Over the past couple of days, I was felled, like a tree, all credit for this going to a dodgy prawn. It isn’t often I can miscorrelate day, tree and prawn in one sentence and it makes me smile, not that I smiled much during the fall. However, in spite of the inner turmoil of collapsa dendrobranchiata, and of being thoroughly compromised by what was sorting itself out beyond my control, I knew, as I always do, that I have a choice. Not, t’is true, over much on a physical plane, but over everything on a mental one.
I gave in and up to it – had to – no choice in the face of a dodgy prawn attack, weaponless against the might of the small curly pink thing with vengeance on its mind. Who would have thought something so insignificant (or so I thought) could fell a big tree like me! I know the species has been around for about 400 million years, and could, during those endless hours of floating about oceans, have planned the odd grab for vengeance against being fished and dished, but the resulting result seems disproportionate to the size of the small curly pink thing.
Thankfully I was not on a plane, nor caught in traffic, nor alone. I was safe and cared for whilst the process processed, slowing down the hours and making me feel like it was never going to stop its onslaught. And, all the while, I decided my attitude. This will not last forever, I told myself, even though Forever suddenly looked like a million miles long. I am not alone, although I was, as life, sans dodgy prawn attack, continued outside my bedroom door, and merrily so. I am safe, I said, feeling about as unsafe as it is possible to feel. Choose, I said, probably out loud, as the stagnant silence around my sick bed needed a riffle through, and I did, choose.
Recovering, this thinks me. I know that my attitude to absolutely everything decides absolutely everything, whether I face the mild irritation of an encounter with bad grammar, or a disaster of disastrous proportions. I believe this to be one of my skills, learned over endless hours of floating about life’s oceans, and I am so very thankful that all that floating learned me such power, not over anyone, not over everything, not over that which is much bigger than I (like a small pink curly thing), but over myself. To allow what is happening to happen, without reacting to the piddly stuff, such as the ‘my way’ of doing, seeing and approving’ is peaceful relief, because I don’t even need to take a second look at any of those.
In the process of sickness, uncomfortable, inconvenient, alarming, discombobulating, I can choose to smile, albeit weakly. I can accept help and kindness. I can admit to pain without drama, humbly and honestly, simply allowing the process to process. The power in that will ‘well’ me again, and it has. I have been reminded, again, of my ‘weakness’ against such power – power such as sickness, world issues, bad grammar, small irritations, upsetting changes, all of these and more, and this ‘weakness’ fits me rightly in the world. What empowers me, however, even against a small curly pink thing with vengeance on its mind, is my choice of attitude.
Judy Fairbairns 