being afraid is not the problem, brooding is

Hope is not a form of guarantee, it’s a form of energy, and very frequently that energy is strongest in circumstances that are very dark.

John Berger

Things I do, apart from work. I pin the leaflet from the local health offices about the free distribution of iodine tablets to households on our notice board in the hall. We used to have some in stock (because several French nuclear reactors are close enough and in really bad repair) but I cannot find them. I stalk the social media accounts and wikipedia pages of the sons and daughters of Russian oligarchs and especially the offspring of the five men we have been informed are Putin's siloviki, his inner circle. On google maps, I look up their villas in Italy and Turkey and France. I get lost in glossy media stories about their interior decoration and pool table settings, the instagram world where the sun always shines. 

I brood, I speculate. What if they don't like what their dads are plotting. What if the dads don't want to go along with what their boss is doing. What if their dads' friends figure out that things are not going to plan. (Plan meaning blitzkrieg/coup, speedy occupation, locals waving flower garlands etc.).

Of course I am afraid, isn't that one of Putin's political goals. But I tell myself that fear must not paralyse me, or at least not for long. Is it because of my parent's memories that I am afraid, the war generation so particularly sensitive, or my own memories of nuclear war threats throughout my childhood? Or is it the old image of the Russian as a semi-civilised monster that has been popularised over and over again for the last hundred and fifty years? I'm thinking of James Bond antagonists, of World War II legends.
That what we want to call civilisation is only a thin layer, everywhere. Man's inhumanity to man runs through us all. My country, my parents and grandparents passed on to me the burden of genocide, gas chambers, an unforgivable war. My continent is not peaceful. Several years ago, we cycled along the river Neckar in southern Germany, passing through picturesque Medieval towns and villages for a pleasant sunny week in early autumn. One of these pretty towns, Oberndorf, is home to three of the world's leading weapons manufacturers and exporters (grenade launchers, rapid-fire rifles and tank weapons). You would not guess it. There is a Holocaust memorial on the town outskirts next to the picnic tables and the adventure playground. 

Wars have been raging on every continent for as long as I have been alive, some are silent, others atrocious, devastating.  How long ago was this?

  

And yet, I need to move on, we need to move on. Peaceful minds must prevail. Maybe some gestures, some deeds are not totally helpless. Have hope!

here we are watching from our ringside seats

The above is a quote from an opinion piece by Ian McEwan in today's Guardian. I am lost for words or maybe I am simply ashamed for not having proper words, deeds and thoughts right now. 

I get mad when clever people try to tell us that for the first time since the end of WWII, Europe is facing war. Not true. As the hundreds of thousands casualties of the war in former Yugoslavia should testify. In my memory, two days immediately come to mind. 

One, a sunny Saturday in 1992, we are getting ready for a month in the country with S and her best friend. While they are packing the car, I have a last cup of tea reading the newspaper, the big article about women in Bosnia, the first report on systematic genocidal rape. I know I left the newspaper behind because half way through our holiday, the friend who looked after our plants and cats phoned and told me that she had read the article while having a cat moment on our balcony, lost too much sleep and was now joining some women doctors travelling to Bosnia to help. 

Two, on an early morning in 1999, with my colleagues at work. Since last night and for the first time since WWII, the German army is actively fighting, participating in the NATO air strikes against military targets in Yugoslavia. Good grief, we thought, our naive pacifist hearts crushed.

 "For all our pity and anguish, our status as onlookers is luxurious." writes Ian McEwan today.

 Over breakfast today, this is what we listened to:

Dear friends,

humanitarian organisations in Sarajevo are collecting aid for you and I am sitting in front of the closet in my apartment trying to remember what you would be needing the most. It's not my warm socks or my jacket or my warm boots that you most need now. It's my 30-year old t-shirt imprinted with a slogan that kept me up during the 1425 days that Bosnian Serbs fired at will and held my city under siege with no water, no food, no electricity, no heating, and no communication with the outside world. I wore that shirt and read its message as more than two million shells fell on our heads and I dodged countless bullets. The t-shirt says, Sarajevo will be, everything else will pass.

Bad times are ahead of you, my friends. But weapons are being sent so you can defend yourselves. We Bosnians fought back but the world imposed an arms embargo on us. It did not understand what the fight was about in Sarajevo. Thank God it understands now in Kyiv. 

You are going to be hungry, thirsty, cold and dirty. You will lose your homes, your friends and family members, but what will hurt you the most will be the lies. Lies, that you are somehow to blame for what is happening to you. Lies, that you are actually doing what's being done to you. Those lies will poke countless holes into your hearts but without stopping them from beating and without freezing them. 

I see they destroyed your tv tower. Ha! They want to keep you in the dark just as they kept us in the dark. They want to turn the lights off so we cannot see what they are doing to you. 

Write down everything. Record it. One day it will define your history. It will explain to Ukrainians who are yet to be born what happened and most likely, it will end up being used as evidence and proof in a court against those trying to kill you. 

In the dark times that are ahead of you, you will lose faith sometimes. But I am writing to you from the future and I am telling you, you will prevail. Just as we did. I was supposed to be dead. But I survived. I am going to take my grandchildren for a walk tomorrow. You will one day too. Because I can see in you the same resilience I saw here. I hear you singing your anthem while pushing tanks away with your bare hands. 

Over time, you will sing, as we did, new songs. About your courage during this plight. And you will come up with your own slogans that will keep you alive. But for now, I am sending you the most precious thing I have. It's my slogan. I modify it for you. Ukraine will be, everything else will pass. 

Aida Cerkez. You can also listen to her reading it here. 

 

civilization watershed moment - again

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

Bertolt Brecht

The Russian leader has invaded Ukraine, to ‘denazify’ a country led by a man whose Jewish forebears died in the Holocaust. 

Berlin yesterday:

 #Berlin #Russland #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/DrsD1LN1mQ

— rbb|24 (@rbb24) February 25, 2022

two voices

 

First Hisham Ziauddeen

Can I live safely with COVID? 

Take this simple quiz to find out! If you answer 'yes' to a question, just add the score in parentheses to your total. At the end, see what your total means.

 Questions: 

1. Are you very rich? (-2) 

2. Can you choose how and where you work?(-1) 

3. Does your work place have protections in place? (-1)

4. Are you disabled? (+1) 

5. Are you immunocompromised or clinically vulnerable/high risk? (+1) 

5. Do you live with someone who is disabled or immunocompromised or clinically vulnerable? 

6. Do you live with a school-going child or are you a school-going child?

7. Are you a healthcare worker? (+1) 

8. Are you a teacher or work in a school? (+1) 

9. Are you unable to be vaccinated or likely to have a poor vaccine response? (+1) 

10. Do you have LongCOVID? (+1) 

11. Are you reliant on having a functioning health service? (+1)

Now calculate your total score.

If your score is 0 or less: You may be able to live with COVID. Continue taking safety measures like high grade masks and work hard to keep your score at or below zero.

If your score is more than zero: Think hard, is there anything you can do to get your score to or below zero? Are you absolutely sure you can't get your score down to or below zero?

In case it is not already clear, this is just an attempt to highlight the stark reality that for a lot of people in our societies, there is no option of living safely with an ongoing pandemic with high levels of transmission.     

We have a large number of disabled, immunocompromised and clinically vulnerable individuals who are at a higher risk of death and serious outcomes should they get COVID.

Many have been shielding for most of two years and under the plans to 'return to normal' and lift all protections, they have essentially no option but to continue to do so, with no end in sight. They have pretty much been written off as acceptable losses by the 'living with the virus' folks. Of course, these individuals are not a separate group in society. They are members of our families and to protect them, their families will need to continue to be very careful.  

Children will continue to be at increased risk given transmission in schools and any delay in vaccinating 5-11 year-olds. Clinically vulnerable children and children in vulnerable families will continue to have their lives significantly limited. 

Teachers and school workers and healthcare workers will continue to have high levels of exposure and be at higher risk. It's going to be tricky to 'return to normal' if you don't have enough staff to keep schools and the health services running properly. If you have or develop a health condition that requires a functioning health service to help you manage it, this will get more difficult. Without any other protections, we're left with a vaccines-alone approach and if you can't get vaccinated or have a poor immune response to vaccines, well... 

Btw, if you are immunocompromised, your vaccine course is 3 doses + booster not 2 + booster.  

Finally, people with LongCOVID are already suffering significantly, and some difficulties may take a long while to be investigated and understood properly, let alone treated. They can't risk getting COVID again. 

In short, getting 'back to normal' is not going to be an option for many people, and pretending that the pandemic is over and life just needs to get back to normal, will make life for many people more difficult and dangerous.

If you're in the 'we need to get back to normal' crowd, at least be honest about the fact that you're ok with lots of other people suffering, becoming ill and/or dying. Don't just leave that important bit of 'we need to get back to normal' remain unspoken. 

Next, Ed Yong

Dispense with the fiction that immunocompromised people are rare, secluded, or easy to identify. There are millions of them. Most don’t live in a bubble. Most look healthy. You probably have friends & colleagues you don’t know are ICd.  

A lot of immunocompromised people respond poorly to COVID vaccines & are mostly unprotected despite their shots. They're in limbo, uncertain about the odds & consequences of infections. Meanwhile, the gulf between them & everyone else widens.  

Policies like mask mandates that helped immunocompromised folks are vanishing. Friends & colleagues are dismissing their remaining risk because of the misleading idea that Omicron is “mild”. To be simply ignored would be bad enough. To be *mocked* is even worse. Many immunocompromised people . . . are tired of pundits who equate risk-aversion with irrationality. They’re sick of being a throwaway clause in someone’s callous op-ed. They’ve been made to feel that they’re holding society back. 

The opposite is true. Losing remote options forces many immunocompromised people into risky situations, "like asking someone who can't swim to jump into the ocean instead of trying a pool.” I spoke to 21 people . . . who are either immunocompromised or caring for those who are. I asked them what they want. Exactly no one said “permanent lockdown”. They want their lives back too. They need the world to be safer.

We are the only animal that in the face of trauma continues to retraumatise itself, playing and replaying that which has already happened to frighten us.

Mark Epstein

I have led a sheltered life. In comparison. I have never ever been desperately short of money or work or friends. I was never stranded, lost or destitute, in a material sense. I never needed to pick myself off the ground all alone, there has always been someone around to lend a hand pulling me up.

But neither was I ever pampered or spoiled or handed opportunities, advantages, secret handshakes, that kind of thing, no family connections were played out for my benefit.

Mostly by my own choosing, naivete, ignorance or simply life, I have found myself in a couple of dodgy situations and sometimes, I could get quite scared remembering, imagining what could have happened. 

And then of course, I have had a smattering share of scary matters of life and health and death. Haven't we all.

But the most scary, frightening thing that ever happened to me is this - and while it happened a long time ago, the memory is as vivid and immediate as if it had happened yesterday.

I am in my early 20s. At this stage in my life, I am working as a bookseller and the local radical bookseller's association (yes, this was something that proudly existed at the time), has financed a trip for me to attend the annual feminist book fair. It is sometime after midnight and I am on the bus from Wales, where I disembarked the night boat from Ireland, to London. I am seasick and sit in the front near the door. The bus stops in a couple of places along the way and I hop out for a breath of fresh air when I get a chance. At one of these stops, literally seconds before the bus leaves, two men push something onto the seat across the aisle from me and quickly run away. It's not something, it's someone. A middle aged woman in a stylish coat, long hair, sunglasses. She has lost one shoe, wearing only one black boot with a high heel. A large handbag. And she is drunk. Absolutely, completely, utterly drunk. For the next five or so hours, we travel through the night and I am terrified. I force myself to stop looking, watching her as she mutters and curses, drops her bag and spills the contents, picks some of them up, lets her body fall forward and sideways, almost slipping off the seat, cries and finally, seemingly, falls asleep for a while. I am covered in sweat, paralysed by the fear of a lifetime growing up with an addict. Like the child I once was, not too many years ago, I am hiding, afraid she might discover me across from her, look at me, speak to me, ask for help. For, of course, this woman in her smart clothes, her shaky hands searching for her lighter, her cigarettes, that last bottle, trying to brush her hair, this wreck of a person is my mother. At least for a couple of hours on a night bus. 

I cannot remember what happened when the bus arrived. I know I met friends, attended the book fair, bought stuff, danced in a club, the usual.

How alone we are in the vast universe. 

my mother, my brother, me

what else is new

Sunday is exhaustion recovery day, when I remain inside my dressing gown for a very long time. As always, I have made a list of stuff I want to do on the weekend, ranging from the sublime (baking, cooking, writing invoices for editorial work) to the ridiculous (clean bathroom, cut fringe, sort out fridge) and weather permitting, cycle for a bit before sundown. Weather is currently not permitting, we have storm force gusts of wind.

So far, I have managed to drink lots of tea while looking out into the middle distance, or rather the garden where the pigeons are mating aggressively. Also, one of the almond trees, the one closest to the side of the house, has started to bud and even produced a first few leaves.

Life is full of surprises. One of them is that I have to have yet another MRI. I could pretend it's fun, maybe I will. 

Of course there is the pandemic, we haven't forgotten that pesky virus. How could we. I am now double-boostered, as in four (4) jabs. Because contrary to what was believed a few months ago, the booster is not merely a booster vaccination that restores the number of antibodies that have evaporated a few months after the second dose. No. The vaccination is only complete after three doses, just like the vaccination against polio or tetanus. This means that with the booster, a protective effect is achieved that was still not there two weeks after the second dose.
Apparently, this is especially true for omicron, even though the booster has not yet been adapted to this variant. The risk of being hospitalised is half that of twice-vaccinated people. In addition, triple-vaccinated people are less likely to pass the virus on to each other, even within a family. (If anybody needs the source of my claims, let me know, there's tons of published study material out there.)

And since my booster (aka third jab) was way back in September, I was given another one. Just so, I didn't even have to sit around for 15 mins afterwards. I just cycled home and washed out the cold frames for the new seeds. Let the 2022 garden season begin.

I finished watching Station Eleven and I cried a good bit, especially during the episode when all the babies are born. But also because it is such an unbelievably hopeful ending. Once the emotional stirrings had calmed down, I reviewed it with my clever daughter and we agreed that even 20 years after a mind boggling all consuming planet wide pandemic, women - who are all courageous and powerful - appear to have access to excellent make-up produce and stuff to diligently shave their legs and other body parts while men - who on the whole are a bit lost, but strive to be wise and kind - have taken on a hairy, disheveled hobbit-like appearance. We left it at that. It's good tv.

Other than that, I am almost 65 years old, my mother has been dead for 22 years and I am still learning that I don't owe my parents anything, that, however unhappy my father is right now, it's not my fault.

Here's another nice video for distraction.

the moral high ground

For me it feels like looking down and seeing for the first time that I’m standing on a minuscule ledge at a dizzying vertical height, and the only thing supporting my weight is the misery and degradation of almost everyone else on earth. And I always end up thinking: I don’t even want to be up here. I don’t need all these cheap clothes and imported foods and plastic containers, I don’t even think they improve my life. They just create waste and make me unhappy anyway. (Not that I’m comparing my dissatisfaction to the misery of actually oppressed peoples, I just mean that the lifestyle they sustain for us is not even satisfying, in my opinion.) People think that socialism is sustained by force – the forcible expropriation of property – but I wish they would just admit that capitalism is also sustained by exactly the same force in the opposite direction, the forcible protection of existing property arrangements.

Sally Rooney (from: Beautiful World, Where Are You)

The last time I have been inside a supermarket was back in July for extra cream when I ran out of it making R's birthday cake (and before that maybe some time in early 2020). I remember that day in July because, unknowingly, I had an infection that required a trip to A&E on the weekend, but there in the air conditioned shopping paradise, I thought I was simply overwhelmed by the variety of cream options. It's not as if I haven't been shopping since, but going to a shop, any shop, has definitely lost all its appeal. Thanks to covid. Not that it had much appeal before. I once fell out with a distant friend, briefly, because she insisted on us spending a day, or maybe an afternoon, I forget, browsing shops and when I realised it was not book shops and that she in fact refused to spend ages waiting for me to finish reading, which apparently is not what you are meant to do in a book shop, she had a bit of a fit and we parted ways for a while, she browsing for whatever and me reading on, before meeting up in a delightful cafe to catch up on old times. 

In our pandemic world here, we have been spending money and feeding the economy, but just not as much. Instead, we have lists for a few delivery and/or online shops. Occasionally, I cycle to the library to return/pick up my online loans. In two years, we filled up the petrol tank exactly three times. 

I miss a few things, goodness yes I do, none of them do to with visiting shops. A while ago, I listened to a zoom talk about inner cities after the pandemic and alternatives to shopping streets and malls and living centers with children and dogs and trees and actual life. What a wonderful dream.

(this is one of many wonderful little videos by Jan Kamensky, for more click here)

happy birthday dad

When I call my father on the phone, his first words are "who's calling me?", which is his way to avoid not recognising the caller. These days, I have to shout back because he often does not bother to change the batteries of his hearing aid. He usually grants me three, four sentences of exchange before exclaiming how healthy and alert my voice sounds and then he either cuts me off or thanks me profoundly for calling, depending on his mood and based on how successful our brief exchange was. 

Today, he told me right away that there is nothing left for him apart from waiting to die and that he hopes it will be soon and that he won't have to live another ten years like this. By which he means living in a retirement home, confined to a wheelchair.

Today is his 93rd birthday. I know he will have the one allowed person-to-person visit later today and many, many phone calls. I also know that he sits by a table full of gifts to unwrap and cards to read and that there will be a spectacular cake, something he usually loves. But today, he sounded depressed and sad and lonely and my immediate reaction was one of panic. For a couple of hours after he put down the phone, my mind raced through what I should to, what I must do to make him feel better. I looked online for same-day deliveries of more flowers, ice cream, glossy picture books, photographs, interesting magazines, newspapers, more cake, I even looked at the cost of sending a limo round, one fit for a wheelchair and with a driver. Which is when I took a deep breath and got on with my life.

Look, he has been a great father, at times, occasionally and especially when we were little and on holidays. He taught me some important life lessons, valuable thoughts, ideas, concepts that helped me hugely and still do. He is a very clever, well read man and he earned his professional success with his sharp mind and dedication to science. 

But, and the list is long and there's no way to deny it, he has also been shit, really awfully so. 

And I do not want to feel sorry for him.

this was taken ten years ago

spring is just around the corner

Every morning I wake up with my very best intentions. Honestly, I do. Having established what day it actually is, I make a list of all the purposeful tasks of the day waiting for me and, reader, I feel confident and ready. Every bloody day. 

And then the day is over and I sit here with aching joints and my intestine is screaming murder and the car engine cut out on me on a narrow uphill slope while about fifty or one thousand other cars were close behind me and for three hours I sat in a room with a person whose kid has since been tested positive and my GP doesn't like the shape of my left kidney or maybe the liver or whatever got her attention in the ultrasound and I have to go for another MRI and the city we live in has the highest infection rate in our state and on Monday I get my second (!) booster and, whoopee, the xmas parcel has finally arrived at the grandchild's house. Also, R took the car for a run and found nothing wrong. (Secretly, I still think the virus will get me any day now.)

Here is another nice sheep video.

Sunday morning

I listened to the statistics, so many will get this disease and another percentage will get that and then I heard someone say that a hundred per cent of all people will die and felt such relief because we are all in this together.

Lani O'Hanlon

anything you want

This is about all that's left to harvest in the winter garden, for us humans that is.

In the bed behind, there's phacelia growing which will be dug in to prepare the soil for the corn runner bean squash mix. Also, the first little pots with seedlings have appeared on the window sills. It's a start, as every year. 

It's really cold now. It takes me ages to warm up when I have been outside. I tried pretending I am an arctic explorer while cycling along the river. It doesn't make it any easier and for the last two days, I've stayed in pretending to be old and unwell. Instead, after working in my snazzy home office until late afternoon, I do a bit of this and that. Not that there is much of this and that to do. I could roll into a ball and hibernate. But:

I will admit that there are other people who are primarily interested in doing something. I am not. I can very well live without doing anything. But I cannot live without at least trying to understand whatever happens.

Hannah Arendt

My employer stipulates daily self-administered lateral flow testing which means that every morning, R can poke with a narrow white stick into my throat and around my tonsils or rather the space where my tonsils once lived. He enjoys doing this. The things that make a man happy. He has also turned into a kitchen tyrant manager, I am allowed a slot on Sundays for dinner and the occasional banana bread baking. And even then, he walks in to check whether I am using the proper ingredients. As the saying goes, a marriage is an economic relationship built on trust.  

Anyway, I made this risotto with the Brussel sprouts and it went down a treat.

And soundtrack. I taught the chorus line of this song to a gang of kids under the age of seven while driving them to Brittas Bay for a Sunday afternoon by the sea. I shiver when I think that back then we had neither seat belts nor kid's car seats in the back.

 

All that natter and telling of anecdotes is me cleverly disguising that I am truly deeply scared now. I know from past experience what well-known, middle-of-the-road infections, the ones with medication to treat, can do to my immune compromised body. Basically, always a hard time. So this covid bastard could top it all. 

true or false

1. The sars-cov-2 virus is an airborne pathogen.
2. An infection with this virus is not just a respiratory but also a vascular disease that can attack other organs.
   
3. The virus spreads well in indoor settings without proper ventilation (e.g. restaurants), but not when the indoor space is set on a sidewalk or in a street.
4. In a queue, the virus weakens and dies if it must travel perpendicular to the direction of the queue and it hates right angles.
5. The virus can only infect people when they are having fun. It spreads at parties and other social gatherings but not in schools or offices and never on public transport or in a taxi.
6. The virus shies away from perspex, regardless of room size or the size of the perspex shield.
7. The virus can kill. 
8. It only infects people who don't wear masks.
9. The virus causes poorly understood neurological changes and sometimes lingers for months.
10. On airplanes the virus cannot infect people when they all simultaneously remove their masks to eat and drink when snacks are rolled out.
11. In fact, the virus will neither enter nor leave your mouth when you eat because the food is blocking it.
    
12. An infection with this virus can cause loss of taste.
    
13. In classrooms the virus rarely infects any pupils because they are small people.  But when they are in the real world, it's a different story.
14. Infection with this virus may also cause vomiting, diarrhea and nausea.
    
15. The virus replicates in your lungs and airways, but is only exhaled through the mouth so your mask doesn't need to cover your nose.
16. The virus is literate. If you print any sentence in the entrance of a place including the magic words "...all measures...safety...protocols", the virus understands it and avoids the place, no matter what you actually do.
17. When someone famous or of high political standing says that they feel "quite safe"  in a particular setting or even at an office xmas party, the virus bows to this superior feeling and stops transmitting.  
18. The virus cannot spread at political or sports events, but is highly contagious at small family gatherings.
19. The virus stays well away from anti vaxxers.
20. This is how you take a nasopharyngeal or nose swap to test for the virus.
    

 

 

Have fun. There is a box with 50+ test kits sitting in our hallway, we are old hats by now and test like there is no tomorrow.

a book is a gift you can open again and again

I have read 58 books in 2021. I won't bother listing them all.

These are my top three.

Apeirogon by Colum McCann 

The story of Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin. They are friends, they are real, you can google them. Rami takes fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. Bassam needs one and a half hours for the same distance. Rami's number plate is yellow, Bassam's green. Both men are fathers of daughters. Rami's daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber outside a Jerusalem bookstore in 1997 at the age of thirteen. Bassam's daughter died in 2007 at the age of ten by the bullet of an Israeli border policeman.
(An apeirogon is a two-dimensional geometric shape with an infinite number of sides.)

The book consists of 1001 short sections, about friendship, grief, love, war, peace. I have never read anything like it.

The Promise by Damon Galgut

Reminded me of James Joyce in the way a big story is told via the limited interior world of (just four) people. A book about oppression but mainly told from the double standard viewpoint of greedy oppressors, the point of view of racists, who of course cannot see themselves as racists, but as suffering creatures. 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Short novella, not a word out of place.  It defines Ireland’s complex past, a winter's tale of courage - and its cost, set in Catholic Ireland.

 

happy new year

music to start 

 

 

lessons from 2021: 

• Vaccines are good.
• Democracy does not mean 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.
• I tried but cannot be friends with people who accept the death of other people for their own well-being.
• Some things are so deeply personal that they can be revealed only to strangers.
• Life with a chronic disease does not become easier over time.
• There exists a new level of exhaustion and tiredness that bears promise, of sleep, deep sleep, forgetting, the comfort of lying down and closing my eyes and then - nothing. Hours of nothing but sleep.

lessons for 2022: 

• cope
• sleep
• read 
• go easy on the experts 
  

and now for some strangely nice stuff:

two women

Joan Didion has died in her home today. A sharp mind, an observer and capable to express in words what we only guessed as true. These are three of the many quotes from her that I have underlined, copied and pasted, scribbled and memorised over the years:

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

What it was like to open the door to the stranger and find that the stranger did indeed have the knife. (on being diagnosed with MS)

There must be a mistake: only yesterday I was in my fifties, my forties, only yesterday I was thirty-one.

Joan Didion

 

And in another part of the world, in Dublin, our sweet Nuala died peacefully at age 102. She was quite another soul, gentle, kind, always helpful. We took her for granted and she loved us for it, unreservedly. I've written about her here.

These two could not have been more different and yet, they both made a difference, enriched my life so much.

 

 

In all my life I have never lived far from a forest. Or at least not too far. And although I grew up with forests around me, learned much about life from forests, building dens, wading through forest streams, climbing trees, picking berries, watching dear, hares, frogs, collecting blue jay feathers, grass snake skins, empty birds eggs, snail shells, dead lizards . . . as a kid, I always dreamed of the open sea. Of wide horizons and rolling waves. 

And now in these strange times of pandemics and travel restrictions and my own physical limitations due to new symptoms, the forest has once again become a shelter and a place of wonder and discovery. The open sea is too far away. I rarely dream of it these days. Instead, I turn to the river, cycling the same 10 km stretch, day after day, pushing against the cold wind or being carried along by it, beside me the water flowing dark and fast, I follow fat barges and the birds keep me company, geese, ducks, gulls, cormorants, and all the while, the thick forest on the hills is watching over us below the enormity of the clouds. 

it's time for the sky to grow larger

If you are closer to being old

than you would like to be and slowness

begins to redefine the idea of difficulty

into something you would much rather

take a pass on, then it is time for the sky

to grow larger than the earth, than the sea even . . .  

 

Jim Moore

Today I was informed that I probably don't have MS or maybe just a bit of it and that we'll have a look at it again in a couple of months or so. Nothing to worry, they said. Not yet anyway, they reassured me. As for the symptoms, well now, they said, our best bet is that these could be side effects from the monoclonal antibody therapy and right now, there is no distinct nerve damage. Yet. So tell you what, they said, we'll check that over the coming months. Just watch your step, you don't want to have a fall. Still, you better go for the lesser evil and continue with the monoclonal antibody stuff because where you're at with your illness it's all a matter of weighing one shit against the other.

Or something like that. This is the colloquial version of several long and serious phone calls. The way I retold it a hundred times by now. You get the gist.

Then I watched the latest press briefing from the WHO on our new friend omicron, which is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant, infection numbers are doubling within a period of roughly 40 hrs. So please don't make the mistake of dismissing omicron as mild. It's not vaccines instead of masks. It's not vaccines instead of distancing. It's not vaccines instead of ventilation or hand hygiene. Do it all. Do it consistently. Do it well.

But most importantly, this issue was discussed: 

Journalist Gabriella Soto Mayor from Mexico. asks: "One of the things that most worries many children is Santa Claus - because he's old, he's overweight. They are concerned whether Santa Claus is able to leave his house and stay safe; whether he will be able to travel. So, do you have any message to the children in Mexico and, maybe, all over the world ? Thanks." 

Dr Van Kerkhove (WHO) answers : "Thank you very much for this really important question. I think you have highlighted a concern that many children have across the world. We can tell you that I understand the concern for Santa because he is of older age and from one of the risk groups. But, I can tell you that Santa Claus is immune to this virus. We had a brief chat with him and he is doing very well. Mrs Claus is also doing very well. They are very busy right now. We have also heard from a number of leaders across the world who have told us that they have relaxed the quarantine measures for Santa to enter their air space. So, he will be able to travel in and out of the airspace and be able to deliver presents to children anywhere. But, I think it is very important that all children of the world understand that physical distancing by Santa Claus and also of the children themselves must be strictly enforced. So, it is really important that the children of the world still listen to their moms and dads and their guardians - and make sure that they go to bed early on Christmas Eve. But Santa will be able to travel around the world to deliver presents. So, thank you very much for that important question."

Before we shout, ugh what condescending adult rubbish, I can confirm that I have met children who are most concerned not just for this gift bearing overweight elderly santa-like figure but also their overweight (or not) elderly relatives and friends in general.  Children are not stupid.

In other news, cycling still works a dream, better than walking. And, only seven days to midwinter. The sky will grow larger again, soon.

to be continued

 

the walnut tree farm early Nov

 

•  Spring

Me: Sometimes, not all the time, and only some days, not every day, don't get me wrong, I have these new symptoms, nothing dramatic, just odd really, not painful, but well you know I wonder, could this be a side effect of this new drug regimen? I've read . . . -

Expert A: Don't read stuff on the internet. No, no, the symptoms would be so much stronger and anyway, it's extremely rare to have these side effects. Don't worry.

My inner voice: Here we go again, extremely rare. Could not happen twice, surely. Keep calm and carry on.

• Summer

Me: Well, these symptoms are still with me and you know, should I . . . 

new GP: This is outside my skill set, why don't you see expert B and expert C. Can you organise this yourself? 

My inner voice: Who is she? Why do I come here? She's meant to be my GP for crying out loud.

Me: Thank you, you are so helpful, of course I can check this out by myself. (goes home, makes phone calls in best voice, minimal whining, almost no threats used, listens to some very poor choices of hold on music, eventually celebrates successful appointment schedules)

• Autumn:

MRI 1 and 2, blood tests 1 - 25. 

Expert B: Nah, nothing here, you are good. Whatever the cause of your symptoms, it's not from what I see here. Surgery is definitely not required.

Me: Yippieh, thanks, can I hug you? Sorry, no, covid, I understand.

• Winter
  

Expert C: OK, so this looks all OK - oopps what a minute, what's this here . . .

Life goes on, as we all well know. I am still in limbo, waiting for more results. Good days and every so often not so good days. But I am spending lots of time in some very impressive waiting rooms, furniture wise, and also, some good art work but occasionally disappointingly repetitive. 

Cycling in the freezing cold wind along the river helps to offset it all. Also reading. Mostly, however, watching Scandinavian thrillers online. Hiding from what will come next.

Our happiness is deep-rooted and real; while our despair is shallow-rooted and unreal, born of delusion and ignorance. We suffer because we overlook the fact that we are all right.

D. E. Harding

The building where I work - sporadically in these pandemic times - has a helicopter landing pad on its roof. It is one of several landing pads, this is a university clinics campus after all. Sometimes, when a helicopter lands while I sit at my desk, the reverberations create this roaring noise that seems to keep ringing inside me for a while after it's over.

This evening as I was unlocking my bicycle, a helicopter was just about to take off after bringing a patient and as usual, several people stood and watched. Patients out for a walk, visitors about to leave, staff coming or going. I looked up and saw the pilot getting in, shut the door and then the racket of the engine started. I have seen this many times. I usually find it is a reassuring sight, a patient delivered to the trauma unit, in safe hands at least. Tonight, though, I was fighting tears.

I cycled through the forest. As the clocks go back this weekend, it was the last bright evening. For the next four months, it will be dark now when I leave work - on the days I don't work from home. At the clearing with the two big meadows, the horses were grazing and trotting about with the sun setting behind them.  I stopped and took a picture and sent it to a friend who used to cycle along here with me, she has moved to Berlin and misses this forest badly. I also put on my mittens, once the sun sets, it gets really cold now. The end of October after all.

After dinner, the grandchild called and told us all about bottle feeding Daisy the lamb. We sang a few songs together before their day started in earnest and we settled down for our night time. 

I watched the last episode of a tedious thriller on ITV, with an ending I have already forgotten, and switched to a German channel for yet another documentary about the deportations of German Jews during the last war years. On nights like this one, the weight of sorrow seems too heavy.

I am still on that weird path of further diagnostics, waiting for the next expert's review. It's a long and exhausting story. I don't sleep well. I wish I could find the words to comment on all your blogs.

This afternoon I cycled through the wind and rain to have the second MRI in five days. Before I left home, I took a zoloft that was three years past its expiration date, the last one of the small supply I was given for future MRI examinations after the spinal surgery in January 2017. Inside the white tunnel, I hummed my songs and called up images of my daughter's birthdays from age 1 to 12. The wind had grown stronger by the time I was finished and I pushed the bicycle through the swirling leaves to the whole food shop where I bought a vast supply of chocolate and a bottle of lavender woolen softener before cycling down to the river. By now it had started to rain heavily and I decided to shrug off the couldn't-care-less from the zoloft and go home, make tea and eat chocolate. I haven't eaten chocolate for ages.

The third meeting with a medical expert is in two days time. I am pretending to be cheerful. I haven't got what it takes quite yet. It's all up in the air. But heavens!, please no surgery, please no!

Here's the thing. When your body continues to act up in so many unexpected ways, when your days are filled playing this never ending role of remaining cheerful and as active as the situation allows, when you must wait for another hour (and another) in some nondescript room, white furniture, white walls, facing the two colour print reproduction of a Van Gogh and an August Macke  (or a tasteful black and white photograph of empty sandy beaches), waiting for the results or that next test appointment you know you have lost your center, for a bit. For the time being.

 

 

everything ends up somewhere

In 2000, the British artist Michael Landy spent twelve months cataloging everything he owned, from handwritten notes to a single PG Tips tea bag on a string. The final inventory included 7,227 items, weighing a total of 5.75 metric tons. For two weeks in February 2001, Landy and a team of assistants systematically destroyed every single one of his possessions as a performance art piece, Break Down. His furniture was smashed, his passport and birth certificate shredded. A mechanic dismantled his car. Even old artwork and photographs weren’t spared. Everything he owned was pulped or granulated and sent to a landfill site in Essex. (. . .) The most difficult thing to destroy was a sheepskin coat that had belonged to his father, which he saved until the very end. (. . .) “destroyed” is really just a euphemism. The remains of Landy’s things ended in landfill, to begin a new, patient existence among the 16 million metric tons of household waste that enters UK landfill every year.

“Away” is a lie, the kind that lets us dream of lives cleansed of possessions. (. . .) At the end of the performance, Landy was a kind of modern miracle: a man entirely untethered from material possessions, lifted free of consumer society. But it didn’t last. Before he left the building, someone handed him a record to restart his collection. He had been the owner of precisely nothing for about ten minutes.

To read the entire story, click here.

I find this story somewhat moving, the effort, the futility. The stuff people do to find meaning, to learn, to forget. To occupy their time, maybe. 

Today, I've spent a good deal of my time looking at holiday accommodation in Singapore, chasing a dream. And I have not checked in with dr google for a definite diagnosis why my lower legs go numb. Not both, just one at a time, not always, just every so often. Instead I'll wait the 13 more days for the medical appointment with the expert, shaking with fearful anticipation. 

Can't all be bad, I did dance for a bit today. With abandon as the saying goes.

 

And we looked at the sunset from the good spot up high.

 

The garden is gone to seed.

 

 

September

 

autumn crocus

austice

n. a wistful omen of the first sign of autumn—a subtle coolness in the shadows, a rustling of dead leaves abandoned on the sidewalk, or a long skein of geese sweeping over your head like the second hand of a clock.

(from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows) 

The first week of my September holiday is ending.  We are not cycling along the seaside in Holland or Belgium or even Denmark and not somewhere in the Alps swimming in an ice cold lake because, virus. We are also not on our way to meet my father and 10+ other people for lunch tomorrow for the same reason. Possibly also because he said I was being hysterical and would not hear anything about me being on immune suppressing medication and hence not prepared to share lunch indoors with people, aka my cousin and his crowd, who refuse to get vaccinated. I may have added that I find it irresponsible of said cousin to actually come and have lunch indoors with his geriatric grandfather. I swear I said nothing like, how come he only always tuns up when there's a free lunch. Anyway, my father concluded in his sharp snappy voice, you sound perfectly healthy to me and put down the phone. Despite initially feeling - as expected - once more hugely rejected and misunderstood, but what else is new here, I am actually relieved.

So instead, I have been sleeping A LOT, indoors and outdoors on the lounge chair, in between reading and watching R digging and harvesting and composting and - drumroll! - preparing the place and his mental stage for the imminent removal of the oil tank, burner and all traces of fossil fuel from this house. He is beyond excitement. He has also started full blown war with the field mice eating his seedlings and although I repeatedly and so far patiently explained the futility of his actions has so far killed five specimen. I fear that I may become somewhat more involved for the sake of the mice.

The sad news is that I had to find a new GP as the lovely one I have been going steady with for the last five years has retired. The new one ticks all the boxes as in young, well trained, friendly staff, 10 min cycle away and so on but we have a way to go. So far, she refreshed my pneumo vaccine, filed away the embarrassingly large stack of lab reports and referrals from the various experts I had accumulated and when I asked whether I could or should halve the beta blocker dosage because it's now almost six years since I was in intensive care with the afib, she said - and I kid you not - "never change a winning team". Before falling asleep, I briefly debated with my inner voices the use of a soccer witticism in connection with my health issues and whether I can live with it. Fittingly, that night the afib came back in a big way as if to tell me to stop being so fucking finicky.

What else is new? I made this crumble with the apples and blackberries growing at the back of the garden and R started some wine from the small amount of this year's grape harvest.

the very last peaches

So I am trying to hold it together here, sticking with the winning team but, hell, it's hard work. And that's not even wasting a thought on the virus and the upcoming general election and all the soul crushing frightening mess we are creating ion the planet.

We should keep our feet on the ground to signify that nothing is beneath us, but we should also lift up our eyes to say nothing is beyond us.

Seamus Heaney

 

 

 

late summer garden pictures with irrelevant texts

 

Last Sunday, we sat in the shade with cold drinks while the laundry was drying in the sun. Today, I put on the water- and windproof gear to cycle my 10 km along the river dodging showers. Feels like October. All along the cycle path, the candidates for the upcoming national election - four more weeks to go - were beaming at me from their hoardings. Do election posters really serve a purpose or is it just me who finds them silly. 

So, hands up who still has the hope that if we grit our teeth and sit at home,  we will eventually return to normal life, and that somehow, it would all be over? Ha! 

By now, we should have figured out that this pandemic, any pandemic, behaves according to its own, not always comprehensible logic. I think, we still see humans somewhere at the top of the pyramid looking down at this obnoxious little virus. People, we must understand that this is not a normal disease that affects some and not others. Could be that we'll be dealing with mutants and recurrent infections for years. 

And yet, there are some who are convinced that by September 5th, or 15th at the latest, all vaccinated people will be dead. They even made posters and hung them next to the ones of the election candidates. Imagine spending money on stuff like that.

Don't sprout the idea that we somehow can live with the virus, that it will become, or already is, endemic, like flu. Wishfully thinking that the word endemic implies a mild disease with low case levels. The term endemicity means that a disease has a constant baseline level, not that it's mild or somewhere in the background.  The virus has already shown, several times in just one year,  that it can and will evolve to be more transmissible, and partly vaccine resistant. Let's not be so foolish and think it'll not happen again. And again.

Remember, humans have been living with malaria since prehistoric times, and it remains a deadly disease that infects hundreds of thousands of people every year. 

As for the hope that humans will adapt to the virus, bear in mind that we are talking about a survival of the fittest with a lot of death among the vulnerable. 

The way out, as far as I understand it, is that we manage Covid like we manage measles, which most countries have successfully eliminated through a combination of a population vaccination program and proper public health systems. 

 

 

Charlie for ever

In view of a most recent event, please join me in celebrating youth and rock and roll, and especially the coolest of all drummers.

the dragon is almost slain

 

Just like after 9/11, things will never be the same after Covid … things are changing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adapt to them in a way that eventually feels normal again.

Jacinda Ardern

 

artist: https://kevinmcshane.org/

This virus is really smart. Make no mistake. It doesn't care about politics or election campaigns, wars and borders or even our own secret wishful thinking or interpretation late at night.

This is where we are now on a global scale (all quotes are from here):

SARS-CoV-2 did evolve to better avoid human antibodies. But it has also become a bit more virulent and a lot more infectious, causing more people to fall ill.

The Delta strain circulating now—one of four “variants of concern” identified by the World Health Organization, along with four “variants of interest”—is so radically different from the virus that appeared in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 that many countries have been forced to change their pandemic planning. Governments are scrambling to accelerate vaccination programs while prolonging or even reintroducing mask wearing and other public health measures. As to the goal of reaching herd immunity—vaccinating so many people that the virus simply has nowhere to go— (w)ith the emergence of Delta, (. . . ) it’s just impossible to reach.

There’s now enough immunity in the human population to ratchet up an evolutionary competition, pressuring the virus to adapt further. At the same time, much of the world is still overwhelmed with infections, giving the virus plenty of chances to replicate and throw up new mutations.

The most eye-popping change in SARS-CoV-2 so far has been its improved ability to spread between humans.                                                                                                                                   At some point early in the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 acquired a mutation (. . . ) that made it a bit more infectious. That version spread around the world; almost all current viruses are descended from it. Then in late 2020, scientists identified a new variant, now called Alpha, (. . . ) that was about 50% more transmissible. Delta, (. . . ) now conquering the world, is another 40% to 60% more transmissible than Alpha.

 And this may be the way onward:

Although it’s impossible to predict exactly how infectiousness, virulence, and immune evasion will develop in the coming months, some of the factors that will influence the virus’ trajectory are clear. One is the immunity that is now rapidly building in the human population. On one hand, immunity reduces the likelihood of people getting infected, and may hamper viral replication even when they are. That means there will be fewer mutations emerging if we vaccinate more people. On the other hand, any immune escape variant now has a huge advantage over other variants.

(. . . ) the world is probably at a tipping point: With more than 2 billion people having received at least one vaccine dose and hundreds of millions more having recovered from COVID-19, variants that evade immunity may now have a bigger leg up than those that are more infectious.

There are some fundamental limits to exactly how good a virus can get at transmitting and at some point SARS-CoV-2 will hit that plateau.

But we have a long way to go. And there are days when I could get quite mad, which I claim as my privilege being a person on immune suppression medication. 

Apart from that, the late summer is quite spectacular with fierce thunder storms and fat peaches to harvest and a large flock of goldfinches in the bird bath every evening. We are half way through the house repairs and various alterations. The solar storage system is now installed and R spends many happy hours checking on the sunlight and how much energy we are now able to store to have available after dark and people, it's a miracle and the sun does not charge a penny for it. Next week we are getting rid of the fossil fuel (oil) central heating which will be replaced by a wood pellet heating system. Two small steps. And yet, a dose of optimism, badly needed.

Do what you can.

"Earlier than expected" is one of two constants we now hear about the climate crisis. The second, concerning intensity, is: "Oh dear, it seems we underestimated it". Do not be fooled. Both are the new "seriously, (let's pretend) we didn't know".  They are smokescreens. Scientists have warned us for ages, we did not want to listen. First we avoided thinking about the climate crisis because it was too far away. Now we avoid it because it is so overwhelming.

Consider this: When you boil an egg, at a certain point the egg white becomes solid. Even if you stop boiling the egg, it remains solid. It does not become liquid again.
And no chick will hatch.  

In other words, what we experience now cannot be undone, it can only be mitigated. The floods, fires, droughts, heat waves etc. the planet is experiencing this year are the result of CO2 emissions from ten years ago. Imagine what the world will be like in another ten years if things continue with business as usual. 

And don't think it's just down to recycling, buying less of this and less of that etc.. That way you allow yourself to be reduced to a consumer, which is a pretty helpless position. And it puts you in a very lonely corner. Remember, we are much more than consumers, we are citizens.

(This) idea of reducing your personal carbon footprint, while not inherently wrong, has often been used as a distraction, pitting ... people against each other with morality choices about how sustainable you are, rather than realizing how much you actually have in common.

. . . the key . . .  is to think beyond the individual and seek community support and solutions — especially those that put pressure on governments and companies to make the large-scale changes that are necessary to truly curtail emissions.

 . . . we can choose the most meaningful actions that are doable for us. Things like reducing consumption of animal products, driving less, and taking fewer airplane flights likely have the biggest impact on our personal carbon use.

. . . we have such a myth of individualism. . . . That myth can make people feel that they have no power, because they can’t do anything against such as something so big as climate change. For many in climate movements, the antidote to that feeling — and the way to build real power — is to band together. 

 If you’re good at organizing, organize. If you’re good at taking care of people, take care of people who do other things, . . . no matter who you are, build community.

(all quotes from here)

by Kevin McShane (https://kevinmcshane.org/)

Imagine the life of your children and grandchildren in 2031 every time you burn fossil fuel, every time you go to/don't vote, every time you don't challenge a lousy political decision, every time you pretend to yourself that there's nothing you can do. 

On a more cheerful note, we had a surprise visit from a long time friend last week. Just in time for dinner, there he was at the garden gate. He is an artist, a carpenter, a baker, someone who has come in and out of our life for 30 years. It was such a delight to see him. 

But he is also deep into anthroposophy, always has been, the whole esoteric path with Waldorf schooling for the children and now grandchildren and so on. Normally nothing to write home about, each to their own etc. but in Germany, the various anthroposophic groupings form the most ardent opposition to Covid vaccines, happily marching with fascists (for details click here), and set up their own political party to compete in the upcoming general election (not a hope). 

In the end, it was a difficult evening, we sat out in the garden and first avoided the subject for a good while. He did not stay the night, but we supplied him with food and wine and memories and information. It will not matter the slightest. What remained was sadness and the knowledge that one way or another, his non-vaccinated family, his beautiful partner, his three children and their partners, six grandchildren, his elderly father, will be infected this autumn/winter and we can only hope that theirs will be mild cases.

(His main argument (and in my humble opinion, the most clueless of all): it will change my DNA. My reply: your DNA changes all the time, it's called aging.)