Music - Finding my way back and forward - 4, a playlist

Today I'll be hosting a Farewell Ceremony for Mike2, who died just over two years ago but without any kind of funeral.  That was his choice.  He said he wouldn't care one way or another if any of us chose to arrange something afterwards because he'd be dead.  Nobody has, until now, and in spite of all the difficulties of the past 18 months, I've put together a day he could have been proud of.

This is a very long playlist I've put together and it will be playing on shuffle in the background after the ceremony while we lunch and drink toasts and chat.  It comprises music I know he loved plus a few songs which remind me of him.

Music - Finding my way back and forward - 3, and back and forward!

Mike3

This week my journey through the music of my life took an unusual turn.  I say that.  In fact it's taken many turns, backwards, forwards and sideways, linking many bits of my life together.  This is something of a long and rambling post the twists and turns of which are almost certainly much more interesting to me than to you, and to help you keep up with all those twists and turns I'm going to put some words in bold. Unless you're familiar with my love life, you'll find you soon need them, in order to get all the different Mike's straight in your mind.  (There have been three of them and all have died.)

Way back in December I was discussing the musician Johnny Coppin with a friend and mentioned that I used to own a cassette of an album of his, "Forest, Vale and High Blue Hill".  It turned out that I had rashly decided to dump all my cassettes prior to moving, including not only this gem but also recordings I'd made of my grandparents reading out loud and other family snippets from the sixties and seventies, all because I was trying to downsize and currently didn't have a cassette player.  So much spilt milk.

I tried to find a copy of the album but came up with nothing, even asking various local contacts who all reported that it seemed to be something that was only released on vinyl and cassette.

My third Mike (in a life partner sort of way), who was in fact Mike2 because I met him second, died in 2023.  He decreed no funeral or ceremony of any kind, believing as I and his elder son did at the time that the two of us would meet over an expensive bottle of wine to lament his passing.  Because of various health issues for both of us this is clearly no longer on the cards, so I'm left without a ritual to mark Mike's passing.  I've recently decided to hold a small memorial ceremony (with a celebrant) here at home and have been researching the music we might listen to.

While searching for music for Mike's memorial a week or so ago I thought I'd have one more go on the Johnny Coppin trail.  I found his website - but not the album title.  As a last step I emailed him to ask if there was a digital version floating out there in the ether somewhere.  And discovered that it had been incorporated in another album with the title "The Gloucestershire Collection".

A couple of phone calls, a bank payment and a short wait for Royal Mail and the CD The Gloucestershire Collection was in my hands.  

Many of the songs on my original album were based on poems by the Dymock Poets.  (You can find out even more about them at Friends of the Dymock Poets and by reading the book by  Sean Street, The Dymock Poets.  In one of the bizarre turns I mentioned up there ^ Sean Street and his wife are friends of mine!  The Dymock poets were from the Forest of Dean, the westermost part of Gloucestershire.

Mike1 (my first husband, who died in 1991) was also a poet and certainly knew about The Dymock Poets.  He had an extensive poetry library (around 700 books, I seem to remember) which I'm sorry to say I have severely culled over the years and although he would almost certainly have owned a copy of Sean's book, I find that I no longer do.  Forest, Vale and High Blue Hill was released in 1983 and that's when I owned a copy on cassette but again, I no longer have it.  Mike1 and I both loved Gloucestershire, although neither of us was native to it, and we frequently used to travel to places near Gloucester to watch the Severn Bore.

Naturally, as soon as the CD arrived I started listening to it and was immediately struck with some regret.  For whatever reason (the most likely  being the mundane one of no longer playing cassettes) I didn't share the Johnny Coppin songs with Mike3 (who died in 2014).  As I listened today I realised how many of them spoke his language.  He was a countryman and a true Cotswold Lad.  (He used to quip, "I'm a Gloucestershire lad, born and bred: strong in the arm and thick in the 'ed".  This last was most certainly untrue!) The poems and the tunes Johnny Coppin set them to were in forms Mike would have appreciated.  Being on the autistic spectrum was, I'm sure, why he liked music to have notable structure and tunes and songs to have verses and choruses.  The Songs of Gloucestershire deliver both in spades.  Mike appreciated the writings of poets who had gone out of fashion, such as Rudyard Kipling (he moved past the possible racism contained in Kipling's poems to appreciate them as having been written of their time.)  He would have loved the Dymock Poets if I'd introduced them to him.

I'm so pleased to be able to listen to these songs once again.  They speak, no, they sing out of  Gloucestershire.  I've lived here for nearly 50 years and spent much of my childhood visiting my grandparents in Bourton-on-the-Hill and now consider myself a Gloucestershire lass.  I should probably think of buying a fresh copy of Sean's book.

Music - finding my way back and forward - 2

It's time for overdue realisations.

First, it seems to me that music at its deepest is about human connection.  This is what I was going to write about in the first place.  Although it's related to what I am actually going to write about, as a topic of its own it will have to wait for another post now because  

Second, this morning I was listening to Ed Sheeran's version of "The Parting Glass", (studio version, hidden track at the end of Track 12 on the album "+") and realised the song is about dying.  I'd thought it was about someone leaving for Australia or America or another of the many places Irish people have looked for a better life.  I've always loved the song.  Having realised it's meaning, I looked it up on the net and found that of course it's sung at funerals.  Why on earth wouldn't anyone see that?  Duh!  Then I researched, fairly thoroughly, other versions of the song on YouTube and found none that move me as much as Ed Sheeran's.

I was using the shuffle function on the playlist "Gentle" on my iPod and The Parting Glass was followed by the sublime Adagio for strings by Samuel Barber.  I'm slightly put off including it in my own funeral wishes by the number of hits it gets on Google for just that purpose but I did find one entry which says the music goes from sadness to joy.  Not sure on this one as I never like to follow the crowd.  But I guess every so often the crowd displays good taste.  And as a pair of pieces back to back, I've rarely come across anything better.  After the pure sadness of The Parting Glass, the adagio just fills you right back up again with peace.

This morning was by way of an experiment, listening to music while eating breakfast at the table and reading the latest issue of The Simple Things.  Previously, I've been doing this sans music but it occurred to me that much of my life is now silent and I might be happier if it wasn't.  I'd say the experiment was a success.  The downside is that I've only got this one Gentle playlist which will really suit the mood of Sunday breakfast.  Perhaps I'll add to it more often, but just now the playlist looks like this:

Music - finding my way back, and forward - 1

 

It was a kitchen fitter who put me on to a Minirig speaker.  I was bemoaning the fact that an electrician had fitted ONE speaker wire from the living room to the kitchen (where I hope one day to entertain) which was as much use as the proverbial [insert own proverbial adjective and noun here] to pipe music from the CD player to the kitchen.  "You need a Minirig speaker," the kitchen fitter said.  

The speaker wasn't cheap at around £150 but it's been the best music-related buy I've ever made.  It's small - about 10cms diameter and 8cms high - but the sound is amazing.  Even at full volume (which is too much to have next to you if you want anything else, e.g. your own voice, to be heard) it is not in the slightest bit tinny.  It's rechargeable and links by bluetooth to your device.  My device of choice is my iPod Touch.  Because of it's portability, the speaker is immensely flexible.  I can place it on the corner of a chest of drawers in the study and it easily feeds music to all the adjacent rooms, or I can turn the volume down and place it near where I'm working to have concentrated loveliness. 

As I discover what it's really like to live in my new house I also discover ways to listen to music and so far that's mostly via the iPod and Minirig.  When I'm working (actual "work" or tasks like cooking, see otherwise random top photo) I set the iPod to "Songs" and "Shuffle".  From time to time I save a track to a playlist.  Some of my playlists are well-populated, like "One".  This was, unsurprisingly, the first playlist I made.   What an original title!  I made it to listen to on the long journeys (in a taxi, down to Littlehampton and then home again) and it's made up of mostly just luscious tracks.  It began as just a list made of specially picked tracks from some albums on my list of albums but now using the shuffle method I add to it all the time.

I hope you find it interesting and possibly you may choose to try some of the music if you don't already know it.

Why I love Christmas, by an atheist

 This isn't really a sad poem, or at least it isn't meant to be.  It's a poem that comes the nearest to explaining why I, as an atheist, still love Christmas and even the religious bits.

Christmas Eve

Travelling, I made sure to arrive by the start
of nine lessons and carols on Radio 4,
Dad poised to prepare sprouts, painstakingly
as a military man would,
Mum doing something not requiring machinery
and in earlier years, Aunt Jane
talking over all the quiet, meaningful moments
for all she was worth.

This Christian service for a Christian festival
still holds meaning for an atheist of forty years,
linking me to generations of family believers
and to others, non-believers, alike.

Now I build my own collection
of seasonal traditions: trifle for one;
roast turkey with trimmings
for one, or more if anyone cares to join me;
holly and ivy and red ribbons and candles;
cards posted expensively to friends;
extra phone calls, gifts, tree, fairy lights;
Jacqui Lawson advent calendar;
Terry’s milk chocolate orange in memory of Dad,
who had one every year and
I slip into the past again
all of us singing along to the carols we knew,
Mum’s clear soprano, my alto
and Dad managing the descant still
here I am, listening, and weeping
for them, and for lovers and friends

human connections
which, like the number 42, hold
the answer to life, the universe and everything
tears heralding grief
and hope
and the start of it all.

Happy Writing

Here's a poem about the question I often ask myself.  

Happy Writing
 
Why don’t I write on happy stuff
instead of being inspired by grief
or when times are really rough?
I could describe a lovely leaf
 
or sunsets making my heart burst.
Why is my utmost misery
the spur for writing my best verse
and posting it for all to see?
 
Why did I write two good prose pieces
on funerals, grief and poetry,
published in national magazines?
Why nothing else for folks to see?
 
Well, here is one and you can tell
it’s not much good, although it rhymes,
so lack of poems can only spell
the advent of much happier times.

Unstable

Unstable

UN-stabul as Mum used to say it
in her own invented
language and pronunciation
like raddy-otta-meez.
And why not.
 
“English also spoken here”
Dad said there should be a sign
on the front door
when they were first married
but he became bilingual.
 
So today I know I am living
through a time when things are
un-stabul for me,  unstabul
without my mum and my dad
and my Mike
 
who saw “breaded plaice” as
bearded plaice, which it fast
became with parents, carers
and now still me. 
They never met
 
but on the phone discussed how
a single grain of rice was a rouce:
Mum thought not but
Mike was adamant
about his invention.
 
My new house-to-be is full of labradors
and other tradesmen.
The architrave fades into less significance
compared to the builder, Jason, and
all his argonauts
 
and I am tossed around in an unstable
world, missing all three of them
feeling out of touch with my
linguistic roots and routes
through the maze of decisions
 
being uprooted myself just enough
so I am now unstable
ready to be blown down in the wind
or washed away in a rainstorm
or undermined by something small.

Leslie Wynne Prescot

28/05/1927 - 16/10/2020

Anthea Warwick Prescot

07/07/1928 - 28/11/2020

Mike Hitchens

07/12/1943 - 11/07/2023

Traffic

 

Traffic
 
I have been stuck in a traffic jam
cars and vans and lorries and bikes
jumbled up unable to make their way
forward
 
jostling for position for the getaway
nothing progressed at all for months
and all I could do was identify the
vehicles
 
that were all the many stresses in my life
not being able to focus on any one of them
compounding the stress and the traffic
jam.
 
Suddenly an acupuncturist or an osteopath,
almost certainly, has shown one vehicle how
to navigate out of the melee and start a
journey
 
making a space for the next vehicle to
straighten up and leave, like one of those puzzles
with only one space but the corner shape must
exit
 
and now all the vehicles are moving
each in a separate lane on the motorway
(though the bikes must make their by another
route.)
 
All the types of vehicle are still present
but moving at their own pace
at variable speeds stopping and starting
individually
 
and I have clarity at last
and I am back in my own body
and in my own head and I have found
myself.

Seeing the Real You at Last

 
Seeing The Real You At Last
 
today I have a glimpse of the real you at last
“we know a song about that”
(sorry Bob) in my grief
 
today you are present in that way
that dead people have
when they have got into your soul
and I comprehend the hugeness of it all
 
I hear myself reeling off
“my partner died, then Covid struck,
then I broke my shoulder, then …”
as if bereavement was a small thing
(but it is vast)
 
and at last I allow myself to consider
what my therapist would have asked,
(she, the wise woman who questioned ‘accidents’)
 
and I see, really see in that
bone-deep, mind-expanding way
 
that my lack of attention before I tripped,
“doing marvellously” when I had Covid
(the first and second time)
and generally carrying on
stoically
 
yes, stoic(ally), that thing
I never am and wouldn’t do me any good
(and hasn’t)
 
I carried on stoically,
believing I was still doing really well considering
but putting off the day
 
pointlessly, painfully, but somehow
always knowing the day would come
 
when I see the real you at last
(again) and have to grieve

 

 

 

Vulnerability

This poem is dedicated to all those who grieve, some of whom are not able to speak out about how they feel.  This is for you.



Vulnerability



Thin as the best tissue paper

clear, bright colours

salmon, startling red, pink, and white.

The white ones are first -

tiny but perfect circles;

I have never seen geranium petals

attacked like this before.



Late-season butterflies

which always seem so strong

still flutter by early autumn flowers

dodging away at high speed

when I come close;

they have war-wounded wings

with bites taken out.



My Westie thought

he was a mastiff

till he stood on a wasp

amongst windfall pears

and hobbled around

holding his wounded paw aloft,

an uncomprehending puppy again.



All exhibiting their vulnerability

for us to see

and remark on.



Mine is hidden.



We all think I'm a strong person

we all know I am dealing with a lot

we are all impressed with how

I am organising and getting through

my life and its many troubles;

we know it is hard.



But inside I ache

I weep

I grieve

I long

for a comforting cuddle

from my Mum

from my Dad

from my Mike

and actually from anyone

which I'll never have again.



This is my

hidden

hitherto unspoken

vulnerability.

Death and Love

 

Death and Love

 
waiting for his death
which will be any day now
I have been expecting it
and to feel finally defeated
 
a sort of
untouchable
who shouldn’t love again
too many bereavements
 
contaminated
depleted
finally abandoned
undeserving of love.
 
Then
I have a sudden insight
 
I should love more people
not fewer
I should know
and get to know
more
 
anyone
on my wavelength
the same humour
music food
understanding
 
then when there are other
deaths
as there will be
I will still have
 
people to love
who love me.
 

How does time do that?

How does time do that?  It speeds up as we get older.  Time we're looking forward to seems a long way off and similarly wonderful times all too soon seem in the distant past.  Something we are dreading hurtles towards us and grief lingers for ever. 

For those of my generation, a reminder that the seventies is actually fifty years ago, not thirty.  Yes, I know.

This rather fluid way of regarding time can be helpful when we're recovering from something.  This year I have been continuing to suffer from post-viral fatigue, following a nasty bug in April 2019.  It has come and gone over the three years but I still view this as a single episode.  I've had post-viral fatigue in the past, more than ten years ago, and it went altogether, so I remain hopeful this time.

At the beginning of the year I decided that I was self-sabotaging my health as no sooner did one complaint recede another always took its place.  I decided that 2022 was going to be the year I addressed the problem and took various steps to do so, including visiting a new complementary therapist.  

"My goodness, isn't your hair lovely!" she said.  
Thank you, I'll be here all week.  

No, really, she was brilliant, just what I needed because amongst other things she practises kinesiology and that was the treatment which turned a corner for me more than thirty years ago.  I didn't need many treatments from her and I was well on the way.  

Since then ... well, since then I have continued to explain myself to people as to why I am restricted about how much I can do or when I can do it.  But if I think back to the beginning of the year I am doing so much more than I could then.  I can do more than I was doing three months ago, two months ago.  Of course there are still setbacks but life is so much richer than it was at the beginning of the year.

New work

 I have updated my website at last.  clothandclay.co.uk

The composite picture which is on the homepage is not new work, of course, but nevertheless it is a new picture and I hope conveys the several directions in which my work is going.
I have simplified the website greatly to reflect the simpler life I now have; the previous site was written ten years ago and updates were mostly additions rather then reductions.

I do have a mailing list, which these days is by email only.  If you are not on the mailing list and would like to be, please email me and I will add you.  I don't send out mails very often; they are more occasional newsletters, but I do send out to notify you of events such as exhibitions and open studios.  I have been quiet with my work lately, as most of us have with the pandemic, but hope to be a little noisier in future!

I'm taking part in a group exhibition in Lower Slaughter 20th - 26th April so am now busy making some new work.  The updated website was part one of that.  I'll be showing textiles, silver, other jewellery and greetings cards and am now working on new pieces within those categories.  More details will follow, on my website.

In other news, completion on my new house was quicker than expected but the work will take much longer, partly because builders are booked up until next year.  However, the house is still an exciting new project for me.  Planning with the architects, showing friends and relatives round the existing house and getting started on clearing unwanted trees from a boundary wall are the current stages.

I feel energised by needing to make new work to a deadline.  

New

 

My concept of a new year is not "out with the old, in with the new", it's more "build on the valuable old to create anew".  Nothing is wasted, one hopes.  This photograph of new blooms on my white cyclamen is a case in point.  Year after year I've failed to take photos of white flowers which look anything like what one sees.  I have much experience of what doesn't work!  What I had never tried before was allowing the flash to operate if it liked and he presto! that was the answer.

Our bad experiences happened and I don't believe in denying them.  That way they retain their proper place - bad experiences we have to learn to live with.  Burying things really doesn't help us learn anything.  Some experiences take a lot longer than others to learn to live with.

There is much for me to look forward to in 2022 and a great deal of it involves the new.  I have a sense of not just moving forward, but running forward (if only I were capable of running 😉). I hope to move house and as the autumn went on it dawned on me that I am really downsizing quite a bit.  Initially this was rather daunting but having decided to make a start by aiming to fill my grey bin completely every fortnight it has turned into something of a relief and even a pleasure.  By getting rid of stuff I somehow condense what is left so that it generates so many new ideas.

I am no longer a potter.  I don't think I anticipated this, but for the past two years it's been obvious that this is what I want.  I have fired everything, kept most of the last two firings of pots for myself and am selling everything else as usual.  The kit will also be sold, although I will be keeping tools and lustres and a few decorating colours so I can do some handbuilding work if I want.  I look back on my decades of being a potter with great pleasure, it's just that suddenly it was no longer what I wanted to do.  As an artist, I find myself moving into other things - silver jewellery, photography, mixed media work and of course still textiles.  It's a huge step but somehow so very positive.

The last year there have been many changes in my life because of losing both my parents, my entire family unit, within six weeks at the end of 2020.  What I'm experiencing, as well as the loss and change from what was, is those sudden shards of light which are sparks of ideas of new things on the horizon.  They are exciting.  Some of them have become clearer and are now actual plans, others are still waiting to be unpacked.

The new house (still in Stroud, of course) is a plan: we have exchanged contracts and completion is due mid-March.  Then there will be months of development, planning permission, and finally building and rebuilding and alterations.  As time goes on, the plan takes a clearer shape.

Life is good.  There are bad things in it for sure - somewhat ropey health, illness and problems for some of those close to me, the general situation with the pandemic, to mention a few.  But life is good.

Only one question remains - my alter ego has been known as the Purple Potter for decades.  Should I change it for something else?

Autumn has arrived - Memorial

The weather is now definitely autumnal.  I don't expect anything very different from now on: we seem to have settled into a normal weather pattern.

I approach the season of death anniversaries:  16th October last year, my father; 2nd October 2013, my friend Candice;  8th November 2014, Mike3; 28th November last year my mother.

I'm not sure quite what to expect this year!

On 29th September we finally had the memorial service for my mum and dad, in the church where they had been parishioners for many years.  I'm so pleased with how it went: many of my cousins came and several of their friends and fellow-parishioners and I read out a tribute I'd written.  I'm particularly pleased about the tribute.  One friend wrote to me afterwards, "... especially your tribute which was warm, loving and humorous, capturing their essential selves perfectly."  

For those who are interested, here it is in full. 

Thank you all so much for coming to remember Leslie and Anthea.  We had funerals for each of them a short while after they died, of course, but at that point we weren’t allowed to sing and when Dad died, Mum said we should have a memorial service once we were allowed to sing.  I was able to ask her about it when we spoke on the phone for the last time (when she was in hospital) and she said it would be “most suitable” to have one memorial service for both of them together.

Mum had been a dancer when she was young. She got quite far in formal ballet dancing, dancing on points, but had to give up when she suffered an injury.  Dad had always enjoyed dancing too and they met at Scottish country dancing in Catterick.  They always loved to dance together as long as they were able and the slightly comic photo on the back page of the service sheet shows this.  Dad, in particular, loved the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna and the recessional music is some pieces from those concerts. 

The readings I’ve chosen speak of love and friendship and both say so much to me about the sort of people Mum and Dad were and the marriage they had.  Friendship in the wider sense too was so much a part of what made them what they were, and they made many lasting friendships throughout their lives. They were cheerful people, stoical in adversity, and I couldn’t have wished for better, less selfish parents.  I was so pleased that as they grew older they welcomed my gradually making more decisions for them and I was able to make sure they stayed in their own home and were well cared for during the last three years of their lives.  Special thanks go to Lily and Sharlene, who were their main carers during that time.

Mum and Dad were also both known for their sense of humour and I remember many times when the three of us were helpless with laughter.  Mum had started inventing words from the age of about three and by the time they were married, Dad said they should pin a note to the front door saying, “English also spoken”.  When Dad died I was struck by how many people mentioned that he was such good company, particularly because of his funny stories.

Mum came from a background of entertaining large numbers of friends at Christmas and other occasions and since they came to live in Caversham, Dad organised a large group of friends to attend concerts at the Hexagon, followed by a buffet prepared by Mum.  I’ve inherited their love of good company and a love of cooking and eating.  I’ve inherited Dad’s methodical mind and love of organising and making lists but I hope not his hoarding mentality.  Who needs three broken telephones that had been replaced by working models?  Or two boxes full of old 3-pin plugs which “might come in handy” for new appliances, which of course come with their own plugs these days.  Mum did hoard in her way but in her latter years periodically went through things and had a big clearout of all the clothes, shoes and bags she was never going to use again.  Dave and Jean, who took the remaining things to charity shops for me, might be surprised to learn they had already been whittled down so much.  Mum really loved to dress up and in her everyday life took care with colour co-ordination even towards the end of her life.  I have certainly inherited that from her.  She liked my purple hair and even Dad was getting used to it.

I obviously inherited some of my artistic flair from Mum but Dad too could paint.  He rarely did so though and even then had a rather more rule-driven technique about such things as perspective, distance, colour mixing and so on.  But he was a rather good cabinet maker and I was really pleased that the people buying their house want to keep one of the pieces of furniture he made.  Both Mum and Dad were practical people and when Dad was 55 and retiring from the army he qualified to go on a resettlement course.  They both went on a building course and learnt everything from bricklaying to painting.  I think Dad was quite an irritant when their house in Picton Way was being built as he could nip up in his lunch hour and inform them that they were using the bricks the wrong way up.  I’ve always indulged in DIY too and of course both Mum and Dad loved gardening and I’ve inherited that as well.

They were intelligent, interesting and interested people.  They were avid quiz watchers, though they never took part in any.  They watched crime dramas, documentaries and wildlife programmes but never soaps, though amazingly Mum still seemed to know things about the main characters in them.  They loved music, opera and ballet and enjoyed the theatre too.  They also loved animals, though after owning one very wild kitten in Germany and one dog in Malaya, I was never allowed to have either again.  They didn’t want any ties, but both really loved the two dogs I had as an adult and often spoke about Ralph, the West Highland Terrier, years after he had died.

Mum and Dad were married for 69 years, with Dad surviving the anniversary by a couple of weeks and Mum by six more.  They were both very kind people and took care to express gratitude to those who showed kindness to them.  They were also modest and I’m sure would have been pleased to see so many here to remember them today.  

Go well, Leslie and Anthea.

 

 

 

 

It's been a weird summer.

The weather has been weird, both literally and metaphorically, since I last blogged.  From time to time I think I'll write a post and then things change completely and I don't.  

Really, I feel completely cheated of the summer.  I have had no good weather in my garden since the end of April.  All the times when everyone else was complaining of the heat I was away and for the hottest week I had been pinged and was confined to barracks.

Since June I have also been suffering from a mixture of some of the worst grief and a bad bout of post-viral fatigue.  The fatigue is very frustrating.  So many things I have been unable to do.  Some of my friends just don't get it.  I ventured out for a rare coffee with friends this week and they asked if I had walked in.  

I laughed.  

They were surprised.  

I had to explain post-viral fatigue all over again.  Interestingly, although I've always described the condition as post-viral fatigue my cranial osteopath talked about "people with ME" and then corrected himself to "post-viral fatigue" so I suppose I'm crossing the line between the two.  I've bad PVF before, though, about 18 years ago, and got over it completely until April 2019, so watch this space.

Part of the problem in recent weeks, though, is that one of the feelings - best described as tired brain-fog, I suppose, can be caused either by the post-viral fatigue or emotional "stuff".  I'm usually pretty good at working out emotional stuff but it has been a challenge.  I now know to look for stuff first and if I can't find anything it's probably fatigue.  But the fatigue is definitely getting better and the brain fog associated with it has mostly gone.  I still need to be careful, and probably haven't been today as I've done quite a bit in the garden/patio.  I think it will have done me good, though, even if I have to rest tomorrow.

 

It may be summer

It may be summer; my garden says so.  In this weirdest of times, though, I don't always feel that it is.  There was a short period at the end of April when it was lovely and much sitting out was done, by me and by visitors.  Since then, though, I'm not so sure.  May's weather was truly dire.  June has begun better and things are coming into flower ...

But what about me? 

I have post-viral fatigue and have had for the past two years.  It's not quite ME but it could turn into that.  Fatigue and brain fog are the main symptoms in my case.  On the face of it, flare-ups are unpredictable but when I consider that stress is a trigger and look for one, there always is one.  It's often something small, but related to the underlying stress, e.g. currently grief.  When it hits, if I don't notice and do too much, it can get significantly worse but it's very minor compared with ME and I want to keep things that way.  

Most people seem unaware that for two years after a major bereavement your immune system doesn't work as well as it should.  This includes it being much more likely that PVF will flare up.  I am now really taking that on board and trying to be positive and know that the difficulties I'm having at this particular time will fade.  I need patience (not a trait Aries people are known for!)  Gradually my friends and relatives are understanding where I'm at. 

So it may be summer.  The grief hit really hard in the middle of May, but now I think I'm coming out of the worst now.  But in the garden the summer-flowering plants are competing with spring things, like wallflowers, which shouldn't be around any more.  In my life PVF is flaring up badly from time to time, along with other, minor, ailments.  I'm hoping the warmth and light provided by summer - and people - will give me the patience to continue moving forwards.   

 

It feels like spring

 

I'm cheating with this particular photo, as when I took it (early February) it didn't feel at all like spring.  The flowers are so joyful, though, and every year they encourage me to look forward to when spring will be here.

February, too, did feel like a never-ending month.  I often felt fatigue, I often felt depressed in spite of anti-depressants, I often felt the year would never move forward.  Of course, in one way I had good reason to feel depressed and every visit to my parents' empty house has made me ill for the first few days of returning home.  

But now, early March, it does feel like spring.  There have been gloriously sunny days, with actual warmth in the sun.  I've been able to do some outdoors jobs, which includes a massive tidy-up of my biggest shed.  It isn't outdoors, of course, but as far as temperature is concerned it might as well be as it has no heating.  I booked a trip to the local tip and got rid of some huge things and now the shed looks like it never has before.  I went on my first walk since October.  I just haven't had the energy till now.

Spring is a time of new beginnings.  And suddenly I do feel I've moved forward to a new time in my life.  My mood has lifted in the last three days.  Apparently I even sound better on the phone! 

Having brought back lots of tools from my parents' house, and added them to those I already had, which was more than most people have, it occurred to me that I needed to prove to myself that I could still use them and wanted to.  It has been about 18 years since I've done anything with tools other than tiling and decorating as Mike3 did everything with tools and after he died I just asked my builder friend to do all the odd jobs.  It turned out I was quite scared of trying and this has become worse as the years have gone by.  I think somewhere in there was a sense of responsibility to stay ok for my parents.  Now they've both gone, I can have a go again, and if I damage myself, well, there's nobody really depending on me so it doesn't matter.

On Friday I needed to put up a spice rack in the kitchen.  I didn't want to wait till aforementioned builder comes to do various jobs on Wednesday as it meant I could empty one of the boxes I'd brought back.  I would do it myself!  And I did.  Not entirely, it turns out, because I needed advice on using Mike's drill as it was different from my old one.  And advice on size/length of screws and rawlplugs.  But my builder had 15 minutes on his way into town and popped in and advised and now I've done it!

So it feels like spring out there - and it feels like spring inside me too.  I am moving forward, discovering rejuvenated me after a period of statis. (Blogger doesn't know the word but I'm sure all my readers do.)  Nothing I haven't been before and of course now with various age-related aches and pains but still, I feel better.  I feel like spring is happening.

Dining-room cat

 
Dining-room cat
 
So this is what this grief is like.
This time it’s taken
seven weeks to hit.
I was waiting and thinking
maybe it wouldn’t.
 
Connected
by the invisible
cut but not cut cord
all my life,
so like each other
in mannerisms
and talents.
The last person I was allowed to hug.
 
Yesterday I brought home
Dining-room cat, a painting
your grandmother gave you,
and with it I brought the grief
at last.
 
Symbolic of you, Dining-room cat
has been there all my life
the archetypal cat
as you were, to me,
the archetypal mother.
 

An image for our times, personal and global.