losing

I was supposed to have my shingles jag today, but the nurse said I was too run down. I know it. So tired all the time. Part recovery from being nearly dead and the long climb back up from the mud and sludge of that Old Gripper, part fear of what may lie ahead. This is a time I could wish, as I did way back in school, for a less brilliant and inventive imagination. ‘Judith (cringe) has too much imagination’. Quote from a school report. And it wasn’t just once. It seemed to me that an imagination was something to be deeply ashamed of, something, perhaps, that might require surgery or therapy long term, at the very least. It got me into no end of scrapes, and, I might add, out of them too. An imagination is, by its very nature, flexi-intelligent, dynamic, able to work both ways on most things and in most situations, and two faced. There is the light side, the fun side and there is the dark side, the backside, the backslide. However, I am in control, mostly, of this imagination of mine, even though right now it is showing way too much sass. I suspect this is because it is also an opportunist and in the face of my looking smaller, aka, run down, it is rising above it’s pay grade. Well Hoo and Ha to that! We need to work together, I tell it, not against each other. When you show me dark, let the fear of wotwot court a dalliance with said dark, I go off you. We have worked together for decades, you and I, much as in a long term and bumpy marriage, agreed, but we did find a synergy of sorts and it benefitted us both. I got to keep the mischief and the inventive thinking and you got to keep me. Actually, I think you owe me. Without me, you would be foof in the wind.

Although I didn’t have the jag, I had the nurse, the one who flagged up a few weeks ago that I was looking like the nearly dead. She told the doctor and I had the chance to thank her, the nurse. She, Cara, has bright eyes, a beautiful and unlined face and looks about 16. She isn’t. Then I got to see the doctor to thank her for her quick and intelligent decision to send me off to hospital. She, Dr Jackie, is a lovely woman. I thanked her and we hugged. The new doctors on the island, this end of it, are a warm and welcoming couple and we are so very lucky to have them now. Actually the whole staff are so friendly, efficient and intelligent, I wonder how we islanders came to be that lucky. I am only thankful.

I came home with the damn imagination. I need distractions. Radio Four Extra is a wonderful discovery. I am knitting something. For now it is a long line of knit-ness. It entertains my fingers which is enough in small doses. I walk the wee dog but oh my, how wearily i walk, how weak I feel! I can do little and often. It’s the same with gardening jobs. A wee bit of weeding, a little pruning of the currant bush which isn’t/ wasn’t a bush but more a blanking out of the sky. It looks a bit weedy now, but I encouraged it to stop whining and to get back its mojo for next Spring, as I intend to do. I gave it a backward glance, having hefted huge long branches into the neighbours garden (she won’t notice). Stop focussing on what’s gone, I said. Look at the opportunity. I swear she quipped ‘Right back at you, lady’. Maybe I imagined that.

I feed the birds. We have swarms of sparrows here, unlike many other places, Englandshire in particular, and I have masterminded my feeders beyond the dive of our prolific sparrowhawk population. There’s a fence in the way, three wheelies and a mini. It seems to work. I watch the tidal dance, listen to the gulls screeching at the sea-eagles and hear their yipping response. It floats across the sea-loch as something unseen yet believed. I know the sea-eagles are there. I cannot see them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there. A lesson in that, for the learning.

I fanny about with what to take when I leave this beloved home on Monday and head into the unknown. A couple of frocks, a jumper, cardy, (tweezers this time), nighties, leggings, a jacket, my purse, phone, laptop, chargers, underpinnings. How long will I be away? Will the consultation lead straight into surgery, or will there be weeks of waiting? Will I come home or stay away with my very limited clothing options? What surgery do I face? Lumpectomy (day job) or a single or double mastectomy? I don’t know yet but my imagination is already having a field day, whatever that means. Because I am high risk, many in my family having had breast cancer and with my great grandmother coming from Orkney, I may opt for those breasts to go. They fed five children and not many can say that. I thank them. Sometimes I look at them, old now, paps really, and marvel at the work they have done, the lives they have sustained. I can let them go, if that is what I and the consultant decide. To think I may leave with breasts and return with none is quite a thought. Some might say, Don’t talk that one up! I ask Why Not? I am a realist, a woman of age, a strong and vital life force and honest and open to a fault. (why is is called a fault? Does it refer to a fault line or is it a somebody’s ‘fault’? It thinks me)

I will keep writing. I will keep blogging although my arms might feel a bit dodge for a while after surgery. But we are not at that point yet. This is just the beginning. Rather exciting when you look at it that way, don’t you think? A world I have never walked in before, a newbie, wide eyed, scared, yes, but walking on. Always walking on.

Yesterday I had two granddaughters with me for a short while. I collected them, backpacked up with games, toys, pens, snacks and we wandered down the track to my home. I watch them pause, flip off shoes, respectful. Once inside the door, enthusiasm skids beneath their feet as if they were on ice. Just a doorway change. I remember noticing that their grandfather’s mind wiped as he moved through a doorway. The anger, frustration and, well, the whole rant thing, disappeared as he shuffled through. It seemed as if he forgot all of it. I saw it on his face, knew it, relaxed.

We, no, not we, for I was distracted, I had email to check, fuss to fuss over, initially. As I heard them plant, root and bring out Deep Sea Bingo, I was a doorway away but listening. One was losing and causing a mini explosion until her older sister talked her down. All the usual. There is no pain in losing. We all need to lose now and again. It doesn’t mean you are a loser. That sort of 8 year old wisdom. The wails subsided and I kept schtum. Let it be, let them be, I said as I fiddled another tricky tapestry stitch. I am watching. I am hearing.

Then I join in. What in the heck is a Fiddle Fish? I put my specs on. Oh, I quite like the look of you. And there were many more with names and images that left me lost on the land. But what really intrigued me was the interest of the wee ones. It was a loud thing, of course. Loads of chat and chatter, arguments rising like tiny fires and then dying back into a concentrate of calm. I watch the redhead and the strawberry blonde. The girls are quicker than I at seeing whether or not they have a Lesser Spotted Cattlehead or a Snub-nosed Dinky Bird. It takes me a while to scan my bingo board, to read the words. I realise I am better at this thing if I get a visual. Show me the card, I ask the Strawberry blonde. Better. My brain works on visual i.d. I don’t win, of course. Gaga, you did have the Yellow Beaked Fake Dolphin……look! Silly Gaga. We all chuckle. Maybe I did win after all. I consider the names of these extraordinary creatures. Who ever thought the prefix ‘Common’ would sit well with something completely uncommon? I always feel sorry for the ‘Commons’ in both the animal and flora/fauna worlds. It sits like an insult. Nothing and no-one is ever common, not in my story.

After they had gone, I heard the silence. With little ones around there is never silence. If you can’t hear children, then there aren’t any. My name flies into the air a hundred times an hour. Questions too. Gaga, did you know that all dogs are round? Are they, I raise my eyebrows and cast a glance towards the Poppy dog, asleep and indeed curled into a donut. Yes, she says. They like being round. People can’t be round. They’re straight. Daddy is straight. Excellent observation, I tell her and her smile beams. But Mummy can be round, she says, her red curls bobbing. Ice blue eyes lock with my own. She is expecting correction, I think, and here it comes but not from me. No she isn’t, snorts her older sister, laying out the chips for a second round of Bingo. She is straight too. But she can curl into a round, I say. I’ve seen her do it. Your mummy is made of elastic. She can stretch and ping anywhere. They erupt in hysterics.

Around children, truth will be told. Questions require answers, observations are made and they have a canny knack of getting right to the core, one you may well have kept hidden for good reason. Where is Popz now? One asks. he is flying about up there, I tell them. Like a bird? Well, not quite like a bird. More a spirit. What’s a spirit? A spirit is mostly air and scoot. Like a cloud? Sort of. I would be a spirit, says the older one, if I could. No, not a spirit, a good fairy. I warm to this change of subject. I would be a dragon, I announce, a good one, a luck one. Pink? Yes, naturally. Well I would be a princeling says the redhead, straight-faced and I haven’t the heart to tell her that princelings are usually boys. After all, who knows what will be possible when she moves out into the world?