rickle

Well, well, well. Who’d have thought it? I wouldn’t, not never, the I who held each member of my family every time they faced something very scary, from first day of school, to delivering a first baby, through accident emergencies, breakdowns, woundings, emotional traumas and a close-knit dying. But I am here now, a rickle of things, as they were back then. Although I am not abandoned at all but beautifully supported by all whom I lifted up and encouraged down the years, I feel very alone. Distant support is not the same as holding hands with a real warm human being, one who cares, and a lot, one who will notice a daily change and respond, who will initiate and lead at times of complete flop, one who will just sit beside me, breathing, and I can hear that breathing as a reassurance. I don’t have that, nor could I in this time of my life, of their lives. I know the logic of it all, by rote, but it doesn’t address the emotional aspect. Maybe that sounds ungrateful, but, I assure you, I am very, very grateful for the support they bring. The shoring up of the walls against the storms, however, is my job, and I am so very tired and afraid.

I bought quorn mince. It’s ok. Rising, as usual, around 1 am, with, I confess, a big blue sigh, I made tea, lit my twinkly winkly lights and had a think. I had to rise, because the anxieties flood my mind on waking. There is no logic to any of the awful images, no history, no reality, but that doesn’t stem the flood of them. They are random, weird, unreal and poisonous. And, so, I rise, telling myself they are nothing to do with me, not mine, not helpful, not, not, a lot of nots going on as I pull on my warm dressing gown (ghastly thing, but cosy) and descend the winding staircase, rounding down into a pitch that might be the bowels of a mine. Well, it is mine, after all. There is one star and I look long at it, lovingly. I tell myself I am not mad, not that myself believes it, and that all will be well. A whole generation could birth, develop and die in the long hours before any light pushes up the dark, hefting it on shoulders strong and decisive. Off you go, Night. My turn now, and she, down there, can you see her in that ghastly, but cosy dressing gown, is in need of me.

At 0500 I prepare said mince. Loads of onion, garlic, tomatoes and quorn. I bring it to the boil, then simmer. For a very long time, until the colour turns towards purple, as if a whole bottle of port is in there sharing the simmering event, which it isn’t. I wonder if my neighbours can smell this at a time which will make no sense to them. I whizz up my Pond Juice, a concoction of spinach, celery, carrot, ginger and apple, divide it into Today and place Tomorrow in the fridge. It is still pitch out there and clouds have swallowed the star. I won’t let the fears in.

But, and let me admit it, they are constantly there. The internal fight is exhausting but I refuse to back down, to let them plant any flag on my ground. I am so very tired but, like a Jack-in-the-box, I keep bouncing up, even though my legs hurt, my costume hurts, my brain is mince (or quorn) and every choice faces a wall of Don’t Bother. I WILL bother. It wonders me. Is this what it was like, is like, for anyone facing any sort of war ‘against’ a force that threatens to overturn all that was normal, all that was, heretofore, taken for granted? I suspect so.

I leave the island on Wednesday 25th, for surgery on the 30th. I can feel the cancer now, as I never had before, as if it is rising up to meet my fingers. It isn’t a lump, more a small mass. Actually, that is an oxymoron, because it is either a mass (definition – a very big thing) or it isn’t. Let us go with mound. I like mounds. All across this beautiful West Coast land there are mounds, and a mound is about all I can manage these days #short term.

I might have a spot of bother with my right arm for a bit after surgery, but, as soon as I can, trust me, I will be diddling and a-fiddling about with words and dingles and thinks and rickles, and music and chuckles and and nonsense. However, I am not gone yet.

We make a plan. We hone it, condone it, refine it, mine it for pitfalls whilst utilising the elasticity of space, just in case, corridors of empty air in between the lines. We have faith in this plan. And then something too big for corridors and too structured for any amount of bend or twist lands in our path. This path that seemed so clear ahead of us is suddenly heaped up with stumble stones, huge boulders and standing tight together, telling us clearly that the path stops here, right here and right now. For a few moments the darkling sky falls in around us like old ghosts or loft webs long ignored, solidifying into a thixotropic blanket of No Go. Our heart sinks, our eyes fall to our boots for what good are they now in the face of this rickle of stone, this wall, this sharp edged decision across our path, one made behind our back and without consideration of our feelings. A total disrespecting of our marvellous plan.

For a while we are confounded, ungrounded, flying up there one minute and burrowing into the ground, the next. We are in short, lost in time and space, no grace, long face. But soon our human spirit tickles at our edges, whispering encouragement. Come on, get up, shut up flapping, get those boots back on the ground. Just because this block is stopping you does not mean there is no other way. There are millions of ways. Think, listen, learn, look. Your spirit is 86 billion cells. That brain of yours is considerably untaxed, if you don’t mind me saying. There are acres, miles, continents worth of active brilliance in between those ears of yours. Engage. Ask them to help, not based on your experience because, well, look at you now all scuffed and battered and standing there as if your are at the end of everything and all because that plan of yours was never meant to work out in the way you decided it would. Drink from that freshwater stream over there. Watch the fish, the birds, the insects. Tip your head to the sky and follow the clouds as they shapeshift across that big wide expanse of hope. Turn, now, to see the way sunlight catches the sharp edges of the shanty rickle of stone. Those boulders are a million years old and there are so many stories held in their folds and twists, don’t miss them. Lift your face to the wind. Let her soothe and smooth your furrowed brow. She carries stories on her back, tales of others who would give everything just to be where you are now for just one more day of life. Now, rise and decide. Up and over or maybe not. Maybe this path is not yours and never was. See, over there? A ley line, a narrow way, one you just marched past unnoticing, you with your plan and your big stomp boots. Deer come this way when night falls, every single nightfall. They know where they are going and from whence they came. Lift up now, breathe deep and step into the unknown for it is there you will find the way ahead, the one Life always wanted you to take.