Still Passing Open Windows ....

You know how you have

You know how you have favourite bloggers? Bloggers whose blogs make you ooh and aah or laugh out loud? Among my favourite blogs is http://loobylu.com/ written by Claire in Melbourne.

I've been reading her blog for almost eight years now and she is my blog alter ego. She's the person I imagine myself to be in another life; an illustrator with two little girls and a big garden and the coolest projects and just a lovely style of writing. I lurk regularly and soak up the tales of patchwork quilts and wild holidays at the beach and pictures of little girls making things.

She has been absent for a while, since April actually and I've been anxiously checking. Today I finally saw a post and it turns out she is moving to an island on the other side of the world and leaving behind everything familiar.

It is funny because I am in a similar situation. Everything will change for us in the next six months, if things go according to the vague plan we have. H is changing jobs, I will leave my job and follow him and leave behind twelve years of my life here in possibly one of the most structured countries to move to colour and noise and movement and much less structure to say the least. It's exciting, it's very exciting. I'm freaked out about similar things to Claire - will I ever work again? will I ever make money again? will I ever be able to work / make money again? - but it's also a marvellous opportunity to try something new and I can't wait. The fact that I'm exciting about it, after not being exciting about much for a long, long time makes me think that this is a good step.

once a week ...

Once a week, I told myself, once a week I'll do an update on my blog. Keep it going.

 

H is away at the moment and I have slipped into my bachelor routine. I go to sleep late and I don't set the alarm so I wake up late-ish. I watch lots of TV, me the anti-TV person in the couple. I don't cook. It's been nice. I'm enjoying it. The flat is very quiet hence the TV but yesterday I realised I had slipped into a pleasant routine that involved more than just TV and toast.

 

I've watched the whole season 2 of Mad Men. I am totally hooked. I would watch season 3 too but I am already embarassed to tell H that I have watched so much of our program while he was away. We used to ration ourselves to one a night and with H gone I have been greedily gobbling them up. I love Donald Draper, infidelities and all. I love the complexities of his character. His wife is just beautiful. Peggy is fascinating to watch, how she is evolving and I long to dress like Joan. If only my curves looked that good. I think I grew up in the 60's. I think my childhood was about 20 years behind the rest of the world. The suburbs of Mad Men seem very familiar; the attitudes and the way people relate. Maybe I just come from a family that communicates badly. It is, however, one of the series where I can watch a scene and think how accurate it is, everything that is unsaid, instead of thinking, "Who actually says that in real life??" which I feel
about a lot of TV dialogue.

 

Aside from my TV binge, I've been trying out the raw meals in my raw food cookbooks. It's been fun. I've made banana and strawberry smoothie which was a little slimy, seed and nut paté which not bad and a carob cake which is dense, tastes more like dates than carob and makes me feel very healthy. In between I've been eating toast and foie gras because we have some dying in the fridge.

 

So you see, an eccentric week to say the least of it.

 

Expertise

When I was 14, I remember lying on the floorboards in front of the TV cabinet and programming the video recorder to tape a show. There were several steps and I was impressed that I was able to do them all in order and that it worked; I got back from the weekend away and there was my show waiting for me, all neatly recorded. I remember thinking, "I like being an expert in something. I want to do something where I'm the best."

A girl in my circle of friends lost her husband three months ago, suddenly in a freak accident. Every time I ask how she is, I hear, "Not so good. She's struggling to come to terms with it. She feels her life is over." This weekend we had dinner with friends of hers. One of them was talking about a shopping trip to Germany for the weekend and said that the girl who lost her husband was keen to come along. 

I was thinking about things in my little swamp today and I thought, "She's bouncing back. Everyone bounces back except me." Then I realised that probably she isn't "bouncing back". Probably she is starting to feel the beginning of ok and that restless desire to move, to create something new, something that doesn't link back to the The Event. She thinks she's ok to go on this trip. She expresses enthusiasm. Her friends are happy. They think she is ok but inside she is far from ok. She is just able for the first time to force herself to do something new and she knows she has to, she has to move forward. We don't see the tears and the collapses that probably still occur. We just see that she is doing new things, normal things and we think she is "bouncing back". Only if you are an expert in grief do you know just how fragile the "bouncing back" really is, that behind it lies sheer determination and the hope that maybe you will enjoy something again.

I'm no longer 14. I've let my skills lag behind. I'm not an expert in anything really, but I think I understand grief pretty well. An odd expertise. 

And no, I haven't contacted this girl outside the conventional expression of condolences. I don't know what to say. We are not close by any means, and I don't know what to offer her as an expression of my sympathy. So much for my expertise, hey?

"'What happens if your choice is misguided?' I ask, softly.

Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. 'You must try to correct it.' 

'But what if it's too late? What if you can't?'

There's a sad sympathy in Miss Moore's catlike eyes as she regards my painting again. She paints the thinnest sliver of shadow along the bottom of the apple, bringing it fully to life.

'Then you must find a way to live with it.'"

A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray

Twelve years ago a boyfriend broke up with me and for a year I lived wildly and recklessly. I threw out everything I had been with him and I got to know myself again, the wild, crazy parts I had lost with him. It was a good year in retrospect, very painful and intense at times but full of memories of my strength and a me that I liked and wanted to be. A while later I had an abnormal pap smear followed by panic and the conization that has had doctors tut tutting at the length of my cervix ever since.

I wonder at times if that's the cost of that year. The experiences of friends who have also had abnormal pap smears reassure me that it's not; it's just something that happens to some people, and at least it wasn't HIV or full-blown cancer. There are other choices I wonder about, that I play with, over and over again. I wonder about the train trip we took during my second pregnancy; if it had a role to play in the loss. I wonder about rejecting a doctor's advice which my current doctor is now suggesting and which I would probably do if I ever fell pregnant again. I wonder if I had followed it if I would have avoided these disastrous years. 

"What's the point of this sort of question?" H asks me angrily. I don't know, it's just a bad habit. In the end, they are just the choices I have made and I have to find a way to live with them. Reading about regrets in Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty, they seem romantically tragic and I am able to view them with a comfortable sense of distance. Art helping us to deal with pain, I guess. That and cycling home. Must cycle more.

It's about time ...

It has been a while. A long while. I've been away so that's a good excuse but also I'm thinking about things. There are big changes in the air. My parents are leaving the farm and I feel like part of my world is literally disappearing. It feels like a piece of my life is ceasing to exist and what remains is a huge dark hole, which could swallow me and not even burp. So, that is one thing. Then there are other huge possible changes in our lives. They're exciting, opening up doors on new possibilities but nowadays I'm scared of new possibilities. I feel less able to navigate them. Before I had diabetes, before I lost babies I was afraid but I thought that things would be alright on the whole and probably better in the long run. Now I think that things could be a lot worse and I worry about how much worse. Now I think that if I was stuck in an apocalyptic
scenario, it would just be a question of how long my insulin would hold out. Obviously I don't discuss this with my endocrinologist. I can just see her face if I asked, "Imagine there was a huge earthquake and most of the world was destroyed. What should I do about testing my blood sugar?"

Anyway. Lots of thoughts swirling round. There is the perennial baby thought too. What to do, what to do? It's very frustrating. No matter what we do it seems we are doomed. So why do I carry on with this blog? Well, I have asked myself that. I have considered closing it down many, many times. Often it is practically closed down. However, today I was reading a blogger talk about her blog, about moving blogs and drawing parallels with moving house and about what she has discovered through her blog. Reading this I thought that I keep my blog going because it's a connection with some wonderful women. Really great people who restore my confidence in my ability to
get on with other women, women who inspire me and keep me going on days when I say to H, "I am so bad at life, just kill me." For that reason I keep on paying my little minimum wage blog, for your encouragement and the sense of connection you have given me. Thank you. You are candles in the dark and when I don't write, I miss you all.

Time of the Tart

It's tart time here. I suddenly learnt how easy it was to make pastry and I seem to be making tarts every week at the moment. I'm even changing the recipe, gasp, shock, horror! This is major for me. Ever since I made the most disgusting pasta in the world at university (with cabbage, what did I expect?), I vowed to use recipe books and on the whole I seldom stray. I'm not one of those natural cooks who can just throw things together and it tastes great. I throw things together and it tastes ... odd. However, I've been noticing lately that seven years' experience of almost nightly cooking is starting to show some effects and I feel, not exactly a tingling, but a vague sense of competence in the kitchen and I'm a bit more adventurous about changing recipes. This pastry was made with half white flour and half wholewheat and I think it was ok, not delicious but not bad and a vague attempt to be healthy.

Aside from tarts, this is still my current obsession:

 

A dog. Probably a Yorkshire Terrier for its useful handbag size, but I'm very tempted by a West Highland Terrier or a Dachshund. I want a small dog so I can cart it around with me, and so I can exhaust it on a relatively short walk. I'm very excited about it. The best thing about this latest obsession is that it's achievable. I went to the garden centre last week and it seemed like everyone had a dog. I felt a familiar dip in spirits at being excluded and then suddenly I realised, "I can have a dog too! I can get a dog right now if I want." It's the best feeling ever. I can distract myself for hours thinking about training the dog or what walks to take him on or on which dog is better for me or on when I should get him. It's marvellous, the best remedy yet for sinking spirits. 
 

 

Dog days

I am thinking about getting a dog. Seriously thinking. I have spoken to a breeder. I found what I thought was impossible here: doggie daycare. I have even worn down H. Now I just have to put the money together which is probably a good thing as it will force me to consider this decision and not just do leap into it on a whim.
When we were babysitting H's sister's dog, he was such a joyful little thing with his infectious enthusiasm for going out and his sheer joy when we came home. I think it would do me a lot of good to have some simple doggie enthusiasm in my days. I think it would get me out when I have no desire to move off the couch.
Also, I was thinking about having a dog and I thought it might just help me make the next step in family building. First of all, a disclaimer: I am in no way whatsoever suggesting that
our next step is equivalent to getting a dog; I am just saying that it might teach me some lessons I need to learn. I was thinking that our dog will live according to our rhythms, that he'll be used to life the way we live it - the pitch of excitement, the pace, the shape of our days. Maybe in seeing how much our dog becomes ours and reflects our personalities in some ways, I will see how a family is formed, how living together can create a unit more than genetic bonds.
I was also thinking that I need to take our dog to meet other dogs and to meet children. I need to take him to restaurants and to get him used to as many different situations as possible so he becomes a dog I can take everywhere without worrying about him. I will need to socialize him and it will get me out and mixing again because, you know, I have to for my dog. He could help me to get back into the social swing of life again, something I avoid quite a bit nowdays.

Last week we had a dinner with friends. One of them is 8 months pregnant. She knows about our situation and handles it as sensitively as possible but still, there she is with her huge belly. I see her hand touching it unconsciously and I imagine the tiny baby who will be lying there in a month's time. I can almost see the baby in the tenderness of her touch. I am struck dumb. I have nothing to say. What can I talk about; work, what I did last weekend? It seems like nothing in comparison to a baby about to be born. So I stand there in my little dark cloud, remembering how much has gone wrong, as she moves on to pick up a spoon to stir the white sauce and someone asks a question and the conversation swirls around me.
So you see, this must change and it is time I moved forward. I am hoping a dog will occupy me, will give me something to talk about (even if I bore everyone silly) and will urge me back into life.
And I'm surprised how worried I am
about our future dog. I imagine taking him to friends with three boys and already I am worried about them being too rough. I imagine going for a walk and imagine a bigger dog seizing him by the scruff of his neck and snapping it in one horrible second. But he will be a dog, and dogs do die, and although it is horrible and sad, I think I could handle a dog dying more than I could handle another baby dying. Perhaps. But usually dogs don't die, or not for a good 10 years, and so maybe having a dog will give me some faith in life again; that things can go well for us.
And if the dog dies, unexpectedly and tragically? Well, then, I think I will be a basket case and you will hear no more from me. Maybe this is why I am attracted to Holocaust and stories set in Eastern European during the communist era. I want to see how other people have survived. How do you manage to live happily when you've experienced worse than your imaginings and you know how fragile
normal life really is? It's a fascinating if slightly black hobby.
You see why I need a dog? "Happy hobbies, darling," as my mum would probably say.

Just for a moment

Sometimes, not too much, I calculate how old my children would have been and I imagine what it would be like. I do it to indulge myself every now and again, and funnily enough I can only do it when I'm feeling happy and it often puts a smile on my face, however strap-her-into-a-straitjacket-now this habit might sound. I've never marked their birth days or lit a candle or observed any sort of remembrance thing, but maybe this is my way of honouring their brief presence.
This morning we were rushing off to work, as we always do. Mornings are always a mad rush to get out the door and hit the road before the traffic gets too horrendous. H was climbing out the lift and I was unlocking the garage door in the darkness of the basement, with its cold smell of bare concrete. And just for a moment I could imagine this little grumpy 4 year old boy, trailing behind me
with bed hair and rumpled clothes, because he had to wear his favourite t-shirt even though it was dirty and at the bottom of the laundry basket and because it was just not worth arguing with him that morning. I could feel him there as clearly as I could feel H coming up behind me.
And then he was gone and we climbed into the car and I forgot all about it until now.

Detox

Sunday night: read detox book for the 15th time and decide that a 2 day detox is totally doable.

Monday:

9a.m. drink hot water, lemon juice and honey. Quite pleasant.

10a.m. orange and banana smoothie (oranges are not recommended, but let's not be too precious; they are fruit after all. The rot begins to set in, although I don't realise it.)

10.30a.m. Mind to self: "Let's have a Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter Cup." Self: "No! Detox!" Mind: "Ok. You're right."

10.45a.m. 2 teaspoons of linseeds with a glass of water

10.55a.m. Mind: "Let's have a Reeses." Self: "No!" Mind: "Come on ..."

11a.m. Read book

11.05a.m. Book is boring. Mind: "Let's have a Reeses." 

11.06a.m. One peanut butter cup is eaten.

11.10a.m. Four peanut butter cups are lined up on the arm of the armchair and eaten.

11.15a.m. The peanut butter cups are very sweet. One cup of coffee is drunk.

11.30a.m. Four more Reeses are eaten.

11.45a.m. Two slices of toast and butter and marmite are eaten.

11.46a.m. The detox is now officially dead.

Pheasant pie

We spoke to our RE about this last cycle. It went more or less as expected. What was he going to tell us after all? He doesn't understand either, he is also disappointed and frustrated and he has a theory about why it didn't work and several suggestions for us to consider if we carry on.
It always surprises me but there is a big difference between thinking something and having a doctor actually say it. I am staggering around today, off balance and lost, almost on the verge of tears at times and simply cold at others. I turn to my usual sources of support: am@zon and creative blogs. I read them as if they contain the essential truth, concentrating totally on the words and trying to absorb them.
I jump from a cookbook to the cookbook photographer's site to his column in The Independent on Sunday and I seriously contemplate making Pheasant, Cider and
Chestnut Pie in Mark Hix' column. Me, who never cooks game, who would be horrified to see a pheasant lying on my kitchen counter waiting to be "trimmed of all its meat and cut into 3cm chunks", but I read the details carefully as if I am going to do it. If I can make pheasant pie, I can do other things I have never done, can't I?