11th July 2016

I walked up the hill above our house, toward the woods.  This was the last Monday when I could indulge my thinking; next week I will be on holiday and on my return I will be back to working full time.  My last Monday.

The brightness of the day gave way to shade as I entered the wood, instinctively parking redundant sunglasses on top of my head.  The rain of the previous day had dried but a fresh coolness remained and the dust had settled to create a sweet and liquid air.  It was surprisingly windy with a tidal fetch of breezes pulling at the trees, and there was always the distant threat of the warmth of the day suddenly succumbing to a sharp delivery of warm rain.

I followed the path through the woods toward the bench and shelter a local nature group had built in the middle of the trees.  Karin had wanted to go there when she was too weak to get up the hill without help; she pondered how we could somehow get a lift or something so we could sit there and drink a bottle of something, probably prosecco.  I think this was her plan for my birthday, I can't really remember.  It never happened though as the weaker she got the harder it was to consider anyway of getting her up that steep incline.  It never happened, and now it never will.
But today was the 11th July, exactly one year since I last had contact with her.  Exactly, to the minute; four fifteen in the afternoon.  So I wanted to sit and achieve that time on the bench we never managed - less concerned with the prosecco and more concerned with time away from people. More concerned with considering this last year and the afternoon on the previous 11th July.

The bench was sat in a slight clearing and was just about resisting the encroaching of the brambles.  One sharp tendril had reached out and over the end of the bench, stretching along and around; another year of unchecked growth and it would threaten the bench to the point of loss.  Parts of the shelter had broken off and the whole assembly was starting to look like a stand of log spars rather than a structure. I dusted off a seat and sat down.  Two buckled beer cans lay on the table section so I picked them up and put them on the end away from my line of vision, I didn't want those clean, made lines to disturb the natural complexity and disorder of the leaves.

One year, 365 days.
Just about 360, a full circle; the full circle I spoke out loud as I gripped her passive hand in the hospice a year ago. This circle now contained her, her life, our life, and all the past between us. Our memories.  I have spent the year looking back, daring to look forward at times but unsure about what was to be seen there.  Back was easier.
But now, the year is complete and this was my last Monday.  Time for life to bolt itself back together again and get going.  By all means take the circle along but don't let it dictate what happens.

33 years is a long time to know someone.  A long time to share a life, to be incorporated into each other's strata, to be deeply imbued in another person as well as have them permeated through you. We created experiences, history, future.  Karin was part of change, and part of stability and permanence and we shared and enjoyed life.  And for this, I am profoundly grateful.

Karin loved these woods.  The craggy rocks that sit under the soil provide an angular and inconsistent surface  and also contribute beauty in terms of shapes.  The trees are rich and vigorous and the air is endlessly filled with insects and birdsong.  And the woods change too, with new paths forming; old ones layered over with brambles, nettles and shade until they are gone.  The tree with the woodpeckers nest in has gone, the dip in the path next to it is still there but it has changed.  Everything has changed.

I sat waiting, unsure when to leave.  The clearing was rich with balsam plants that relished damp sunny patches, and the path was punctuated with plantains with their carved seed heads poking up into the sky.  A blackbird sang out; not the panicky alert pushed out in our garden with its threat of cats, but a floating relaxed song, carried out by the tide of the breeze.  Suddenly I stood up, unsure how I knew it was the end of my sit but knowing I wanted to get back to the house.  I dropped down the hill a different way though, a way I hadn't been before - a new landscape.  New history.

Those layers of change in the woods, the overlay of newness that covers up things from the past, we all live in the same way.  New experiences build on old ones, with the older experiences shaping how we approach change.  In this way Karin is still here with all of us: we are all changed but retain shapes and shadows.
I sat in the spare bedroom, looking across to hills on the other side of the house. The next week started to form itself in my mind, but based on the previous week.  Prosaic reality poking into my meditations.

Things will never be the same again.  Things are never the same.  Everything is the same. Nothing is the same. Full circle.

This blog is now complete - there will be no more entries.

Karin's party

So, May Bank Holiday.  And this time last year Karin had her party, which I guess most of us saw as her farewell party.  Not many people would have the bravado to have such an event; let's face it most people in her position would still be struggling to recognise what was happening and bringing false hope to the possible outcomes.

However, one thing we can all learn from Karin's approach was the value of staring her illness right in its eye, and in doing so she was able to map out the last months of her life with an honesty that brought real value to her remaining time.

Back to the party.  I was going to write about it for this entry, but the task seemed so enormous that I couldn't even start.  There is no doubt that the party was hers, all hers, with every element carrying the mark of her ideas, and at some point I will record it in great detail.  But, that point isn't now, so instead I have found the first germination of the idea for a party. Here is a Facebook comment where she first publicised her thoughts.  Note that quite a good number of other things on the list were achieved, which is very satisfying - and of course the fact that she enjoyed planning her list 'very much'.  How can you get to the stage when there is pleasure to be had in mapping out time when it is clear there is very little left?  I think she saw her place - she really knew where she fitted in the scheme of things. I think it is easy to underestimate that as an achievement.

'3^rd March

I spent yesterday evening compiling my 'List of Things to Achieve' and enjoying myself very much. Until it struck me that this list is actually the horribly predictable Bucket List.

Grrrrrr. How I hate to be predictable grumpy emoticon

Anyway, thought you might like to see it. It's much more predictable than earth shattering!

Buy a pair of silk pyjamas.
Buy a posh frock. I do spend money on clothes but never really expensive ones. £ for £, the most I've ever spent on one outfit is £125 in 1991 for my Monsoon wedding top and skirt.
Wear posh frock and Mark wear suit to go for proper grown up cocktails somewhere like Hotel du Vin. Invite Andy and Jess, who will always go all out on things like this.
Have a bit of a 'do'. Wear posh frock. Of course. Am thinking casual and relaxed with a few funky grooves. Constance had her 50th at what was the working men's club in Dean Lane and has now been done up. Get in nice veggie caterer.
Stay in a yurt.
Get my nose pierced. I know, get me - a tat and a nose piercing. What is the world coming to?
Go somewhere like Brussels or Hamsterjam on Eurostar.

Got any ideals???

Xx'

Yellowhammers and people

In the 30 years or so that we were together, one of my great triumphs was to beat half of Karin's score at scrabble. I can't remember when it was, or any details at all of this momentous achievement other than my jubilation, but I suspect she had taken her eye off the ball so to speak. My monosyllables were pushed in at the edges of the board to gain the odd five or six points and must have caught her unawares while she was taking a sip from her wine or thinking about what to have for tea.  It reminded me of a karate contest we once saw between two competitors that were ill-matched.  The more capable one became increasingly complacent and performed fancy manoeuvres while the tenacious but less skilled competitor just kept blatting away.  Suddenly a roar went up; the underdog had thrown an unexpected punch, got the point and won the contest. We do like an underdog.

It had been established fairly early on in our relationship that pitting my lexicon against hers was like racing a Mini against a Jaguar; hence my self-defined criteria for success that forced her to double my score to win. She seemed to see things on the scrabble board that were opaque to me, and it even got to the point where she would look at my letters (with my permission) and make a few suggestions. My inability to keep up with her moved from pity to frustration and led to the scrabble board sitting upstairs unused, unless the kids wanted to play without us. I am sure I am not brilliant at games, but the point is that she was really good.  In fact, she was really good at most games despite never being interested in playing them – which leads me to wonder why we were playing scrabble at this particular momentous time. Memories floating through the air like clauses; loose and unconnected.

For much of her life, Karin's ease with words was evident more as potential than formal achievement: a panic-stricken last minute degree in History, an A level in English, and a reputation for swearing that was prominent enough to be classified as a hobby, were the most obvious signs of her ability.  However as time went on, the words and ideas slowly built up inside her until the pressure caused a surge of words, flowing out and into notebooks, odd documents on our collection of house laptops, and finally a finished novel.  Inertia had been overcome by a great upwelling, flows of letters and ideas that had collected from the numerous small springs of books, films, chats.

To be fair, she had showed aptitude when working in the insurance industry by writing leaflets and copy for adverts, and after that the writing of posters and bids in public health that culminated in a formal academic research paper. So work sometimes acted as a bleed valve to take the edge off the urge to do something more, but it was clear to everyone that all that stuff in her head needed to come out.  (Stuff in her head - the irony of someone with cancer in her brain having a lifetime of stuff in her head).  Karin lived in her head, not in a weighty, cerebral manner, no, quite the opposite; more in the sense that the inside of her head was a favourite sofa, somewhere comfortable and reliable to go when the other world felt alien. 

I am absolutely no expert in writing and not interested in researching enough to provide any wisdom on this, but the assertion that people write according to what they have read resonates here.  Karin hated books that were highly constructed and erudite; she saw them as pretentious and not comfortable enough to bother with.  She preferred things that gave up their message with less of a struggle and so our bookshelves were lined with romances, thrillers and science fiction.  

Books were consumed at a terrifying rate.  Holidays were a particular problem because the packing needed to include sufficient books to last a fortnight. Our luggage for the Dordogne one year consisted of two rucksacks; one for books and the other for everything else.  No surprises who had to carry the portable library. - Kindles were invented too late for me as I struggled along pavements and onto trains and buses with my paper-based millstone. 

One year in Mallorca we ended up trawling round souvenir shops, hunting for more books as she had consumed all of hers too quickly.  My pair of turgid texts for the fortnight were rejected in disgust. It was as if she wanted comfort food; baked beans on toast or tomato soup, none of that haute cuisine nonsense.

No surprises then, that when she did actually did start writing, what came out was an easy flow of ideas, words and stories that reflected this Saturday supper taste for reading.

And when it came out, it came out.  Words gushing, pouring, spilling onto the pages, on the back of our shopping list, in a rapidly expanding collection of Moleskine books large and small, and often in any pen that came to mind.  I have all these notebooks and random pieces of paper, many written in red or orange pen, mainly because she couldn't be bothered to find a pen that was more suitable.  She of course argued that the colour you write in doesn't matter, not to mention the quality of the handwriting (barely decipherable) - it was all about getting those ideas into paper form rather than sitting clogging up her mind.  The notebooks outline characters, scenes, little snapshots; particles of story that now sit purposeless in a drawer in the study desk.  Opening them and reading small sections seems to ignite the writing and the descriptions suddenly jump into action like a pastiche of five-second films.  All the action pushes past the orange or red pen, wrestling through and onto the screen.

And this outpouring found a purpose.  A book was written, rejected by her, then another one started.  This one was different however because it was written with Gary, who could offer the structure that she couldn't be bothered to engage with.  Sinple; Gary provided the template and the ideas, then all she had to do then was the ‘easy’ bit, write. Straight after supper was cleared away, she drifted off to the front room and sat on the sofa with her tiny laptop, jumper pulled up to her nose, and wrote in silence; right the way through television time, ignoring Facebook, and insulated from us. Such staying power hadn't ever been in evidence previously.

And it got published! A significant number of people read and enjoyed it; it flowed well, the characters were solid – the whole deal.

At the same time, Karin carried out a piece of research at work that was good enough for her to write up and publish in a proper academic journal.  A very different idiom, seamlessly passed into - terse and empirical.  She was delighted when an academic from a university contacted her for her opinion on something.

As a fan of Thomas Hardy I was subjected to a good deal of ridicule, mostly because of the extended descriptive passages.  And Lawrence Durrell? Well, that wasn't going to be popular.  All that description! All that ‘technique’. Hardy’s two-page description of the sky in one of his books was openly ridiculed – with that amount of interest in the stars there was no room for people. No, Karin's interest in a book was confined to the people.  Because that was her other fascination. Books like Pride and Prejudice that explored the interplay between a group of people, she loved that.  Not enough to become self-indulgent though, just the playing out of relationships.

Going to the pub as a couple was challenging at times because the other customers were absolutely fascinating to her, at the expense of her own companion. She would often tail off mid-sentence because someone else had come in the room or was talking to a friend or acquaintance, and her attention was taken by their exchanges.  I would sit patiently, waiting for my time again. And if a small child was involved, or indeed a dog, then that was even better.  I was side-lined for minutes, nursing my pint in silence. Little wonder that when she wrote her open letter to be read out at her funeral in which she reviewed her life, the things of value were being married to me, and the children.  All people.  No actions, no possessions, no experiences.  Just people.

So the words, the words that poured out of her, and formed ultimately into four books, one of which has been enjoyed by a number of people with the others waiting to be sorted out, those words were such a huge part of her.  A very clear style as well, no fiddly, curly, indecipherable parts, but plain and clear communication. 

Imagine what a loss of words must have felt like for Karin. 

The extraordinary thing is that the words started leaving her really early, long before she was diagnosed.  Words with a particular rhythm started to get confused.  The zebra crossing became the yellowhammer; although yellowhammer was also the word for the dishwasher at other times.  Watering the basil was origami’d into lighting the candle.  She used to joke that it must be her brain tumours causing this aphasia, and we laughed along. We dismissed it, remembering that my dad went through a phase of word-tangling that slowly eased itself back into order by some neuroplastic reconstruction.  What we didn’t know of course, that it really was a brain tumour, a number of tumours, or to quote the consultant much later, a significant number of brain tumours.  Careful choice of words.

Click here to see what others think about her book (or indeed buy it);    Farewell Trip 

Karin's favourite shirt design;

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider contributing to the hospice that gave Karin peace at the end of her life; click here -      St Peter's Hospice

The beauty of shared emotions

When I was in Uganda there were a couple of times when I saw someone crying.  Someone else, often just acquaintances, would gently wipe the tears away using the palm of their hand.

Tales from the hospital part 2

If you had been admitted to hospital due to vomiting and seizures casued by advanced cancer, you probably wouldn't be able to do anything coherent other than stare at the wall and wait for lunch.  At least that's what I think I would be like.

Karin on the other hand, seemed to continue her fascination with people and the ward offered rich pickings for her social magnifying glass.  This is one of my favourite Facebook comments: she wrote it sat in the bed with her eyes watching the goings-on over the rim of her glasses, and when you read it I suspect you too will be transported there.  The white sheets, beige walls, wires and machines randomly dotted around the inert hump on each bed; piecemeal humanity.

Thinking back there is plenty for me to remember about Karin's stays in hospital as she seemed to bring her own very personal interpretation.  She loved being looked after (most memorably the man who brought the puddings round for the evening meal) but also the act of giving herself up to others so they could sort out the medication, the bed, even toilet trips.  And of course she loved watching what was going on;

In Praise of...Other people's stories.

The woman in the bed opposite has eight children. She is planning her discharge. Each one of her kids has visited today. At one point, they were all sitting around their mum together. The expression on her face alone could have lit the caves under The Lonely Mountain. The discharge nurse came to help them with their plans.

There was lively, good tempered chat between all the siblings and they kept looking at their mum to gauge her feelings on what they were talking about. Eventually, with big smiles, they saw the discharge nurse off. Whatever decision was reached was amicable and very obviously in perfect concordance with the wishes of their mum. No args, no pissed off youngest sibling, no gritted teeth, no thumping of fists on the hospital table. I wonder how many families could achieve that?

Then one of the daughters held a finger in the air. "Got something to tell you," was the message.

They all sat back in their chairs waiting for the story. I could tell it was a good one by the daughter's face.

"Cantonese Cantonese cantoneeeeeeese Cantonese" she began. (It may have been Mandarin, I don't know.) Her siblings nodded, several of them sitting forward in interest. "Cantonese Cantonese Cantonese" she continued in hushed tones.

"Cantonese?"

The tone was obvious "Really?"

She nodded emphatically. "Canto-bloody-nese! And then he took off with it hard on his heels!"

Her audience gave knowing nods. I did not. Who took off? What was on his heels? Was there no descriptive phrase for that occurrence in Cantonese?

Now they were all leaning forward, heads propped on hands. Me too.

"Cantonese cantonese cantonese can-ton-ese." She stopped, looked around the circle collecting their eyes and mine. "Four-teen feet..."

Eyes widened, hands were thrown up in the air, mouths made big O's. I think I may have squealed.

"Fourteen feet???" No effing way!

She nodded again; Yes effing way! Don't argue with me, I saw it with my own eyes. "Four-teen feet."

It was the best story I've heard all week.

On my own - rumination

One Sunday afternoon I took myself off for a walk to collect ideas.  The damp air cut my face and the wind seemed eager to poke its way into any unsealed gaps.  It was cold enough for most families to stay in, some doing things, some doing nothing.  The sound of an electric tool within a garage indicated a doer, a project.  Through the windows of many of the houses families sat round, the telly showing cartoons, toys all over the floor.  Each house had a plume of steam emitting from its side – everyone had their heating on, and every now and again I was engulfed in the plastic cloying smell of laundry detergent as the washing machines filled the drains with warm soapy water.  The occasional of Sunday roast was also detected; presumably some people were starting to prepare their evening meal.

Is that it?  Is life just a question of food and shelter?  Warmth?  Time with the family?  Despite two days of staring out of the window I have at least achieved those things.  What about projects – the sawing in the garages, car and motorbike restorations, DIY?  They seem much less important than just thinking at the moment.  I have the legitimacy of going to work without feeling guilty about what I do on the weekend.  ‘What did you do this weekend?’  ‘Nothing’.  ‘Good for you!’

Through stopping and standing I have made contact with my own existence; I have recognised my place on the land; I see myself in the grand panorama.  I sense life, feel it.

The occasional drift of coal smoke but only from older houses; new ones don’t have fires despite the chimneys poking out of the roofs in a facsimile of tradition. The wind stilling, the pink-cheeked children with woollen scarves granny-knotted round their necks going home now, the white noise of the cars on the main road, the cars on every road, going out, being purposeful.  I stop and watch them all going on – baskets of bread from the Coop; white so the kids will eat it, a bottle of white wine for supper to deaden the start of the week.  Last minute dog walks – two runners dripping with watery mud with rucksacks and a map.  I resisted talking to them, but it was a tough call. 

The garden paralysed with wet.  The chill seeping into all living things; small birds flying over the top of all this dampness.

The conceit of the ruminant!

The luxury I have of being able to stare at the floor all day if I wish.  I can bring value to inaction in a way that I couldn’t have ever considered in the past.  I have licence to think.

A couple of weeks afterward I walked through the streets of Bath, back from visiting a student.  It was rush hour and people were walking and driving briskly: it was too cold to be hanging around.  Frost had sat all day in corners and sun-free parts and was now causing pedestrians to walk with caution. 

I went past a hotel that had an open bar – you could peer in from the darkness and see the inviting warm, polished brass, thick carpet, dimmed lights.  In the summer they put polished aluminium chairs on the pavement and waitress service offers an air of wealth to a fairly mundane place.  Karin and I went there a couple of years ago, we had been given some vouchers for the Spa and had spent the day in Bath.  The gin and tonic in the hotel was the last drink in the sun before leaving for the train station.

 I looked further down the street; each doorway housed an inviting restaurant or bar – the smells from the Thai restaurant drifting enticingly through the cold air.  Being early on a Wednesday evening not many people were in them, but each one looked as if Karin and I would like to go there, have a drink and enjoy each other’s company. 

Except we couldn’t.  We can’t.  The times we did that were the times we had; there aren’t any more.  And I was struck by the number of opportunities, all unavailable now.  Sometimes we didn’t have anything to say, and her attention would be taken by some other people close by, sometimes we fell into mundane conversation; planning things.  But sometimes we hit the lodestone, a golden vortex of company, warm and fluid, and the time and drinks flew past and left us behind, slow motion.  Those were the ones, and the others were the ones that didn’t quite make it.

One of the first, a Chinese restaurant so long ago I can’t remember where it was.  We ate and drank and got the giggles – I remember the beautiful porcelain waitress looking at us rather judgmentally.

The meals in Sicily and Carcassone.  What did we say? I have no idea; I just feel a light whisper of the warmth, the smile, the eyes.  I hope I said that I cherished those times, I hope I did.

Friday drinks at the Bird in Hand – the unfettered joy of spending far too much on good gin – the mutual clinking of glasses – cheers!, a pot of spiced almonds, someone’s dog coming over.  I hope she got it – I hope I did at the time.

Sometimes it is like spiralling down into an endless pit – the world rushing past and that lurching sense of gravity, that most reliable of forces, has let me down.  All physics has let me down, existence has been wronged.  I sink lower and lower, slowly spinning round, arms out to grab things, but of course there is nothing to grab.

I cling onto things – I cling onto work as a certainty.  I get rewarded for work, I can commit to it because after all I have little else to commit to; it validates me.  No wonder I leave early in the morning and return when by rights my supper should be finished and washed up; there is purpose in work.  It is also a welcome distraction.  I can feel the buzzing of confusion slowly receding when I am not at home – activity gets layered over it.  When I sit and mope the buzzing becomes louder and more annoying.

I now realise that Farewell Trip was wrong – at least in my experience.  I suspect that in the free-fall of losing a partner, the last thing someone would want is to have a messy reappraisal of their life together with secrets surfacing like splinters in your hands after a day’s gardening.  No, there is too much going on in my own head to consider anything other than the present.  When you are left behind you are not left behind intact, some of you is lost and so you are different.  If a glove is lost the remaining glove is changed by stint of it now being rendered useless.  It had value as an item before, but no it is partner-less and thus has no function, unless it has the very good luck of meeting someone with one arm and one cold hand.  And the same side.

And so I think.  It doesn’t matter what the imagery is – a single glove, a starfish re-growing an excised arm, a venn diagram with one of the circles suddenly missing – I use these things to place myself, reframe things.  I sit in ideas. 

New Year's Eve 2015

Water, the New Year and the similarity of their forms.

I woke up on the 31st December slightly muzzy-headed from a 2:30am finish the night before and used the brightness of the day as a reason to get out for a walk.  I'm not a walker; it is too slow for me and my hands swell up, but my achilles tendon was tender which prevented me from running and I was keen to get outside.

The great hinge of New Year's Eve was approaching, accompanied by predictions of the direction the new year may bring.  Time to look back and look forward.  However, I felt annoyed by any self-imposed pressure to set something up for the new year - it will be what it will be; I didn't want to put anything in place right on the 1st January.

In the last few weeks the rain had veered between deluge and storm; many parts of the country were either under water or washed away, and the climb up the field out of Long Ashton gave some evidence of that, with grass pushing up and away from waterlogged soil.  I slipped and slid to the top, the sun offering a temporary and welcome respite from the rain that was forecast yet again.  I picked my way down to the stream crossing known to me as the gate with the rams, after a summer when two enormous sheep blocked the gate for weeks on end, like a reversed Billy Goats Gruff.  I stopped and watched the stream for a few moments.  It was flowing strongly and the water bounced and curved on and through, disappearing into the trees.  It was like the opposite of white noise - a sort of dark noise; each splash, gurgle and twist was unique, no rhythm, no repetition and no order but instead of irritation the water gave an opening of peace.  This brought on a sort of melancholy; I stared and thought, my heart sagging; pulling backwards.  The old year, the year gone, had brought loss and confusion, and the new year to come also offered no structure, each day unique and formless.  No plans, no resolutions, just a following of gravity; the pull of nature.
 I was stroked by the cool curves of the rivulets as they wove and twisted around each other, the water calming the murmurations of thoughts as they swirled and buzzed inside my head.

I walked on and up to the Jubilee stone; here too the puddles lay wide and obstructive.  Any bare soil was coated with a slick of mud that threatened my stability as I zigzagged toward the road, trying hard not to muddy my boots too much - I inherited them from my dad and they are getting old now and letting in little seeps of moisture.  The wind was stronger up on the hill, and the resulting drop in temperature and appearance of clouds caused me to speed up.  The trees harboured a good number of birds and each branch seemed to hold a worried blackbird or an angrily chirping blue tit.  One field contained a buzzard standing on the ground and looking rather puzzled to my fanciful eyes.  I have seen a lot of buzzards do this - I don't know if they have just caught something or actually land on the ground for a rest.  I often startle them when they are in trees and they take off in their muscular way, crashing through the branches and over to another perch away from this intruder.

My phone rang - my planned evening was cancelled.  New Years Eve was now to be a solo affair - an unexpected change.  How to make this positive?  Why not make a point of being on my own; write all evening, think about the passing year, wonder about the coming year.  Which direction?  I warily walked through a field with a bull in it; luckily he seemed more interested in grass than in me which was good because my pondering slowed me down to the point of catchability.

Another stream, this one a ditch really; it flows through a field and under the main road out of Bristol, through a culvert that also houses the footpath.  Out in the open, I stood and looked at the stream; someone had chopped and cleared all the trees around the water and exposed its course.  Branches lay around in piles, and planks had been wedged just above the surface of the water as if to catch any material kidnapped by the stream.  I wondered if this was a way of managing the speed of drainage; there has been a lot of talk recently of flooding being caused by water being channeled off the land too quickly.

Back home, just in time.  The rain suddenly appeared; lashed sideways and then turned into hail.  The relentless drive of the weather forced people to change what they were doing; cars even stopped briefly until they could see where they were going.  Everything got shaken up in the vortex; plastic bottles flew out of the recycling boxes, people ran into places to shelter.  The sun of just an hour earlier was forgotten about as something that happened in the distant past, barely memorable.

What would I have done on New Years Eve in the past?  Karin and I usually ended up with friends; it seems to be the way many of us acknowledge the changeover of the year.  It usually felt like a normal evening with friends until the very climax of the evening; deep embrace, eyes touching. A connection that said 'look at us being together, look at us, we came from that direction and we are heading in this direction'.  The flow of time which is formless and unstoppable has now left this behind and is instead dragging me along the course on my own - there is no point in looking where I am going because I can't affect the direction and it is obscured by twists and turns, branches, banks.
I decided to stay at home on my own - see what happens.  A way to break out of the rituals that threaten any individual interpretation of the evening.  Out of the groove, and then when out, find what I really need at this time.  After all, when have I ever spent New Year's Eve on my own?  Never.  It is a new experience.  Ride the flow.

At Anne and Gary's house New Year's Eve 2014

Christmas 2015

Christmas Eve; the morning has fallen out of the night with a deluge of rain.  Wind is pushing untethered objects around the garden and the gutters are discharging their contents with noisy splashing;  I suspect this year will be remembered for the flooding and unseasonably warm weather.
Christmas eve - surely a day to be roasting chestnuts on an open fire, not scurrying down to the Coop with a waterproof hood flopping over your head.

So this is Christmas

And what have you done

Another year over

And a new one just begun

Indeed.  A reconfigured Christmas, a variation on the usual confusion about precisely what we expect this festival to offer.  I have the children here - this ticks the 'family' box very confidently - and it is both lovely and exposing to have them here; exposing in the sense that we are thrust into a recognition of Karin's absence.  Emotions, feelings and positions are pushed to the fore.  

I have a sense of rebalance of roles - the bits that Karin contributed to family events are either taken up by someone else or discarded. The day has a different smell about it.  Of course all Christmasses are bound to be different but this one has much more - like looking round a corner.

 It's all very well talking about how things can be different, but there is so much change that there feels like nothing stable to act as an anchor.  It feels more like I am floating around; no expectation, no framework in which to place myself.  It is as if the floods outside have engulfed me so I am supported all the way round by water - but nothing solid to push against.  I must find my rocks, the constants.  My main rock isn't here now, so I need to identify the other ones that provide a stability, enabling me to keep moving forward.  Certain people, running, cycling, the woods on the hill, the house - a man needs a hearth.  And an established time for solitary reflection - a newly recognised comfort for me.  Push against these things to set off into the water.

Kain said last year that she was pretty confident that it would be her last Christmas.  How does anyone process the enormity of that statement?  How on earth did she process each landmark as they approached?  Her fortitude in recognising and accepting her situation became a characteristic of the last two years, and I don't know if I could have achieved the same if I was in her position.  

Nick told a story at the funeral of Karin laying cards out in a line to map out major events in the future and she was clear and accepting of the shortness of the timeline: quite calm.  I wonder what the other people in the group felt about this unequivocal and brutally functional statement.  How honest; and in that honesty, what a gift for the others to be made aware of the fleeting flash of life.

A gift then, a legacy.  The knowing that for each of us the future doesn't stretch forward for ever; it is framed at either end by a birth and a death, and this section of time itself is a tiny, measureable piece.  To me this feels easy to say but difficult to feel or understand;  Karin had the wisdom of knowing, really knowing, and gave us a little of this understanding.  What better time to receive a gift than at Christmas?

So, I start to identify new understandings, new anchors; objects to push against.  A new one is knowing how long I have - like all of us it isn't long and it is finite.  Having established that as a certainty I can see a little more of the picture through the sheeting rain and swirling waters that threaten to destabilise our lives and our thinking.

One more gift, as a post-script.  Laughter.  I am sure there is more to be written on this, but how to find joy in what you have is another lesson freely given to us by Karin.

Womens duathlon 2011

I found this - Karin rode a women's duathlon in 2011, and this was the entry on her Justgiving page - oddly devoid of punctuation but typically entertaining!  I have never seen anyone enjoy running and cycling so much in all my life.

ok, so here's the story:

in an excess of enthusiasm after i got my new bike, i boasted to ally that i was going to enter this duathlon.  then she said i should do it in aid of the harbour (see all about this most excellent charity on the left there).  so i said oh go on then.  then she came over all excitedly unnecessary and said she'd do it too.  then i said well if i'm going to raise money i should really do the longer event.  then izzy said oh well if you can do a duathlon so can i, even if i never run and only cycle 8mins to school a couple of times a week.  and i said go on then clever clogs.  so she did and ally did

and that's how we got ourselves into this blimmin' mess

so i'd be very grateful if you could spare a few of your hard-earned readies for the harbour - THANKS! xx

Merging

At what point do photo albums merge?  When a couple get together they bring their own collection of family events; birthdays, holidays, shaky action shots of the dog or flat landscapes that in no way resemble the steepness that inspired the camera being pulled out of the bag in the first place, and put them on the table like a hand of cards.  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

When I met Karin I had one full album and another that had just been started; both blue and both made of those strange tacky leaves that you tack the pictures underneath: over the years the transparency becomes as dirtily opaque and obscuring as the fading memories.  In the first there was a picture of Portishead power station chimney falling as they demolished it, another of someone’s boot apparently hovering over Lulworth Cove on some holiday, and an image of us all standing at the foot of Cheddar Gorge the time Uncle David and Auntie Kay brought their children over from Canada. Through the lens of youthful optimism I thought I looked quite muscular without my age twelve shirt, but the picture in its brutal accuracy evidences just a stick-thin childishness.

Album two was later, obviously, because everyone knows photographs need to be in chronological order.  Moving into teenage interests; cycling, a couple of girlfriends (not, I hasten to add, at the same time, my teenage loins would have exploded; one at a time was plenty), a field trip to Sand Bay where the wind howled sand into our eyes all day – a huge price to pay for the lasting knowledge of plant succession. A school trip to Germany captured a good few pages.

 And that was it, very few images for twenty odd years of existence; more a sampler of the many other images sitting in the loops and folds of my brain.  The album is a treasure box but the memories are an archive: you don’t take pictures of mundane day-to-day existence (at least you didn’t then; the ubiquity of cameras on phones now capture every uneventful moment) but memories hold everything, all of it.  All that experience piles up and shapes you into who you are, and here I was, skinny, an anger that contrasted with my angelic complexion, and with enough restless energy to burst through the drifts of photographs to create a new understanding of the world.

Karin’s album seemed to be similar in structure but different in content; still the spiral binding that held those clingy pages together inside a padded cover, but the inside was sparse in landscapes and rich in people.  Parties; a satiny purple top that zinged against her autumnal hair like kinetic art; Yorkshire terriers, so many things that just wouldn’t look right in my album.  Different grandparents, people I didn’t know and some I was destined never to meet because they had died.  All labelled with whimsical comments on thin strips of blue paper. I had the chance to look upstream where she had come from, and she did the same with me, seeing the connections and influences cascading over rocks, until we sat at the confluence together, staring up, then down into the future.

Except of course, there is no future.  The future surely doesn’t exist until you get there, and then it changes its name and function to the present.  The future is a fiction, and I certainly couldn’t see it when I sat there in the watersmeet.  I couldn’t see the children, the houses, the melding of two people into a couple; all the things that were to come.  I can see them now of course – I can cast my eye all the way back from where I am now to where we were then, and see the whole journey laid out in a long and sometimes jumbled set of photographs; sometimes organised into albums, other times still in those card envelopes that came from Boots and more latterly, Bonusprint, still clinging onto the transparencies as if they are the origin of the image itself rather than the experience.

Our blended photographs started with serial rows of my stuff and her stuff, side by side – parallel lives, until bit by bit the odd picture migrated across – I had a picture of Karin in my set, she had one of me, then someone gave us a picture of each other, a mutual friend.  My closest friend Paul came to stay, and then he was our friend and the pictures and experiences united us.  I actually created our first mutual album many years later; the pictures had sat around in loose piles until I couldn’t stand it any longer and bought a whole set of albums with pockets in rather than the clingy static pages that failed to cling a few years later.  Karin couldn’t be bothered with photographs, and she certainly couldn’t be bothered with filing or displaying them.  Everything was about now; the past was gone and dwelling on it was a waste of time. 

The pictures started to increase in number when Elly was born – here was something to capture, something worth locking in.  Karin started to put some pictures on the wall in clip frames; she argued that at least they were used then instead of just sitting in boxes.

And so the records of her life and my life became the record of our life, and in our absence they stand as a publically open record of our experiences.  And in Karin’s absence many of them stand now as the only record.  However, Karin’s challenge to that was, what is the point of preserving a memory that belonged to someone who has gone?  The pictures I have serve as a time, a long time, where Karin and I shared our lives, but from now on photographs will have different content, different people; adding to the long thread of captured moments that stretch back.

Tales from the hospital, part one

I think it is time to break out some of the Facebook tales Karin wrote while in hospital.

We went to Hay on Wye for a four-day break, but had to leave early as she was so weak she couldn't even get to the toilet.  I went out running for an hour and when I got back I found she had fallen on her way to the bathroom.  So I packed our stuff in the car, made our apologies to the very concerned couple who owned the chalet, and headed for the oncology acute ward.

Over the next three weeks, they fiddled with her meds until some stability and strength was restored.  In that time, Karin's ipad got a good amount of use as she sat in bed and watched the world pass by; covertly writing down these little pieces of entertainment.  So here is the first one;

Tetchy Woman in the bed next to mine has adopted me as her pet hospital project.

This is a little strange, considering the day before yesterday I screamed at her for insulting the nurses - calling them slow bitches. "You're in a fucking hospital, not a hotel. Don't you order these poor women around as if they're your slaves. Wind your insult bearing neck in, pal."

I was ready to engage in a fisticuffs contest. Had my fists clenched and Mr Bishop my karate teacher’s instructions ringing in my ears - if it ever comes to the crunch, don't bother with the impressive stuff, just bash 'em right on the nose and skedaddle right out of there - like I was going to skedaddle anywhere...

The nurses formed a phalanx (I think) in front of me, with the tiniest one right out front and centre, giving Tetchy Woman The Look. I took time to admire the mother who had taught her. Perfect technique.

She raised a finger to the nasty woman and said quietly, "I don't appreciate you calling me and my colleagues slow, not to mention the other insult you felt it necessary to employ." she then turned the wagging finger on me. "Whilst we thank you for support in this matter, there is more than one side in this business that should be winding its insult bearing neck in."

Well, bugger me and all I was trying to do was beat up the bully on your behalf.

Anyway, now I am Tetchy Woman's best friend. Every time a nurse comes in, she shouts at them and tells them they should be looking after me because I'm much worse off than her - her, with her Chrons disease, metastatic kidney cancer and pneumonia in both lungs.

Even weirder is that she believes I have no left foot - it comes off and stays in the boot when I take it off, apparently. Also, because of the eye patch she believes I have no left eye. Even though I only wear the patch 70% of the time. She's also decided I clearly want to be a pirate because I wear black.

Ray Davies

Desert Island Discs is a perfect programme to drive to, and knowing that I had two days of driving to and from the university through lanes with poor radio signal, I set up my portable speaker with an SD card containing a number of podcasts of Desert Island Discs.  Unusually, the radio reception was pretty good, so I bowled along listening to radio 4 instead.  To my great surprise the one programme I had time to listen to during my journey was Desert Island Discs, with the psychologist Marjorie Wallace as the castaway.

Rain drifted from the side as I bowled through the countryside - the roads were coated in a soup of water, mud and  crushed leaves that threatened to disturb the stability of the car, but I happily splashed through, quite distracted.
Driving is so much easier when absorbed by an interesting programme, and I travelled unthinkingly while absorbed in someone else's life.  The traffic bissected the countryside and the rolling hills encroached on either side; the brown and gold of the leaves rich enough to be a verb rather than a noun.

However, I was halted in my easy flowing commute, because just as I was just thinking my way into the approach to the campus she introduced 'Days' by Ray Davies.

'Thank you for the days
those endless days you gave me'


The enormity and purity of the words matched the character of my recent journey and interlocked with my own thoughts and memories, creating an honest and clear reality that pulled tears from my eyes.
I sploshed into the nearest layby, wondering how someone could write a message so pure that it can find and draw out the emotion of loss in every person.

'I won't forget a single day, believe me'

Oh, the ache of the past!  That dull pulling, tugging.  Not forgetting means being dragged back and losing that carefree free-flow that characterised our years together. Backwards time standing still, photos next to each other but 10 years apart; like eating food you can't taste; pulling rawness out like a machete that only cuts when it isn't there.

The cars continued to shoot past me; the splashing wheels cutting through the matrix of leaves.  I was sat, still, timeless, static, just taking in the words.  But on the cars went, relentless; progressing despite the knowledge that most of them would repeat the journey tomorrow and the next day and the next.
I couldn't join the flow until I had finished the message, the message that Ray Davies was sharing with me - he was talking to someone else but I was picking up the message as if it was for me.

Drive on, sniff, draw the back of my hand across my eyes - will people see them red?  Spasmodic breathing calms to a gentle depth as I enter the campus - up the tediously long drive where I usually look for people I know but never see anyone, so by the time I am ready to get out of the car the retch of grief had passed.  Deep breath, shake myself out, meet and greet.

Facebook

Karin was the undoubted queen of Facebook (I think George Takei is probably the king) and it would be a terrible waste if some of her more entertaining comments were shared again.  There are quite a lot - when I could see that she was writing some very entertaining pieces I started saving them, but this was really only for a short period of time.  Obviously the time she wrote most on Facebook was when she had left work but was still able to construct sentences artfully.
So, to kick-start things, here are the first two on my list;

Public Advice Notice
I have just been given a Muller thick and creamy 'strawberry' yogurt to eat. 

If you are ever tempted by one of these, beware! They are the most artificial tasting and feeling yogurt I have ever had the misfortune of eating. Colour is an unappetising dirty pink; the texture is horribly reminiscent of Angel Delight (now I love Angel Delight, esp butterscotch flavour, but yogurts should be yogurts, not Angel Delight) 

My advice? Just don't go there.

Ingredients:
Yogurt, Strawberries (8%), Water, Fructose, Modified Maize Starch, Gelatine, Flavourings, Citric Acid, Stabiliser: Pectins; Sweetener: Aspartame; Beetroot Juice Concentrate. 

Mr W is something of a yogurt specialist, having worked in the Yeo Valley yogurt and cream dairy in his youth. His view on the ingredients above and what they mean for the manufacturing process is that basic yogurt is taken and stirred into a virtual liquid, before being 'stabilised' into a creamy mass - unnecessary ingredients for a yogurt include modified maize starch, gelatine, stabiliser and beetroot juice concentrate (which is supposed to make the yogurt look like it's got strawberries in it, which I suppose it has, all 8% of them).

Avoid avoid avoid!

and number two;

Clever clever body!

Had to go back to the Oncology Centre to have more needle sticks - boo hiss - but the lovely Fallon got a vein second try! Man,that was a relief.

Even better, my blood counts were stellar - white cells, Hb, neutrophils, platelets had all improved incredibly over just the past 24 hours. Well done, me. (I believe the secret to improved blood counts is half a perfectly ripe avocado mashed with a big dessertspoonful of mayo and a splash of Thai sweet chilli sauce, eaten for lunch with a teaspoon and with Carrs melts crackers.)

Clutching evidence in hand, off we, my dearest Ingrid (actually my only Ingrid, but she'd be my dearest if I had a football team of Ingrids to choose from) and me, trot to South Bristol Community Hospital for day 1 chemo. Welcome, Carboplatin - duck billed platypus drug - and Gemcitabine - pretty jewel drug.

Again, a suitable vein found on the second try. Nice cup of tea from the little cafe and a really lovely talk with MDI. Two and a half hours later, off we jolly well go; steroids, anti-emetics x2 and poo medicine in hand.

The whole experience about a million times better than I'd expected.

The first one a throwaway reflection, but the second one I think catalogues her clutching at positives in a sea of negatives.  Loving the company of a friend, reflecting on a pleasurable meal, her body's positive response, and one thing only Karin could do - be entertained by the names of her chemo drugs; all of which hurt her.

But also, the dread she felt at having to undergo chemotherapy.  The certainty of knowing that there will be sustained and constant discomfort - how do you deal with that?  How would you deal with it?  I don't know how I would cope, but looking at Karin's strategy of identifying and celebrating the pleasures in her daily life, now that is to be celebrated.

I don't understand - where is she?

Joni vs KD

When I think of Joni Mitchell and KD Lang, I think of the song The Valley and imagine the two of them separated by altitude and attitude - 'I live in the valley, you live in the hills'.  Who lives where is unimportant, except Joni lived in a canyon so maybe she should be the valley dweller: although possibly her ethereal warbling is more suited to being up on high.  When we went to see KD Lang, she took off her shoes and sang rooted to the ground, earth-connected.  Well, who cares; the point is they are very different and we both had our favourites. And The Valley was written by Jane Siberry, so neither of them.

Karin loved KD Lang.  She loved her more than I love Joni Mitchell because she loved the person as well as the music, their shared initials were surely beyond coincidence.  She loved KD's raw honesty about herself, her rabble-rousing self-confidence, sexual identity, veganism, even her hair style.  And her singing - a sound that seemed to grow from the earth like a forest, and made of a natural purity that rejected any artifice.   Lyrics that told deep stories about real people; people who sat and loved each other, properly.
New CD's were brought into this house as soon as they were released and played over and over, then added to the rotation of all the other KD CD's.  Any singers similar to KD Lang were instantly dismissed as unpalatable (an exception was made for Bonnie Raitt): and as for Joni Mitchell, well she just put her dirty laundry on display and sang with a voice that could break glass. Oh well.

The Canadian heritage of both these singers (not to mention Jane Siberry) give a hint of the icing on the cake - a connection that began and ended with our family self-definition as neo-Canadians: new settlers in a country that is still trying to understand the impact of the previous incomers.  The timing of KD Lang when she entered our consciousness at the turn of the millenium - a new age for us - was perfect as we headed toward Toronto.   So KD Lang's songs became incorporated into Karin's character, like adding a herb to soup; and by default into our family identity.

A few months before Karin died we discovered a KD Lang song we didn't know: Barefoot.  Its lupine chorus, reflective words and guitar accompaniment beautifully matched the sheer bleak cold of the film it was used as the soundtrack for.  We sent off for the film; what with that track, and KD Lang playing one of the main characters it just had to be watched.  I may be wrong but I think it was the last film Karin saw; with a glass of wine and the curtains drawn we were taken to an arctic place where no life existed outside a parker jacket.
The film felt like a film-school piece with oblique sideways glances and long atmospheric shots, but no matter - we had bought into the whole thing.  The triangulation of music, actor, country, generated a whole that reinforced what was in our mind - KD Lang is very cool.  She is very cool because she talks the language of the earth; there is an honest purity to her music and life that pushes up against other disingenuous characters in the media.  Karin liked that - no affectation.

(image taken from http://www.cinema.de/bilder/salmonberries,1296734.html)

Beady Belle

The circle game

I remember walking around the hospital when Elly was born - empty corridors, with just the occasional cleaner freshening the place up during the lull of night, ready for the messy hordes the following day.  The floor shone in the low level security lighting and the warmth of the day finally gave way to a gentle dark stickiness. We were satellites; operating independently of the rest of humanity and in a world, an existence, of our own.  The occasional intrusion of another family, evidenced by a panicky moaning from behind one of those wooden varnished doors, or someone wandering around to find the toilets or leaving the building for a cigarette, seemed to me to be wrong - how dare they be in our hospital?  The staff were surely just for us - they had led us to believe that anything we wanted could be given to us.  Shared gazes focused inward onto one spot.

The same went for the oncology ward and the hospice.  Sucked into being individuals and leaving society behind, it was dislocating to find someone else there living out the same experience.  I would meet another relative hovering by the kettle or trying to work the remote for the family room tv, and wonder how they have blundered into our universe. One woman in the hospice talked to me most days.  I went there every day for just over two weeks - my incarceration was completed on 11th July, but hers kept going.  Her uncle had hung on for 23 weeks and she went in every single day, wandering round the corridors and getting to know others passing through.  When she had seen I wasn't there, she told me she knew what had happened and wished me all the best in the rest of my life.  And with that and a quick hug from a fellow sufferer she released me back into a world of cars, shops, people, noise and connections.

The odd thing of course is that it was all an illusion: people are being born all the time.  The hospital was filled with rooms that held women in the feral act of childbirth - exposing flesh and behaviour that is normally so locked away.  Animal noises, warm pale limbs, bare feet.
Couples will walk out in a steady stream, one by one so they don't see other couples, clutching soft bundles or hard plastic car seats. Women wearing slippers more suited to the bedroom than the street, walking slowly with exhaustion and bed culture; new dads with swollen eyes from lack of sleep and blinking back unaccustomed tears.
 And the hospice - families leaving, not with a newborn baby but a plain carrier bag that may contain a washing kit, more slippers, a photograph: precious little compared to the amount of objects we magpie together over the years and that clutter up the mantle pieces and shelves of our lives.  Every day, families walk out like this and every day the beds are cleaned and remade, ready for the next person.  We did not have a unique experience - it is being played out in multiples in this city right now.  The miracle of birth and death is made mundane by its ubiquity.

I went back to the hospice the day after Karin died to organise some clothes and after an interview with the nurse I went through to thank the doctor for her care.  As I passed the staff many said hello to me, but they had stepped off the path.  They were caring for someone else now - all that focused compassion was redirected.  The doctor hardly recognised me despite us having had some quite intimate conversations in the last few days.
The individual act of dying - or being born - takes place parallel to similar journeys undergone by countless other individuals.  Any sense of Karin's death being unique is dashed in a moment's refection.
Was her death unique?  Are all deaths unique?  What makes us think that our experience is noteworthy?
Three months later I am still reconsidering what happened and what is happening; but six miles from here seventeen families are sitting drinking tea while the low sun streams through the window in dusty shafts.  Laundered cotton sits in smooth piles, blankets gently slip to the floor, someone cuts the grass.

Mindfulness and compassion

Last Sunday I attended a course offering an introduction to mindfulness; Karin was a regular at the organisation's weekend retreats and I rather felt that I wanted to continue our relationship with a group that had contributed strongly to her positive approach.  I don't know whether she had a talent for mindfulness lying dormant that was triggered into action when she became ill or that she was suddenly receptive to these ideas given her circumstances, or more likely a mixture of the two, but she seemed to take this approach and weave it into the fabric of the end of her life in such a way that mindfulness provided a meaningful structure and integrity.

The morning dawned with oxygen-rich mists and pavements increasingly scuffed with brown leaves curled like shells.  The silence of the day provided space that was pegged out by birds making the best use of the absence of people.  I walked to the venue to save fiddling with a bike and arrived warm and alert, well aware that if Karin had been around she would have attended: hugging old friends, pulling out home-made brownies and flooding the room with sparkle in a way only she could.  She sure could work a room.
This didn't help me much, and as we settled for the first session I felt the air silently filling with a melancholy that seemed destined just for me.  The very furniture seemed to include her vocabulary - cushions for meditating on, wicker chairs and blankets for those with cold feet. The introduction of all the people around the room drew out her presence and I was really finding it hard to keep functioning; but like lancing an infection, when I introduced myself and my reason for attending, the pressure was then relieved and the rest of the morning developed into a calm well-suited to the themes of the day.

Short sessions, plenty of talk, tea, cool autumn sun pushing through the window; the day progressed in a relaxed manner, until quite suddenly it was the very last meditation - Metta Bharvana; a loving-kindness meditation.  The irrepressible spirit of Karin finally beat its way through all the closed eyes, herbal teas, bells and cushions.  I suddenly remembered a facebook entry she made about this meditation and from then on struggled to avoid giggling.  I have reproduced it below, but if there is any chance that you may be carrying out this meditation some time in the future please don't read it, as I promise the last line will haunt you and appear just when you hope it won't.  In one facebook comment Karin managed to destroy a 3,000 year old buddhist practice.

Hmmmm. I don't know that I'm really suited to mindfulness. This morning I did my yoga, very nice indeed, peaceful in fact. Then I sat for 20 minutes with the intention of doing a metta bharvana meditation.

Stage 1 - feeling loving kindness towards myself - was okay, tho I found it hard not to be critical of myself. Stages 2 and 3 - feeling loving kindness towards a good friend and feeling the humanity of and loving kindness towards someone I don't know well/have neutral feelings about - went better.

Then came Stage 4 - loving kindness towards someone I dislike or feel is an enemy. Oh dear. 

I just wanted to kill that person. Stab stab stab. Oh dear. Didn't make it to the end. Oh deary deary me.

Just remember, the spirit of Monkey was.... irrepressible