Author: Elisabeth

Today is the ninety fifth
anniversary of my father’s birth. 
He’s been dead now for nigh on thirty years.  Gone from this world for so long and yet he still seems alive
to me.  

Maybe the fact that he died
from a series of heart attacks in his sixty-fifth year has made me toey and
fearful that I too will cop a heart attack simply by association.

What did the doctor first ask me
last week when I visited her and told her of my fears of having a stroke? 

‘Is it in the family?’ 

Stroke is not in my family, I said, but
heart attack is.

I’m late to writing this morning
because I spent over an hour waiting in the doctor’s rooms to have three vials
of blood taken for measuring and an ECG to help me overcome my fears.  The doctor last week was confident
that all was well, but still I’m having these tests for good measure.   

This morning the practice nurse
took blood from my left arm.  I watched as she applied the tourniquet to plump up my
vein.  I watched as she scrabbled about
my arm much like a cat plumping up a cushion until she was satisfied.  Then I watched as she plunged in the
needle, a slight prick and no other sensation, not even a twinge as the blood
raced into the syringes, one, two and three. 

The whole procedure took only a
matter of minutes, but the paperwork took twice as long.  The nurse checked and double checked
the spelling of my name, my date of birth, my address.  She was determined it should be exactly
so.  And fair enough, too.  I would
not want my blood mixed up with someone else’s. 

Then the nurse lined me up for an ECG.  I was naked from the top to my middle.  I froze on the examination table until she
offered me a blanket, almost by way of accusation.

‘I don’t want you cold,’ she
said.  ‘It can interfere with your
reading.’ 

I huddled under the thick layers of
the hospital type blanket, which she had folded over my middle.  She left enough naked skin exposed for
the plastic pads which she stuck strategically across my torso, concentrating on
my heart side.  

This procedure also
took only a few minutes and the paper work was less dramatic, once only instead of
three times to be certain all details were correct. 

I have felt miserable ever
since.  The morning’s wait in the
doctor’s rooms for over an hour interfered with my Saturday morning writing
routine, but more than that it has addled my mind.  

While I waited I read crap magazines when I could have plucked the novel
from within my handbag and launched into more of William Maxwell.  I’ve been carrying him around with me
for weeks now.  But serious writing
seemed too heavy and magazine writing too light.  

This Goldilocks cannot settle into anything.  I have washing to hang out.  I have bills to draw up and pay.  I have a blog post to write and all of
this weighs heavily.  

Worst of all
is the sense that my writing has turned to mush overnight.  I’m swamped with jealousy by the
success of a recently found writing friend, Kate Richards, and her wonderful book, Madness. 

This feeling will pass, I tell myself and I hear Mr Bennett’s voice in my
head.  Mr Bennet from Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice when he tells his second daughter Elizabeth how heartily ashamed he feels for
allowing his youngest daughter, Lydia to go off to camp with the militia at
Brighton.  Lydia leaves the militia to elope with the scurrilous Captain Wickham and the entire family of Bennett girls are
threatened with the shame and disapproval that pursued young women whose connections
were tarnished by a fallen sister in those days.

‘I’m heartily ashamed of myself,
Lizzie,’ he says.  ‘But don’t despair.  It’ll pass and no doubt
more quickly than it should.’

I wish Kate well.  I want her book to succeed, but oh how
I wish it were my turn to have a book out there, ready for the readers’ judgement. 

Mine’s not ready yet and I fear now
it never will be.