Still, I've been here before I know but honestly, that doesn't help right now.
 I will eventually get back into some form of a daily pattern, rediscovering the separating line between day and night.

Meanwhile, distraction is the key. Tracing humanity in many forms and shapes.
Go if you have the time and read the here and fall on your knees:  http://www.humansofnewyork.com/


And then, have a look here:



The last time I was in London, one of these tower blocks was on fire. Just as we walked through the Columbia Road flower market where we got the bronze fennel that has spread all over the garden this summer. It was very dramatic but nobody got seriously hurt.

Some days are better than others. What am I saying? Some days are simply beautiful. I know what I am talking about, I am married to a gardener.

However, today is not one of them, despite the elegant long shadows on the lawn, the clear October air with flickering clouds of tiny swarming insects, ripe figs and a hedge full of blackberries.

While the gardener is clearing and digging, I update my list of medications and symptoms as required. I make a list of the latest publications on autoimmune inner ear diseases and multiorgan involvement of c-ANCA antibodies hoping that I will find the courage and self confidence to hand these to the expert I am due to meet tomorrow.

Last night while I was waiting for the dramamine to kick in and relieve me from drowning at high sea, with R sitting beside me working on the coming week's teaching plan, I closed my eyes and climbed Mount Eagle on the western shore of the Dingle peninsula in Co. Kerry, Ireland on that balmy summer's day thirty years ago. The evening air was simply gorgeous and my arms and neck were still hot from the afternoon spent on a sunny beach. 

We had decided to come here on the spur of the moment, still in our summer clothes with a woolly sweater for later tied around our hips and hastily put on walking boots. My pink sleeveless sundress slightly billowing in the breeze I tried to keep up with R who was striding up ahead of me, steady as ever. And as always, he had found the best path up the rocky slopes just by looking towards the sun. Up on the top, sitting in the breeze, we looked out over the silent Atlantic and all was well with the world and our lives and our totally uncertain future.

Without that man gently coaxing me to climb so many seemingly impossible paths I would have missed the most splendid views. 

an exercise in futility

I never had much tolerance for moaners, people who throw their symptoms around like pearls and who seemingly spend most of their time concentrating on how miserable and unfair life is.

I still don't and I try hard to not do this in real life. 

In real life. 

In real life, I never lose my cool. I share jokes with the experts about the silly bruises on my body from the injections, the way my hair blocks the shower these days. I pretend that I am pragmatic, that I understand the science behind it all, the way the drugs interfere and reshuffle what my body has messed up. I pretend that I know about the importance of sleep and rest and keeping calm.  I play the games of relaxation and meditation and mindfulness and sometimes I even start to believe in their powers. I walk - carefully and slowly - through the garden making an effort to observe and delight and Be Here Now. I try hard to let go and allow my body and my mind to fuse into a meaningful blissful presence regardless of whatever. To admire the dynamics of my atoms swirling according to some deeper cosmic order/chaos.  (I know. Bear with me.)

But blogging? That's for letting it all hang out.

That's where I am the miserable cowering animal. 

Where I am mad and furious - energy permitting - at the unfairness of it all. 

Where I admit that I pace the garden like a caged animal ready to rip and tear. 

Where I roar that I am done with chronic illness, done with patience, with acceptance and all that crap. 

After a while even that becomes tedious. And sometimes, somewhere between and below all of that, the moaning and the whimpering and the distancing and the expert talk, I get a tiny glimpse of something pure and whole and complete and I try to touch it but then it's gone.

 

waiting for life to seep in again as it surely will

We are all in some way beggars in this lifetime. We are at the mercy of others and at the mercy of what will happen to us. Of course, we can chose how we respond to it, but we are always praying for something to happen or not happen in one way or another. We come with these empty bowls and there’s a great deal that is given to us … We are all vulnerable to whatever might befall us.

Ellen Bass

I have no patience right now.  No desire to wait this out. I wake up in a sweat, desperately trying to find the switch that gets me out of this. Fighting another wave of nausea, but too exhausted to panic. Maybe all will be well or maybe it really doesn't matter. Shreds of dignity here and there but barely so.
Oh heavens. Tough shit.

Yesterday and today

You wake up early, long before dawn. 

You turn onto your right towards the open window. Only, there is no window. 

You think you are in a dream still. 

You get up - in a dream? You want to go out into the hall but there is no hall. Not where you think it should be. 

You hold onto a door frame and you cry out, where am I? Can someone wake me up?
Then you collapse. 

You are dimly aware of the sound of vomiting, the jolly voices of the paramedics, hi what are you up to so early?
You are asked to open your eyes and you briefly try to concentrate on what maybe is the face of a tanned young doctor with long dark curls floating around her face. But everything is turning turning turning. Faster and faster and your head wants to explode with a roaring pressure. 
You can feel a soft rain falling on your face as you lie curled up somewhere outside on a stretcher. You try to apologize to the jolly paramedics for vomiting all the way to the hospital.
You can hear R somewhere in a distance and of course you start to worry that he will be late for work but the world has lost all boundaries and for a short moment you feel the excellent beauty of floating and you let go of any striving. 

You close your eyes and all is amazingly and exeptionally as it should be.
Many hours later you open your eyes again to the tedious and sterile reality of a hospital room. 

You watch the cortisone dripping slowly into your vein and you know you are in for the long haul.

30th August 2015, Budapest Keleti railway station, picture by Zsíros István

the story is here

And this is the soundtrack that started in my head when I saw it:

September

The other day we stood and looked out into the rainy garden.
We looked out in silence and autumn started to sneak in, right there before our eyes. The way it looks when you squint and try to block out the green and lush bits. It felt like one massive sigh.

Later, on my way through the traffic I almost cried. There was a sad song on the radio. It rained. Suddenly, this wave of self pity washed over me and I almost shouted, I was so angry. Give me one day without symptoms, you shitty universe.

Back home, I walked into the kitchen and R stood there, frozen. I just heard live 
footage from the Hungarian border and there was this piercing cry from a baby. They are using tear gas against babies. We just stare at each other.

At night, I am holding a child, a sleeping toddler in my arms. That smell, so close, so soft. I try and keep very still, I know she will disappear when I move and wake up.
In the morning R tells me that in his dream he was holding S in his arms, a tiny S, crying and tired, until she fell asleep.

Human beings have hope built in. If they weren’t hopeful they would have died out a long time ago.

Margaret Atwood

and now for something completely different

Last night we got an email from friends of friends asking for any extra bedding as more than the expected number of refugees had arrived at the former school which is one of the first call places here where incoming refugees are  given shelter. So we drove out into the night with a car load of blankets and duvets and a big box of cookies and whatever we could find in the spur of the moment. The security guard helped us to unload and eventually, a few young men in shorts and T-shirts approached us with shy smiles. R started talking to them, where are you from, what would you like to do next and so on.  I was at a loss for words, all I could say was, welcome and I hope it will all work out for you.  And then we all cried a bit, the security guard incl. while more people arrived, my fellow city people, young and old, carrying more bedding and blankets and we quickly drove off. Today, people have been asked to not bring any more as there is too much already, food, bedding, toys, bicycles, medicines etc. and volunteers are now put on waiting lists. Still, it felt like nothing, a car load of bedding, and it is nothing and yes, I realise that my government has ulterior motives. Germany has the world's lowest birthrate and the industrial sector has been crying out for skilled and unskilled workers. Add to this the number of children who will be educated and trained here and do your maths. But at the same time, we - and I say this with a swelling heart and a lot of emotion - we Europeans are discovering humanity. To some extent, enough to make me weep every time I watch this video. If it will not open below, click on this link.

This week I will meet the HR woman who deals with people like me, people with too many sick certs but who cannot be fired (just like that). She is in charge of this fabulous program which is helping people getting back into work after a long illness. I sent her a short rundown of my state of being, aka the volcano scenario, and we shall see. An exercise in talking at cross purposes, something about two parallels never meeting etc.

Meanwhile, I am holding my breath (in short supply as it is) waiting for yet another bunch of lab results, while working up the courage to make that phonecall for the appointment to have all sorts of stuff stuck into my throat, i.e. a laryngoscopy. Silly me checked it out with dr google and it made me gag. Way to go if you want to have an even hoarser voice than the one I have now.

As for September? Windy and rainy all of a sudden. Last week's heat has evaporated. The evenings are getting darker and I am reminding myself that this is just the way it is. Perfectly normal. Nothing to get worked up about.

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly

it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back

you have to understand
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land

(...)

Warsan Shire

For more than two years we have been fed horrific footage from Syria. On our screens, we are shown what a terrible place Syria has become. For more than two years, we could have tuned into expert discussions about who and why and what.
All, ALL!, agreed that civilians are suffering tremendously and beyond our understanding. But for some reason nobody ever imagined that people who have suffered so much will need to escape, that Syria is no safe place for children, for families, for anybody. It was ok as long as they squeezed into the by now hopelessly overcrowded camps in the neighbouring states of Lebanon and Jordan. These are UNHCR emergency camps and for anybody who has never seen one: tents meant for emergency not for long term occupation in all seasons. Anyway, that was ok with us, watching from our comfy European homes. But since these desperate people have started to look for refuge here with us, we quickly shut any legal and safe route, we deny them visa, we will not permit airlines to take them on board, we force them in the hands of smugglers who put them on unsafe boats, into overcrowded vans and who drop them in the middle of nowhere or on the hard shoulder of the motorway. We do all this to protect our homes and our comfy compassionless lives.

All morning yesterday at the Serbian-Hungarian border, I saw Syrian parents determinedly walking with their children – trying to remove them from the horrors of the slaughter in Syria, which have been allowed to continue for four years, and to the promise of security in Europe. Those parents are heroes; I admire their sheer determination to bring their children to a better life.

Please read more here.

Today, I had four very pleasant taxi rides between two railway stations and one clinic and our one and only home. It cost a bomb but I only do this twice, maybe three times a year. I swear that the taxi drivers all somehow guessed that this was a difficult day for me and they all tried to cheer me up. 

The Kurdish one during the 8:30 am traffic jam demonstrated his newfangled shiny purple reading glasses which fold into a small square and pop up just like that! He also told me that organised religion was the root of all evil and that we need to teach our kids to always keep their hearts and minds open. I totally agreed and it went from there. When we finally reached the station, he thanked me for a lovely time.

The Azerbaijani grandfather who dropped me at the clinic three hours later sang me the wedding song he has been rehearsing for his youngest daughter's wedding to a German policeman next week. It was a very long song and as I sat there watching him with his eyes closed and head thrown back, the clouds opened and all was shiny and golden sunlight around us.

The young Afghan who drove me back to the station offered me a cup of chai from his elaborately decorated flask and it was very very sweet, both the taste and the gesture, because it stopped me - just in time - to fall into that deep miserable hole of self pity and why me and all that stuff.

The last trip back from the station was a short German lesson because the Iranian driver had only arrived four months ago, for love, he told me, and so we went through a few phrases on his language app and after I had paid him, he showed me his young wife and his tiny baby daughter, gently wiping with one delicate finger from one image to the next on the surface of his phone. I would have asked him in for tea had I not been so exhausted but I took his card and promised to call him for my next trip, silently hoping that by then he will have passed the language exam to continue studying medicine.

On the train journeys I met:

A very heavily pregnant Japanese woman living in Cologne on her way to meet her parents at the airport, preparing herself for the inevitable onslaught of the expected Japanese misunderstandings regarding the European approach to birth. She was very flustered and I hope she and her parents made it home in time.

A former heroin addict who found jehova and the joys of keeping fish in various types of aquariums (aquaria?). Well, I now know a lot more about hard and soft water and African perch and why zebra fish prefer the company of neon fish or maybe not. 

About 20 preschoolers or their way to the Roman museum for really important stuff as one of them informed me. He also told me that under no conditions should I try and swim in the river because of the big strong currents and I promised that I will remember his advice. He then gave me a grape. 

With all this social encounter going on I managed only one picture. I didn't get that right, it's one river bend before the Loreley (yes, the Germans write it with a y) but it looks almost the same, only there are more tourist boats and flags. 

I also met my lovely immunologist and she did not like the look of things at all. Plan B has not worked out it seems, so it's Plan C for eight weeks with Plan D lurking in the background. Plan D is not nice, so keeping all fingers crossed for Plan C to do wonders. Eight weeks.

At the risk of coming across all melodramatic and absolutely irrational, after all it's raining heavily (and there is a damp patch in the basement that worries me still regardless of the reassuring statement of our clever builder friend) and my balance organs, those tiny spirals inside my inner ears, are throbbing with the effort of keeping my world at a somewhat even keel, there is a tiny light at the end of one of the dark tunnels I have been staring into. Or have been staring at me? Anyway, it's really all down to maths. If 800,000 people fleeing war and persecution and poverty and hopelessness or whatever are coming to Germany, that's 1% more in a country with a population of 80 million wealthy people. Get that in your head you scaremongering xenophobes.

I would love to embed a beautiful video but I fail, so please click here to watch. This video was made by a Syrian refugee arriving with a busload of other Syrians in a small (and very conservative) German town where they have been given initial shelter. See what I mean? Yes, we can.

The music video is an extra.

. . .  (migrants) are “exceptional people”. Over centuries, . . . , it has been immigrants and refugees who have been part of the alchemy of any country’s success: they are driven, hungry and talented and add to the pool of entrepreneurs, innovators and risk-takers. The hundreds of thousands today who have trekked across continents and dangerous seas are by any standards unusually driven. They are also,  . . . , fellow human beings. To receive them well is not only in our interests, it is fundamental to an idea of what it means to be human.

reading in the Observer today

My sister is coming for a short visit in 48 hrs and I just finished cleaning the cooker. I made a list of what I need to do next: bathroom, guest beds, patio, lots of deadheading of flowers in the garden, washing the kitchen floor and getting rid of as many spider nets as possible. There will not be enough time to weed the flower beds, clean the fridge or the windows. Then there's shopping, she has celiac disease, at least I know what not to get. The last time she came, she called out as she walked into the house, aah that peculiar smell, like mould in Ireland.

As if she knows anything about that.

Music for a massive gum inflamation, I wonder what keeps my teeth in place. There is nothing nice about the taste of your own blood. I have tried. Believe me.

resignation vs acceptance
maybe I am not wise enough or not clever enough or maybe it's still too early but really, what's the difference anyway
someone who has just been diagnosed with my disease (it's getting easier to write that, at least) contacted me and after I had offered her my personal spiel on it she couldn't find enough words to praise me and how I cope so fantastically and how positive I am and so on I almost shouted at her to shut the fuck up
but instead I put on my generous smiling face and walked away and into the sunset at the end of the rainbow
thinking this is getting out of hand

Summer is over. We are back to work and those brief exchanges of when will you get home over breakfast. But outside of course, it's still summer, heatwave after heatwave, breaking one record after another.

I would like to be at the sea right now, running into the surf.

. . . the lesson of Lacan is, living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you've attained in terms of your desires but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self-sacrifice. Because in the end, the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
That humour is the best answer in times of deep sadness.

Johnny Rotten/Lydon in today's Guardian. 

Last week, my father explained to us his strategy for remaining healthy. When you don't think about it, he told us, the symptoms just go away. My brother sighed and later on, long after my father had driven away in his big silver car, we agreed that while he is doing quite well - considering his rapid weight loss and the blue-black bruises on his hands and shins - he must be scared shitless. Don't mention the d-word, my sister added. Not allowed.

Meanwhile, it seems that sitting seven hours in a comfortable air-conditioned car, looking at other cars, trees, hills, rivers, wind turbines and distant church steeples, while R drove skillfully and generally not too fast - it seems that this was the most exhausting thing.  So much so that I am reduced to lounging on horizontal surfaces, trying not to fall asleep. My latest lab report has arrived and I am completely healthy apart from one or two things. Nevertheless. Oh that word. Nevertheless, I have received orders for more tests and whatnot's. One of which took place early this morning and because I was only half awake, this carefree version of myself hopped on my bicycle for the half hour journey along the gorgeous river. By the time I got home, well let's say, I was not my usual youthful self. Oh dear. I had completely forgotten about that business with my lungs. Still, I am confident, sort of, that there is a plan B yet to be discovered because, no way will I give up cycling. No. Way. 

It helps, massively, to remember that less than two days ago, we swam in this glacial lake, morning, noon and evening.

One of my grand nieces had golden sandals. When I told here that these were the best and most beautiful shoes in the world she decided there and then that we must climb trees together. We had a fabulous evening.  

The Alps always sneak up like the biggest surprise of all. Suddenly we are surrounded by towers of rocks and fog. And then the lake.

There are . . .  no such things as curses. There is luck, maybe, bad or good. A slight inclination of each day towards success of failure. But no curses.

Anthony Doerr

At this stage I wouldn't even know the difference between success and failure. But I accept that my days are not and never haven been cursed. Today, I am mostly staring into space and wishing there was a way to compare the person I seem at present with the one I was 12 months ago.  My own control study, complete with Tables and Figures and the statistical work up. Then and now. Trying not to hiss at myself, what the fuck has happened. You call this energy? (The Alpine lakes are looking very far away at this stage.)

Still, R has asked me politely to drastically reduce my use of swearwords. We discussed it for a while, politely, and agreed that a short shout of fuck or fuck this is acceptable when, e.g., you drop the honey jar on the kitchen tiles because due to mysterious circumstances the lid was not screwed on tightly or when for unknown reasons beyond your control the handle of the compost bin breaks before you reach the garden (i.e. spilling the contents on the sitting room carpet) and, extending beyond the gravity scenario, when computers/printers/scanners/cell phones etc. act up. Which is where he has on occasion uttered the odd curse. God forgive him.

When I first met R's parents, these two very mild mannered and generous people who taught me that a stranger is always a friend you haven't met, I was pretty arrogant. I think so now. They probably thought so, too, but their hearts were so much bigger than mine was then. I took me several years of proper family dinners (all the trimmings and side plates!) and hideous parlour games and watching soccer or Wimbledon on tv together before I realised that they never ever used a swearword at all. At all. I mean, they exclaimed all sorts of stuff, holy mackerel, holy josephine, cripey, crispy crospy holy malosky and so on, while there I was all, jeez this and god no that and oh shit all, over the place. Of course, R doesn't curse either and now, after 36 years, he tells me. Jeez.

Lifelong learning.

I have been grounded by my GP once again and tomorrow she wants to do the full check-up whatever that is. I am due at 9 am without my breakfast but with my urine sample. I feel like a fake. Or: I wish I could feel like a fake. There is hope for a simple explanation but also not denying the fact this year has been rather shitty and my sick days are mounting up. Already got one letter from the personnel dept. offering me assistance with occupational rehabilitation. I got such a fright, I tore it up and stuffed it deep into the kitchen bin way below the yukky bits so that I wouldn't even attempt to fish it out again. 

Instead, I doze or try and follow the plot in True Detective (I have no idea what's going on but Colin Farrell is doing a great job with the eyebrows). Occasionally, I freak out and wash the kitchen floor or clear away the stuff in front of the damp patch on the basement wall that looks so much bigger in my imagination than in reality. Still, there it is and we are arguing about its significance and whether the house will start to subside or rot away underneath us. We disagree wildly here and no longer communicate about it face to face. Instead, we send each other emails with drastic illustrations (me) or silly pictures (R). 

Looking after an old house can be quite a job, a bit like looking after an elderly overactive relative.

Anyway, after every bout of activity I am met by what my GP calls a significant loss of physical energy and it takes me a while to un-wobble my knees, so to speak. Which admittedly is a bit weird but - see above - hopefully with a simple explanation. I try not to think about it too much and spend my sleepless hours listening to our new neighbour across the road who sits outside at night skype-ing with someone faraway speaking foreign languages in a deep baritone. There is occasional laughter but he sounds lonely. I contemplate all sorts of explanations and even consider inviting him over (this is not the thing to do here, believe me) but in the mornings, his blinds are down, his doors are shut and I am not sure. Maybe it was just a dream.

Tomorrow, the second set of our three sets of summer visitors is arriving, probably full of energy. Theoretically, we are going to do all sorts of stuff. Including a very long scenic drive on Sat. to celebrate a birthday followed by a week swimming in and frolicking around clear Alpine lakes in Austria. Theoretically.

Meanwhile, the garden, oh the garden is bliss. 

the terminator speaks up

If action is not taken immediately my grandson will live in a world suffering heat waves, severe droughts and floods. Cities like new York and Venice will drown. We are on the brink of catastrophe but the solution to the climate crisis cannot be left to governments alone ... People are taking the lead and demanding change. We must not fail them.

Arnold Schwarzenegger at the world’s first summit of conscience for the climate yesterday

one week in the mountains way out east

It did feel odd, strange, a different place. Maybe I am super sensitive with all the negative media (xenophobia, racism, the attacks on asylum seekers etc.) but this was not the Germany of my childhood. And not just geographically. Unfamiliar.
Very hot, too many detours and well, my father knows how to lecture. Incl. trick questions. I managed to not disappoint, rattled off names and dates of various emperors and battles, after all he sent me to the proper school. If only for this reason it seems. To regurgitate history lessons.
Some of it very pretty, mostly the doors and the gardens.

gone east

Stolberg, Harz mountains

Day three of travelling with my 86-year old father. Already, I have greatly disappointed him. It all started out quite well despite the fact that we arrived late (43 min!). As I got out of the car I could hear him clapping his hands all the way from his observation post in the deep armchair of the hotel lobby and before I had climbed the stairs, I could see the glee in his eyes. We continued from there. I tried to remain patient and all but some time after dinner last night I almost lost it. There are times when life seems too short to debate the finer details of classical Greek lyrics. Debate is not exactly the correct term either. I could see myself shrinking back into my angry teenage self, the one I thought I had left behind forever about 40 years ago. Silly of me, I know.
That and feeling unwell. I blame the heat for the time being and have spent the day in this very comfortable hotel room bed dozing and occasionally exchanging messages with R who is following him around and on top of mountains and steam trains and much more I am happily missing out of.

Still. This could be his last summer. It doesn't feel like it, his energy is overpowering despite the fact that he hardly eats or drinks and the condescension in his voice is as sharp as ever.

always running behind him

Last week, a colleague told me that she will not eat sugar for one month to purify her true self or something like that. She said we all need to cleanse our bodies every couple of months. It vaguely reminded me of the way R's father explained confession and sins over Sunday dinner so many years ago, when he was still hopeful to have me properly baptised and saved and all that.

I like the idea. Cleansing sounds good. During my final exams at uni, I fasted for 16 days, just tea and a bit of carrot juice. I wanted to impress this guy, a former bf who was studying medicine, he called every day to cheer me on and check my blood pressure. Much later, he confessed that I was one of 12, that I had been part of a study for his PhD thesis. His experimental design was a bit flawed regarding the informed consent but I remember feeling great, apart from very cold feet and a furry taste on my tongue.

Every morning I take five different medicines, two of which I also take every evening. On Tuesdays, I take medicine number 6, on Thursdays, number 7 and on Friday, I add number 8. I keep the crumpled up instruction leaflets to each of them in a box somewhere. Early on, R offered to make a spreadsheet of all the possible side effects. I begged him not to.

But I wonder. What if I just stop them for a month to purify my true self. To rediscover my body raw with illness, to watch what happens, to find that thin line again, between what's left of myself and being ill.

I mentioned this to one of my learned friends, someone with years of medical research behind her. I told her sort of by-the-way, as if I was telling a joke. I even laughed. She just put her hand on my arm to stop me and silently shook her head.

So yes, I hardly eat sugar anyway.

It's early morning, very early morning. When you are weaning yourself down to the lowest possible dose of cortisone, all according to the carefully designed protocols, sleep is more of an irritation than the restorative deep space it usually should be. That and the heat. And the man on holidays while you slave away at your desk. 

You make a cup of tea and walk around the garden. Of course it's all gorgeous, dewy innocence,  the first rays of sun so gentle, so benign, not a hint yet of the merciless heat it will throw down in maybe two, three hours. The garden smells like the boudoir of the queen of Sheba. Just out of interest and maybe for the Guinness book of records you start counting the flowering lilies (in myriad colours) and you stop when you reach 85 or maybe 95. He planted them, that same man you got so mad at last night because. Because. Because he was so healthy and fit and jolly after his glass or two of some stunning red wine (you guess it tastes stunning but of course you don't know because your drugs are prescription medicines and while you are required to combine all kinds of chemicals to remain human, alcohol is not permitted in the mix)  and he never even guessed the urgency in your eyes when you asked for whatever it was you asked for because you knew if you could not get this or that done now you would not have enough energy later on. Or something other, all so incredibly unfair and why-me-ish. That endless game.

And so here he is, all fresh from his sleep, ready to cut the hedge on maybe the hottest day of the year, the century. We're ok love, he reassures me.