My Mum has recovered fully, but it has taken many months and many weeks in the hospital. There were times when she was unconscious or only semi-conscious, that I was in deep despair. We spent weeks watching each system in her body shut down and then be brought back only to watch another go. There were moments when I thought to myself, 'You're in denial, this is what dying looks like.' So I would sit and hold her hand...
...but there is something indomitable about us...about her...it seems that we are on this planet for a pre-ordained time of 90 years or more (several of us have made it to 105) regardless of any disease...I might have the genes too...although I am not likely to have all of them.
So she has come out of it with a hip replacement. She fell trying to get out of bed by herself when she was still ill. She is walking now and she will not use any kind of support. It amazes me. She is just as she was, coming through it all without (somehow) ever losing a shred of dignity. And this is what she can still teach me...because I only know how to be light, I never mind what I say, and if I am deeply troubled, I am lamely silent, or detached.
My mother speaks--no exists--with a certain finality. She will not be crossed, and in any case people rarely desire to cross her. When she is happy her eyes twinkle and she sometimes has a little smile that is hypnotic--an instant of pure joy.
When you think you might lose someone you love forever all things that disturbed you about them in years gone by, suddenly appear to have been their strengths...no use to write more about this, it could never be understood by anyone who was not actually there.
I have done my physio-therapy and my shoulders are almost completely better. The Orthopaedic Surgeon I saw said they would be, and that this would never happen again. My condominium is freshly painted and the floors are laid or repaired and all the little things are fixed.
Nigel didn't have to help, although I thought I would never get it done myself. He complemented me on the paint job. There are so many walls and baseboards that have highly contrasting colours and the place was built so sloppily that it was usually not possible to get straight lines with tape and many times the baseboards had to come off and have this gooey stuff scrapped or cut off them and nailed back on or it all would have looked very shoddy. I painted many edges free-hand because there was no other way to get them straight. Although it's not perfect. I feel strangely proud...more proud than I would feel about a more momentous accomplishment.
I keep feeling like I am about to make some huge change in my life or perhaps reclaim my real self, and yet I don't see it. I can't point to anything.
With Obama in, there is not much likelihood that I will feel the need to flee my own country to avoid cowboys:)) I have my EU passport though, it is red!
Nigel is on the fringes of my life, being sensible and strong and adding another dimension to my existence. He said quite casually the other day, "There has never been a time that I did not love you, just times when you weren't there." He says these things as simple comments, rather than proclamations, and I barely notice at the time--it hits me later.
I almost bolted again, my mind invents reasons seemingly without my permission. This time I decided I wasn't sufficiently important to him. It's always some variation of this sentiment that makes me go. He said I can't defend against something that isn't true. Is it that you want more? I said no no no no no NOT more...he said yes, I know, everyone is always trying to own you. This overwhelmed me utterly, because this is the first time any man has ever UNDERSTOOD. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude. I might have melted into him at that moment, but I am unsure that I can make him feel loved.
I am not certain that I have ever been in love, infatuated occasionally, obsessed (very rarely) but in love? Really, really think about it. Have YOU ever been in love? Truly? Normally I don't think much about love, this is an aberration.
Nigel and I first met 14 years ago. He was very young, and he is still here, although he has been banished (kindly) several times, for no good reason.
We've only ever had one fight. It was composed of two sentences--I said disdainfully, "You are so self-centered." He answered without a shred of malice, "two self-centred people together how's that going to work?" It was incredibly funny after the fact. I am laughing about it right now, and I must have laughed about it at least a dozen times in the past. The fact is that it works out incredibly well, if the two people are self-centred in tandem:))
Nigel is not Nigel's real name of course.
Beware the economy, this is not a mere credit crunch recession like we had in the late 80's and early 90's. This is a vast reorganisation. It is unlikely our governments will be able to buffer us sufficiently. There needs to be new economic policy, new legislation, and a new way of thinking about financial resources. I can't say EXACTLY what is needed, I just know it's drastic. I am never wrong about these things.
We can't get there if we keep focusing on control by corporations or oil or any of the issues that have held centre stage for sometime, although these things vicious. We need to take the proverbial quantum leap in thinking. Probably people are beginning and I am just unaware...but why are we not hearing outpourings from the economists. There is chance for a genius or two to become recognised:))
I hope I won't have to move, I am just getting comfortable here, but there are certain things I will not do to save it all. I believe I know what I can do. During the last Depression only 20% of people were actually unemployed.
No one in our families ever suffered, or went without in any way during the last depression--although no one was wealthy--maybe BECAUSE no one was wealthy. On my mother's side of the family much of the family were contractors, who did as much of the labour as possible themselves and there were government contracts...bridges and government buildings and houses and I think schools. It is rumoured that a lot of money was lost or married out of the family around the depression or shortly after, but it is just lore at present. I think I am afraid to document things properly because I am afraid things that I think I know about this family that I haven't said to anybody, ever, might turn out not to be true and there are several things that I think I know about this family that I don't want to be true. Or maybe it is because it is going to take hours of pouring through microfiche to do it. We hit the newspapers a lot back then. Sometimes we WERE the newspaper. My mother started to research it when she was young and came back with a folder of copies of newspaper clippings. I can't find it. So why did she stop and why does she not want to talk about it? What did she find? Something dreadful? She was a newspaper clipping herself--a good one...
On my father's side of the family they were trades people during the depression, shop owners, tailors, shoemaker's, a bricklayer, a newspaper writer, things like that (somewhat entrepreneurial.) My Grandmother's family owned a little part of a block on the main street in the village where they lived. There was always work, they are perfectionists by temperament. When conditions got better most of my father's family did extremely well. They did something that had rarely been done until that time in Britain, they jumped class.
Maybe the change that is happening in me is that I am finally going to show what I am made of...it's just that I'm not sure what that is:)) Maybe, probably, it is nothing special, but at least something definitive. Maybe, though, it will have nothing to do with where I came from or who went before me.
There were seemingly small errors in judgement when I was very young that had surprisingly serious ramifications. It is all gone now. I hadn't really thought about it all (or not thought about it) for the longest time, it was just there. Until I realised a few weeks ago that it was gone.
This has got to have made up for a few months worth of blog. And yes I DO know that I am not all that interesting:)) In a few ways I might be a typical Canadian, that is if I weren't so willful and self-centred:))
24/11: More Online Diary
All seems well for the moment.My Mum has recovered fully, but it has taken many months and many weeks in the hospital. There were times when she was unconscious or only semi-conscious, that I was in deep despair. We spent weeks watching each system in her body shut down and then be brought back only to watch another go. There were moments when I thought to myself, 'You're in denial, this is what dying looks like.' So I would sit and hold her hand...
...but there is something indomitable about us...about her...it seems that we are on this planet for a pre-ordained time of 90 years or more (several of us have made it to 105) regardless of any disease...I might have the genes too...although I am not likely to have all of them.
So she has come out of it with a hip replacement. She fell trying to get out of bed by herself when she was still ill. She is walking now and she will not use any kind of support. It amazes me. She is just as she was, coming through it all without (somehow) ever losing a shred of dignity. And this is what she can still teach me...because I only know how to be light, I never mind what I say, and if I am deeply troubled, I am lamely silent, or detached.
My mother speaks--no exists--with a certain finality. She will not be crossed, and in any case people rarely desire to cross her. When she is happy her eyes twinkle and she sometimes has a little smile that is hypnotic--an instant of pure joy.
When you think you might lose someone you love forever all things that disturbed you about them in years gone by, suddenly appear to have been their strengths...no use to write more about this, it could never be understood by anyone who was not actually there.
I have done my physio-therapy and my shoulders are almost completely better. The Orthopaedic Surgeon I saw said they would be, and that this would never happen again. My condominium is freshly painted and the floors are laid or repaired and all the little things are fixed.
Nigel didn't have to help, although I thought I would never get it done myself. He complemented me on the paint job. There are so many walls and baseboards that have highly contrasting colours and the place was built so sloppily that it was usually not possible to get straight lines with tape and many times the baseboards had to come off and have this gooey stuff scrapped or cut off them and nailed back on or it all would have looked very shoddy. I painted many edges free-hand because there was no other way to get them straight. Although it's not perfect. I feel strangely proud...more proud than I would feel about a more momentous accomplishment.
I keep feeling like I am about to make some huge change in my life or perhaps reclaim my real self, and yet I don't see it. I can't point to anything.
With Obama in, there is not much likelihood that I will feel the need to flee my own country to avoid cowboys:)) I have my EU passport though, it is red!
Nigel is on the fringes of my life, being sensible and strong and adding another dimension to my existence. He said quite casually the other day, "There has never been a time that I did not love you, just times when you weren't there." He says these things as simple comments, rather than proclamations, and I barely notice at the time--it hits me later.
I almost bolted again, my mind invents reasons seemingly without my permission. This time I decided I wasn't sufficiently important to him. It's always some variation of this sentiment that makes me go. He said I can't defend against something that isn't true. Is it that you want more? I said no no no no no NOT more...he said yes, I know, everyone is always trying to own you. This overwhelmed me utterly, because this is the first time any man has ever UNDERSTOOD. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude. I might have melted into him at that moment, but I am unsure that I can make him feel loved.
I am not certain that I have ever been in love, infatuated occasionally, obsessed (very rarely) but in love? Really, really think about it. Have YOU ever been in love? Truly? Normally I don't think much about love, this is an aberration.
Nigel and I first met 14 years ago. He was very young, and he is still here, although he has been banished (kindly) several times, for no good reason.
We've only ever had one fight. It was composed of two sentences--I said disdainfully, "You are so self-centered." He answered without a shred of malice, "two self-centred people together how's that going to work?" It was incredibly funny after the fact. I am laughing about it right now, and I must have laughed about it at least a dozen times in the past. The fact is that it works out incredibly well, if the two people are self-centred in tandem:))
Nigel is not Nigel's real name of course.
Beware the economy, this is not a mere credit crunch recession like we had in the late 80's and early 90's. This is a vast reorganisation. It is unlikely our governments will be able to buffer us sufficiently. There needs to be new economic policy, new legislation, and a new way of thinking about financial resources. I can't say EXACTLY what is needed, I just know it's drastic. I am never wrong about these things.
We can't get there if we keep focusing on control by corporations or oil or any of the issues that have held centre stage for sometime, although these things vicious. We need to take the proverbial quantum leap in thinking. Probably people are beginning and I am just unaware...but why are we not hearing outpourings from the economists. There is chance for a genius or two to become recognised:))
I hope I won't have to move, I am just getting comfortable here, but there are certain things I will not do to save it all. I believe I know what I can do. During the last Depression only 20% of people were actually unemployed.
No one in our families ever suffered, or went without in any way during the last depression--although no one was wealthy--maybe BECAUSE no one was wealthy. On my mother's side of the family much of the family were contractors, who did as much of the labour as possible themselves and there were government contracts...bridges and government buildings and houses and I think schools. It is rumoured that a lot of money was lost or married out of the family around the depression or shortly after, but it is just lore at present. I think I am afraid to document things properly because I am afraid things that I think I know about this family that I haven't said to anybody, ever, might turn out not to be true and there are several things that I think I know about this family that I don't want to be true. Or maybe it is because it is going to take hours of pouring through microfiche to do it. We hit the newspapers a lot back then. Sometimes we WERE the newspaper. My mother started to research it when she was young and came back with a folder of copies of newspaper clippings. I can't find it. So why did she stop and why does she not want to talk about it? What did she find? Something dreadful? She was a newspaper clipping herself--a good one...
On my father's side of the family they were trades people during the depression, shop owners, tailors, shoemaker's, a bricklayer, a newspaper writer, things like that (somewhat entrepreneurial.) My Grandmother's family owned a little part of a block on the main street in the village where they lived. There was always work, they are perfectionists by temperament. When conditions got better most of my father's family did extremely well. They did something that had rarely been done until that time in Britain, they jumped class.
Maybe the change that is happening in me is that I am finally going to show what I am made of...it's just that I'm not sure what that is:)) Maybe, probably, it is nothing special, but at least something definitive. Maybe, though, it will have nothing to do with where I came from or who went before me.
There were seemingly small errors in judgement when I was very young that had surprisingly serious ramifications. It is all gone now. I hadn't really thought about it all (or not thought about it) for the longest time, it was just there. Until I realised a few weeks ago that it was gone.
This has got to have made up for a few months worth of blog. And yes I DO know that I am not all that interesting:)) In a few ways I might be a typical Canadian, that is if I weren't so willful and self-centred:))