thankfulness

This day in many homes a thing is going on, a once a year thankfulness thing. If you consider the word ‘thank’, rhymes with spank, frank, dank, lank and with others, you may agree that none of them are pretty words, not in the wordsmith’s library. They all sound like a belly flop. However the celebration is a good thing because just maybe it has ripples. Maybe some will rise from the feast thinking, wondering, deciding that being thankful could be a daily decision. Can you imagine? If we all walked anywhere, everywhere, feeling thankful, not because everything works perfectly with our own plans, because it usually doesn’t, never mind all those things we find irritating or infuriating, those who argued with our own perception of how life ‘should’ be lived, we might accept and move on in kindness. I know that’s a long sentence. Took me a while to get the syncopation and melody into shape.

I know about thankfulness. it has saved me, found me in the dark woods of Dante, found me a new path over and over and over again. See, I think the problems we face are the rocks of doubt and blame and other words that rhyme. We can spend a lifetime, a wastetime, new word, hefting those rocks onto each other until we cannot see a damn thing, not the sunrise, not the moon nonsense, not the neighbours, not the welcome of community. And there’s another thing among things. I have heard and heard, until even my ears groan, that people arrive somewhere and feel isolated. I know, I do, that my own experience doesn’t compare with anyone else’s, but I do want to ask this. Did you actually talk to someone, the neighbour shouting about his fence or the one who sold you a newspaper, or the one who stood blowing a whistle to set your train on it’s tracks, to the street musician who played their guitar with ice on their fingerless gloves, the person who handed over a steaming latte, the old woman you see every morning as you dash for work, her rheumy eyes, the emptiness behind her? Or were you so caught up in your own agenda, your own angst that you thought of nobody else?

The thing about thankfulness is that it is a state of mind. Here’s my wee list. I am thankful for my ridonculous life, for the way it happened without my say so. How I learned my say so a bit late. For my beautiful grown children and for theirs. For the time I have now, the fire in my hearth, my belly, for the mischief in me, the tinkerbell. For the music and for the writing and for all those damn times both wake me at stupid o’clock with words and melodies. For the chuckle in me as I wake. The smell of coffee, for my car, my free-to-go, my community, my wonderful friends. For the daft weather up here, the gales, the falls the lifts, the laughs we have together. For warmth, protection, even for the loneliness because it renders me resourceful and dynamic. Bottom line is this. Love the word Bottom. Sorry, moving on…….

If we could employ thanking, thankfulness whatever, as part of our underwear, let’s say, like knickers, it would become a part of our everythingness. We would put it on every morning, decide to. So that, when something happens, something that irritates, confounds, arrests us, we would be a unit, me and thankfulness and we would respond together. Even in the dark times. It works, it really does.

There are so many lonely people out there.

Happy Thanksgiving to all xx

It feels like ages since I last wrote a blog, and it is, ages. So where have I been? Into a strange world, one I have never visited before, one I cannot locate on a map, a whole new country.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Two, or more, weeks ago, I felt weary and lethargic, two feelings alien to me, two that begged investigation and not by me alone. I was aching and sore, my arms unable to reach for anything without a wince of pain. I was un-hungry and found it hard to get comfortable in bed. A friend drove me to my doctor’s appointment and within minutes she called the local hospital to admit me. As a thankfully healthy woman with little experience of hospitals beyond the birthing of babies, I was surprised but acquiescent, feeling as unwell as I did. Once there, the doctor checked me out, focussing on an insect bite on my back, around which was a raised pink swelling. Two days later I was moved to the mainland, to a bigger hospital.

Over the next 4 hours the red spread and I was pretty much out of it. Pumped full of super strong antibiotics, drip fed, and trying to get comfortable, the days and nights passed in a blur, interrupted only by regular checks on my state of health and the nightly delivery of other souls into a hospital bed. These women, frightened, most of whom had fallen, all who lived alone, were quieted eventually by the excellent and compassionate nursing team.

After five days, I came back to life, having no idea how seriously ill I had been. Everything escalated so fast, too fast for me to comprehend but not beyond the understanding and medical intelligence of the doctors in charge. I remember walking to the window to see the pretty garden beneath, the trees, the flowering shrubs, the wheel and scatter of swifts and house martins cutting the sky in half as the bugs rose from hiding and becoming lunch. I remember feeling upright and not so sore, the joy of it, the thankfulness rising in me, a mother hug. I remember hot porridge for breakfast, the excellent meals served daily. I remember the cleaners, their smiles as they washed down the ward eveery day. I remember the can-do attitude of the nurses (lordy what a job!) and the bright light laughter from each nursing shift that skittered along the corridors, spilling into each ward to make the vulnerable smile. I remember talking to other inmates, hearing their stories, holding hands that had held so many other hands over so many years. I remember the sadness and joy of visitors around beds, the muffled conversations, the concern etched on family faces. I remember quiet conversations with a night nurse, waking me yet again for a health check, the administration of yet another drip. I remember the smiles, the reasurrances, the gentle touch of a confident hand on my own wobbly one. All will be well, the hand said, in the end. Keep fighting. Gradually, I became mobile again, walking around the hospital carpark, up to the helipad, seeing goldfinches feeding on grass seeds, their unique chatter like champagne bubbles in my ears. Everything felt new, as if I was a newborn and seeing all this life for the first time. I suspect anyone who has faced down death will know what I mean, even though I couldn’t, and still can’t, really believe it to be true for me. Severe cellulitis is dangerous. And all, it seems, from an insect bite on my back. That tiny creature, that random bite nearly did for me. And, yet, I thank it. How else could I know what it is to be newborn at 70? T’is a rare and beautiful gift indeed.

Now, as I recuperate with family, resting, building new strength into momentarily wasted muscles, while I move around the sun dappled garden, watching the dogs play and hearing the laughter of happy girls on holiday, all I feel is a daily upwelling of gratitude, for life herself, for the medical care and affection, for my family’s support and love. When I am home again among the beloved hills of the island, watching the tidal dance, hearing the sea-birds call as the fish rush in, I will remember this time, all of it, all the tiny details of such a strange journey. From nearly dead to very much alive, a moving forward into life, a new one, a gift, a second chance.

It will take me sometime to process and a forever to forget.