Wednesday 24 August 2011

Words Words Words Words Words...

Spiral of Life at Norwich's Catholic Cathedral. 

Regular readers (if I have any left) will have noticed a distinct lack of activity on this blog of late.

SORRY!

Yes, I have left undone that which I ought to have done and there is no health in me, as the Book of Common Prayer would put it.  Partly, its the grief addling my brain and making it do weird things. 

Like yesterday, at the hospital.  I went to see the Dermatologist about the crusty lumps on my face.  (Fine, thank you, no problems.)  So, I figured, just walk in there, have your cheeks prodded and looked at through that little hand-held microscope they have, and Bob is your mother's brother.

Nope, Bex is sitting in the waiting area having a panic attack because she had to go in through the In-Patients entrance, and walk past the ward windows! 

There were hospital beds.  Of course, duh!  Except they were the same kind of bed that my step father was in when he died.  You can see where this is going, can't you?  So there I was, stuffing Rescue Remedy and trying to do meditational breathing because of a bloody bedstead.

And then there are the stories.  Like some weird plague of locusts, they have descended on me.  I am struck down with imaginational pestilence.  I wrote 5286 words today!  I've written five major pieces of fiction since I got back from Hampshire, all upwards of 40 pages long and counting.  And every time I close my eyes, there's more.  Scenes are falling out of the sky on my head like shrapnel.  I can hardly keep up with the laundry, let alone have a life and a marriage, in between all this writing.  I've written more in the last four weeks than I have in years. It is getting beyond a joke.  It's obviously a kind of dissociative activity, so I am trying not to knock it, but just occasionally it would be nice to have my brain back, please?

And the dreams.  Eugh!  I wake up feeling like I've run a marathon in my sleep.  Last night I was swimming the length of the River Waveney.  The night before, I was watching Welsh farm hands being mauled by two tigers (don't ask, really.)  I dream vividly, so its not like I am getting any rest.

And don't even ask me about Benedict Cumberbatch!!!

I knew grief could do some daft things to you, but seriously, this is verging on something clinical.  The only symptom I have not enjoyed yet has been the itchy scalp. My hair has gone limp and dry, but so far, no itches.  Watch this space, people.  The world will no doubt get a lot stranger before this is over...

Tuesday 9 August 2011

A New Beginning


Dear Reader,

Well, three weeks spent in Hampshire, looking after my mother following the death of my beloved step-father, sorting out the funeral, keeping going.  I've been home since the 27th July and my head is still a mess.  Everything feels so jumbled.  I can't seem to concentrate on anything, and yet I was so organised and able to concentrate while it was happening.  Now I am all over the shop!  I'm trying to just go with it, to accept that this is part of the grieving process, and this is just what I need, but you know what I am for productivity and getting things done!  I get frustrated.  I want to be back on track, back in the programme.  I beat myself up for not being able to do things, like write this blog.  Its hard to accept that life is just going to be a bit confusing and off piste for a while.

And then I think of my mother, and the fact that she is alone again for the first time in 25 years.  Its grim, at 80, when you are so vulnerable anyway.  And the fact that she has done this once already, after my father died.  I feel for her far more than I feel for me.

So please send her your prayers, or good vibes, or whatever you have spare, and bear with me while I get my jumble in order...