M.E. has sewn me into its tired skin and lately I’ve come close to despair about it, yearning to go places, do things, see people, and envious of anybody who can. Too often my brain is as dim and dour as my body, but today is better and I’ve walked in the garden for a little and smiled back at the sun and peeked at a book. This week’s hoped for outing (a brief appearance at a birthday do) became supplanted by a challenging ill-health appointment, the efforts of which left me depleted and depressed. Just now I’m tentatively glad though: that tired skin seems slightly looser and the sharp, piercing pains in my head have given over to prickling, tingling sensations, as if the top of my skull were open or at least porous, with the tiniest downiest feathers unfurling in the round, a bit like a peacock’s crest – thin stalks topped with trembling blowballs.
As no amount of wishing or will-power lifts me out of being ill, and that wanting to be elsewhere when I can’t only heightens my frustration, I am trying to learn to meditate (not for the first time). Occasionally during these moments of nonjudgmental presence to myself physical sensations become distinct and mysterious and utterly intriguing. And make me laugh. So I’m thinking – my body is an adventure. Strange and maddening and wonderful in ways I didn’t much think about before I got ill. Despair not, I whisper to myself, so much of your body is working, albeit very very very slowly. And those rarefied moments of energy aren’t just reminders of how ‘I’ used to be, but glorious in themselves. And they are! Of course I will forget this when I’m back snuffling in the deepest dregs of fatigue.
One of this week’s pleasures was listening to Edna O’Brien reading from her autobiography Country Girl. In an interview Mariella Frostrup asked if she was going to keep writing and was told: “The inner impulse, compulse, hope, prayer, is of course supreme. I love words.” Yes, yes, yes!
Another pleasure was to be contacted by Brick Lane Gallery – it was gratifying to be found through axis-web, have my crochet work complimented on and found good enough for a solo-show, but it’s an offer I had to refuse although I’m endlessly anxious about not exhibiting. I don’t have the dosh, not even £ 500,- for part of a curated group-show, no matter what professional services are included. Something else will come along, won’t it?
P.S. For every today or just now in this post, read yesterday as that’s when I started writing. Yesterday is the new today!
Figure with lumpy hands (2004)
Materials: paper and masking tape
Dimensions: 25 cm x 23 cm x 36 cm
