Author: Elisabeth

Over worked, overwrought and weary of the burdens of life

‘You don’t know me, but you have been inside me,’ writes Anne Enright on the plight of those who are raped. Girls and women mostly. A cry to strangers who take it upon themselves to invade the bodies of others.

We are not encouraged to speak too loudly of the details beyond the word ‘rape;’ unsettling as it is for most, especially those who have been raped, less so for those still untouched.

Someone once talked about how when a doctor examines us anally or vaginally and does so from necessity as part of a medical procedure, the doctor wears gloves. If they do not wear gloves it, too, is tantamount to rape.

So many rules about how we approach other people, a handshake, or a kiss, a bow, doffing your hat, or tugging your forelock in the old vernacular in deference to our betters. Always accompanied by the qualification, not to take it upon yourself to enter the body of another without their say so.

A baby might poke a finger into your mouth while exploring the contours of your face, as babies sometimes do, but no one else, unless invited, can enter the orifices of your body except in cases of medical care or the agreed love of another. A dentist to check your teeth. A surgeon to remove your tonsils. 

Recently at a book launch a friend had an argument with their partner who’d gone overboard haranguing another friend who happened to be American about the horrors of that country, at least as they saw it. They ranted until the friend could take no more and stormed out. 

Then the person of the rant was apologetic and approached his partner with whom I was talking. She was annoyed. And he chastised himself out loud as ‘a naughty boy,’. An expression I dislike. For its insincerity perhaps, or the idea that it is as simple as being a naughty child to so invade another’s space by going on at length on the woes of their country.

Later over dinner we laughed about various people’s countries of origin, in a sympathetic and curious way, and few people, if any, criticised the mores of Germany or Hungary or the Netherlands or even France or England. We were a universal lot with not an American between us.

I cannot understand why my heart has decided to race this morning. As usual my head takes me to extremes. As if I’m about to come down with some dreaded disease like congestive heart failure or a slowly failing heart, the type my mother suffered. But she had two decades on me in age, and I remind myself this hypochondriosis gets me nowhere.

Writing today is a chore as I am caught in the storm of too many thoughts and not enough time before the next seminar which is on somatisation of stress states or some such, which might also be the case for me.

Over worked, overwrought and weary of the burdens of life. But as usual, I tell myself to get on.

My phone will bleep at me in a few minutes to tell me it’s time to stop and stop I must. Speak when I have something worthwhile to say while most of the thoughts that rumble around in my heard are forbidden thoughts that should not enter the white space of an empty page. Words which should not see the light of day.

The plumbing of my human heart

How do we merge two voices into one? Tell a story from two perspectives, a story that might fuse disparate views such a pattern can emerge. A dynamic between two people? 

‘A stuck writer is a child alone,’ writes Anne Entright. I’m not stuck exactly just caught up in a maelstrom of thoughts which refuse to settle. One central idea, one image.

Bees, Bees, she writes. Come to my funeral and immediately, I’m captivated. Back in the movie Lark Rise to Candleford where one of the central side characters keeps bees for the honey and their life-giving properties.

She talks to her bees about the people in the village, their lives and deaths, as if seeking the counsel of a wise person. 

‘The choice was mistaken; the choosing was not.’ Sunday in the Park with George.

What do you make of these words? Why do they resonate?

To make a choice is to manifest a level of self-agency which is fundamental, even if your choice turns out to be a dud.

I have made many such choices throughout my life. Strikes me it’s a good one that can both operate as a good decision and acheive a successful outcome.

And then there’s this Japanese saying: 

‘Watch your thoughts, they become your words.

Watch your words they become your actions.

Watch your actions they become your habit.

Watch your habits they become your character.

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.’

Too much watching might paralyse but an unobserved mind is indeed a dangerous thing. If we do things, say things, express things in words and actions without reflecting on their meaning, or significance, their possible effect on others, their consequences, then we are likely to get into trouble.

Hence the value of a reflective mind. One which hopefully begins in childhood when caregivers and parents speak to their children about what might be going on inside their little minds. Helps them to find words for their feelings. 

I’m anxious about my heart, the way it sometimes trips into a different gear as if something has shocked it out if its peaceful rhythm when I don’t even notice it’s there. When I notice it because of this sudden surge of fearful energy as if I have nearly hit another car on the road or just righted myself before tripping over a branch to stop my fall. As if someone has shouted obscenities at me for no reason I can discern and I’m back in my childhood again with a scary and unpredictable father who does not watch his words or actions and resorts instead to moments of sullen or explosive rage.

A mother who flutters around like a moth trying to find dark places in which to stay safe at the same time drawn to the light.

‘Take it to the doctor,’ my husband says, but I’m reluctant, the way people avoid confronting their worst fears for fear they might even be worse.

I have a friend in hospital following major surgery on his heart. He’s doing well but it’s a scary thing to have your insides ripped open and your heart held beating manually while surgeons tinker with the plumbing as one doctor once told my husband after operating on his eyes.

‘We’re just plumbers,’ this doctor said. I saw red that day thinking this doctor’s bedside manner was lacking. My vulnerable husband stuck in bed and this person who had only just taken a knife to the side of his skull telling him his body required plumbing.

I’m usually good with metaphors but this one lacked sensitivity, or at least it did in this moment. I called the hospital care team to complain about this lack of sensitivity and the surgeon later returned and apologised to my husband who was less perturbed by this gaffe than me.

And writing here I can see in some ways I might have overreacted to the clumsiness of a surgeon who is skilled at human plumbing but not in sensitivities of the heart.

The territory I’m in at present.