The Healing Place...

...for Knots in the String.

There are times when life passes me by in a blink. I close my eyes just to rest them and seven days pass.

It’s a week since my dog was post-surgical and in hospital overnight, having been taken by Dog Ambulance (!!!!!!) from the Day Surgery to the Overnight Hospital (AHVEC) and then returned the next morning in the same ambulance to the vet’s practice.

I’ve had a week of making sure he has been medicated to his eyeballs with opioids and anti-inflammatories. He staggered from his bed to the garden to do his necessaries (squatting like a female) and then back again, looking at me with crossed eyes. He ate a little, drank a little but mostly slept. Just as well, because by Day 5 when the opioids had finished, the Jack Russell terrier gleam began to manifest, and he began to look at ‘his’ chair, the window seats, any bed that was available as if they could be easily scaled.

Trouble is he has sutures in his abdomen and bladder and must be kept quiet and steady. It’s been a struggle. But we’re winning (sort of). Only 2 days to go.

It’s been a hospital year for this family – me through much of January, our daughter in April, the dog and our son last week. My husband feels infallible. I hope he touches wood.

Anyway – one can’t dwell. Not when time passes in the blink of an eye.

So today I have walked the river beach with my grandson and the dog. The light was as translucent as a silk veil, the river had the sheen of damascened steel, the sands glistened damply as the tide slid up the shore. Grandson repositioned ley lines between the twiggy cubby and the rocky seawall using his Tonka truck. My dog found sticks and shredded them just to show he was much better. He came home, slept in the sun, and then ate his first really good meal.

My mother always called this coast her healing place and it similarly works for me. It’s that first breath of sea air – fizzing champagne air. It’s the feel of sea water on your feet, heavenly cool in summer, scintillatingly enlivening in winter. It’s the lack of people – solitary calm that is restorative. For millenia, folk have used the sea and coast to retreat to and to rehabilitate themselves. Some to stoke their creative fires.

Thus it has been for the dog this week. I’ve watched him soak the coast into his being – he’s come through the drama of surgery and pain, and he trusts me to help him feel better. I was concerned he would be distanced from me by the trauma, that trust would be stretched thin. But so far so good.

As is oft said by Tom Ryan who writes THE most beautiful newsletters – ‘onwards by all means’.

Bookshelves:

On Kindle, I’ve just finished Nancy Klein Maguire’s The Monk’s Widow. It’s a poignant memoir of a journey into death by Maguire with her loved and terminally ill husband, a former Carthusian monk. I am in awe of her strength of purpose, the way her loyalty and love keeps her steadfast in unbearable conditions. In a way, I think this memoir is a required read for any carer entering a similar situation. It burns with emotion and I would be lying if I didn’t say I was exhausted at the end. But I also learned so much about the human condition, about the power of faith (not necessarily religious) and about the truly wretched pain of selflessness.

By complete contrast, on audio I’ve reached the end of Meg Bignell’s The Sparkle Pages. It’s funny in a quiet way, a love story with a predictable but perfectly required end. It’s nice. When I was standing at the kitchen bench making a beetroot tarte tartin with a very herby vinaigrette, it was good listening. Tasmania is lucky to have a writer like Bignell who writes a different sort of contemporary fiction – one that doesn’t require great intellectual application and a thesaurus, but which still has a thinking edge. Recommended.

I’ve also curled up on the couch with a spring clothing catalogue (yes, spring is almost here but I need nothing except a new pair of boat shoes), a plant catalogue (I always need more plants), the new Country Style (the stuff of dreamy interior/exteriors and stories of courage to change one’s whole life) and Whispering Gallery from the Dorothy Dunnett Society (completely historically intellectual).

Watching:

Britbox – Great Canal Journeys. Timmy and Pru are now good friends and I watch her evident joy, her slowly declining faculties, the patience from husband to wife set in stunning scenery. This week, I’ve been privy to lines from Antony and Cleopatra and Death on the Nile (Egypt), The Merchant of Venice (Venice), Hemingway (the canal from Lake Maggiore to Milano).

The juxtaposition of great lines of literature spoken by beautiful voices against the background of profound scenery is perfection. This is a never-ending series for me. Like coming home every night.

SBS Saving Lives at Sea (the respect owed these men along the UK coastline is absolute)

ABC Good Karma Hospital (I love this show…)

Channel Seven Spotlight on Anthony Albanese (maybe at last, we might have an honest prime minister. Time will tell…)

Boredom Busters:

Being a carer is a fulltime job.

But in the downtimes when the dog slept, I’ve added more wordage to Oak Gall, I’ve cooked that amazing savoury beetroot tarte tartin from the River Cottage Veg Book, made the strangest but yummy quince jam, and cooked Bitter Chocolate Creams which are delicious with a cup of tea or coffee. I’ve sat the grandchild, been to ballet class, had a lovely e-communication with my friend, Louise, on Hayling Island in the UK.

Louise has just released her first historical fiction – an opus called The Touching of Stones  set in the thirteenth century. In its way, the writing of this novel was a healing journey for Louise. Seek she and her novel out…

I’ve had my computer and phone with our Mac man tightening security to a frightening level and I’m now re-doing all my passwords through 1 Password. It’s tedious but I’m assured more than worth the time.

But to really escape, I’ve done two things.

Firstly at night, I stitched a little heart with hollyhocks and bees for http://1000hearts.com.au

It took time. I wanted it to be so delicate that someone holding it might become completely lost in its microscopic world.

Secondly, I walked.

On the beach and along the coast. Allowing the sea to rejuvenate and replenish and I think it worked. I healed from a week where I spent time with tears on cheeks for many reasons.

See? The healing place…

Thank you for reading this far. For coming along with me. Thank you for comments you might choose to make. Please share as much as you like. It’s free after all.