Day 6

In these unbelievable times I'm cheered by, as Mr. Rogers so aptly called them many years ago, The Helpers.

The Uprisings everywhere. The humour in the face of unbelievable stupidity and racism. Lawyers coming together to defend the most vulnerable. (Does 45 even get the fact that these refugees are fleeing from a carnage his country created? Don't bother answering)

The Helpers are everywhere.

Our own Prime Minister tweeted this:

Yeah, the man can tweet.

And this, this, made me lol/sob:


And got me thinking of how it really must be in 45's Orange House.

The Masters of the Universe have never been more visible.

I watched Noam Chomsky's doc again last night. Wow, prescient. I highly recommend.

Day 5

The worst of it is that thoughts don't leave me rest. Unbidden, often of the past. I occupied myself sorting out the android and its feeds. It wasn't doing what I told it to. Dropping favourites, reinventing newbies which were of no interest. That kept me in bad temper, but busy, for a while. It turned out there were two similar feeds clashing with each other. Order is now restored and so are favourites.

I Doctor Googled myself and found that my two underlying health issues were not helping this overlying issue: Da Bug. I may have to go to doc on Monday if I don't feel better. I see the specialist on Wednesday at the hospital which I feel quite hopeless about. I know. But it's the way I feel in this shallow-breathing painful world I live in at the moment.

Over the years I've gotten to know fellow bloggers in many ways. Often face to face or through emails and snail mails and gift exchanges. Many are of similar bent or political leanings. One, who has been a blog friend since I started blogging way back, and blogged frequently and eloquently, made the announcement today that she has terminal lung cancer. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't stop crying.

There have been a few such losses over the years. It surprises me how very close we can feel in the ether to each other. And the huge void that is created by absence.

I send her sustaining light and love through the challenges ahead. And yes, it puts my own tribulations at the moment into some sort of perspective.

Day 4

Oh the misery.

Oh the hacking.

Oh the sleepless nights.

And sleep filled days.

The isolation.

The pity pot.

Grandgirl arrived to great excitement on Sunday.

She and Daughter hung out in my house until Tuesday.

She'd arrived with the remnants of some kind of bug.

Non-infectious, we believed.

Poor fools.

Mine started on Tuesday. Grew to an unmistakeable fever by Wednesday, was full-fledged by Thursday and today, Friday, has developed fresh symptoms like stomach let down.

All the bodily functions we take for granted now become questionable in execution.

I'm the type who hates being catered to even though many offers have been flung through the phone and on media.

I am completely uncivil and unfriendly and unsocial in my illness and the slightest effort thrown in these directions sends me spinning downwards.

So I Coventry myself and wander around the house quite aimlessly, unable to read or knit or concentrate on anything stimulating on Netflix.

I collapse regularly in a heap on my bed exhausted from the effort it took to get there.

So yeah. A bit of a whine.

Because I know you're all far away and can't knock on my door with a cheerful countenance and chicken soup.

Remiss

re·miss

/rəˈmis/


adjective

adjective: remiss

lacking care or attention to duty; negligent.
"it would be very remiss of me not to pass on that information"


synonyms: negligent, neglectful, irresponsible, careless, thoughtless, heedless, lax, slack, slipshod, lackadaisical, derelict......

Not to say I haven't been writing.

I have.

And designing and knitting too. And reading. And conversing. And playing Lexulous on line.

And storm watching. We were all worked about that, my town and I. But those forecasters and Environment Canada got it so very, very wrong. As they often do. There's something about meteorologists' brains and the sea and radar patterns that doen't mix well. Grandgirl cancelled her flight tonight as a result, so now she arrives tomorrow.

The bay is frozen, it is quite startling in its beauty. It's cold. But the fire is cosy. Some people lose their minds in weather such as this. I'm delighted with it. More me-time, no outside pressures apart from irritating phone-calls with demands which I'm ignoring for today.

I do miss my old girl, Ansa, though. Not the old and tired Ansa, the lively, funny one.

Perfectionism

I would never have described myself as such. Ever. But late in life I'm up against this defect of mine. And it is a defect. Perfectionist. It's a prison.

per·fec·tion·ism


/pərˈfekSHəˌnizəm/

noun

noun: perfectionism

refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.

It is paralyzing when it comes to my writing, to my completion of major projects. For example, I've written 3 novels. Understand that apart from an inquiry letter to publishers/agents here and there I've never pursued with any kind of energy or dedication actual publication of any of them as there is still so much to fix/rewrite/edit, you name it. Incomplete. Imperfect.

The recent anthology was agony. I will never look at it again, even though I've worked it and worked it. Because I will still see flaws and construction/grammatical problems et al infinitum. And this is depressing. Utterly.

My short stories, articles are never the issue as I can rework/edit these to my heart's content. Which I do. And then fire off. It's the larger works that are my personal sticky wicket.

The thing is, I let Novel #2 go for about 4 years. It had been work-shopped to much acclaim, a concept not written about before to everyone's knowledge. I hadn't read it since. But I needed the work I had done on it for a creative non-fiction short piece I'm writing.

So I took all day yesterday and read it as a stranger might and I was overwhelmed with how good and moving (I cried, lots) it was and today I'm going to work on expanding some chapters and then having Daughter and Grandgirl read it and take or not take their valued considerations and then fire it off, maybe a 100 times like a machine gun to different publishers without looking at it again.

And then get on the backs of the other 2 and do the same.

Time is running out.

On all of us.

WWW - Unlimited.

My mind has always been my freedom. Ever since I was quite tiny.

When troubled I would lie on my small bed face down and imagine myself soaring over hills and mountains and then off into the sky, cruising over waves and boats and trees and houses.

"Oh" said my friend D to me last year, a couple of days before she died, "I can't bear the thought of my mind being gobbled up by this disease." Me too, D. Me too.

My mobility is impacted by some serious health issues. I am waiting for specialist evaluation to see if there's a solution.

But meanwhile I pace myself and prop myself on some hiking poles, counters, whatever is handy. I'm goodly for about 25 paces and then, suddenly, the power is gone, like pulling a plug out of a socket.

Dr. Google alarms me greatly so I avoid.

I also avoid talking about it with friends. There's nothing worse than a medi-bore.

Except for here.

The once.

My point? I am surprised at how unlimited I feel inside me. I celebrate all that is good and wonderful about my life.

I've discovered I'm far kinder to myself than I would have anticipated. I talk myself through fearsome challenges. And congratulate myself on a job well done if I've made it to the garage and into my car.

I've eliminated some previously terribly important and unletgoable items from my diet with ease. My goal is perhaps being under my normal weight to ease pressure on my vascular system. But I haven't overanalyzed this, it just seemed like time. I don't feel deprived. At all.

I find I'm in a really good head space. I anticipated much whining and berating of my misfortune and button-holing of willing ears. But no, that hasn't happened.

It's not a misfortune. And I don't compare to others' setbacks or worse-off scenarios - always terribly unhelpful, IMO.

It just is.

Inside, every dream is still realizable.