THE IRON MAN

London-sister visited today with my little niece.

I decided to use the time to make her a CD single for her birthday, with two recordings from 1994 - 'Junk' b/w 'Touching The Sun'. In the end I decided this was a daft & vain idea, they are lo-fi demos and my musicianship had yet to flower - but they are quite special songs to me (I have uploaded them to http://www.reverbnation.com/thecelebratedmrk if you would like to hear them)

I spent a long time equalising 'Touching The Sun', the pertinence of the lyrics that ended up echoing round my head amused me -

'Is it Winter or is it Spring? I don't know, no-one tells me anything,

Someone sighing, in my arms, it's too cold to remember anything' 

Touching The Sun

I aborted the CD-single idea and had a little sleep. Later on London-sister rang to say that when she had arrived today the iron was plugged in next to the TV for no good reason. When I go away I already hide the iron, but I'm going to have to start being its master full-time. She generally unplugs it if she leaves it for a second (any irritation caused by her fondness for unplugging everything is vastly outweighed by the safety benefits), but in this instance she was probably just trying to change channels or something and her wires got severely crossed.

Actually, I think we might have three irons if I scout about the house - I will establish which is the best and put the spares in the garage. Mum can still iron - when we can find the ironing board. It was missing for over a week until it turned up this morning - she had hidden it under her bed.

The past few days have been very pleasant - I went to London on Saturday afternoon (Mum missed her medication due to miscommunication, first time in ages) for a break, and came back Sunday afternoon.

OUT OF ONE NIGHTMARE AND INTO ANOTHER AND AN OTHER AND OUT

If I needed more evidence that I now need to be here and awake in the morning this was it, being the first time that I hadn't woken up in ages (I went to bed and to sleep early, but was plagued by terrible recurring nightmares, meaning that I didn't get any unbroken sleep until 6am). It is also, sadly, a sign of her close we might actually be to the point where she can't be left alone at all.


Mum didn't wake me until eleven and was very flustered. I had checked that there was money in her bag before bed (£15 left over from yesterday, no sign of the wallet) but this was now gone. I gave her the last ten pounds from her stash and we drew up the list and she left the house - however, she didn't let the door close, instead checking her bag one last time just outside the front door with the door sitting on the latch.


I could see this from where I was sitting on the sofa, so got up to check, and met her on the way back in. She told me there was no money, so we put the bag on the side in the kitchen to check - I was surprised to find there was now no money in the bag, neither the £10 from today or the £15 from yesterday.


We got everything out of the front pocket to double check - there was no sign of today's £10, but yesterday's £15 was there all along, wrapped thickly and tightly in used (for nose-blowing) toilet paper. When the wallet is missing (I should be looking for it now really, but legs feel like jelly) she has wrapped the money in the list before, but wrapping it in tolilet paper is one step closer to being lost.


What was worse was that she simply wouldn't let me take the money out of the toilet paper at all. We wrote £10 on it, but this could mean anything, I hope she finds it (I should have gone with her, but like I say my legs feel like jelly).


12.40pm
Mum got there and back in record time, with all the shopping. It doesn't seem possible - I wonder if she got a lift one way? I just sat down to write the previous sentence and local sister has arrived. I'd better go and say hello.


12.50pm
Mum sat down on the sofa to drink tea and I used the time to look manically for the wallet, money and advent calandar without getting Mum involved (she can't remember what she's looking for, but once involved in a search sometimes can't forget that she is looking for something, even when the thing is found. which can make her restless and more things can get lost as she moves them round in the process)


I found £10 and the advent calandar, but not the wallet.


There is an ongoing discussion between me and Local-sister as to the best way to handle the increasing frequency with which things are lost . Until the past few weeks I was very much behind having one of everything and keeping good track of it, but I now feel it would be better to have many identical bags and transparent wallets, and smaller denominations of cash, as by the time we have assembled one of everything the first thing we found will be guaranteed to be missing. Guaranteed. I just want to be able to send her to the shops and then look for missing things, without Mum getting involved in searching.


Either way these are all temporary plans. The clock is ticking.


2.20pm
The clock is ticking right next to my ear, the clock Local-sister bought in to remind we when 'Murder She Wrote' began.


I don't feel sad, just ill and tired. A fortnight ago I would have felt sad now, but Mum has not said she wants to die for several weeks. The reguarlity and lucidity with which she expressed this immensely increased, corresponding with the beginning of the Mirtazapine tratment, whether on not the drug was responsible, but now she seems happy again overall - with the excpetion of odd days like Monday. Now she veers between being too happy too wish this and not lucid enough to express it. Either way, and whatever the cause, she seems content for the time being. It could  equally be that her overall happiness has increased because of my response (and that of 'the team'). Initially I became depressed myself - which, of course, made everything worse - but I pulled myself together and increased the level of care as inconspicuously as I could - it could be this, or this and the anti-depressants (or either, or neither, or both) that pulled her out of this pattern of suicidal ideation.


The clock is ticking. Tock. Tock. Tock. Tock. I move it, but it is still all I can hear.


After Local-sister left I cooked up a lasagne ready meal with chips and salad. We had apple pie and ice-cream for dessert. A lovely meal in  front of the telly, there was no sadness or agitation from either of us.


We watched two dramas that Mum likes, 'All Saints' and 'Doctors', both set in hospitals. Both of them dealt with the theme of euthanasia. The former was fairly black and white, the person was old and in agony, with every disease in the book - they were clinging to life by a thread and suffering terribly.


The latter was very different, much more interesting. An eighteen year old boy had recently lost the use of his arms and legs and had booked himself in to end his life in Switzerland. He was completely sane and rational about it and would probably make the same decision in six months - yet nobody suggested the obvious compromise of a cooling off period, giving him some time to adjust.  Cheap scriptwriters.


Mum was very vocal in both programmes, speaking about people's dignity, she is very firmly in favour of choice, as she always had been. During the second programme she said 'I think my mother went that way'. I said she had died at home in bed, of cancer. Mum said she had refused further treatment and wanted to die at home. Hm.


The clock is ticking, it is all I can hear. I take the batteries out.


This is one of the big questions I have spent my life addressing and researching .Nietschze was a proto-fascist and would have had the schizophrenics and people with learning difficulties, the people I work with and care for, killed. Without blinking an eye. Quality of life is more important than quantity, its true and there is much wisdom in his work. Yet he was also in favour of eugenics and was arguably one of the thinkers who made WWII possible. That I echo his work and try to solve these paradoxes is stated in the title of my book 'Beyond Truth and Fiction', echoing his volume 'Beyond Good and Evil'.


The clock is not ticking, but I have run out of time, I am going to Local-sister's for dinner and to take round some birthday cards. If you found this interesting and would like to read some more on a similiar theme but from a broader perspectvie and in a more provocative style try this link -


http://jesterspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/gospel-according-to-joker.html


Last night I contributed a post to a thread at indigosociety.com, 'What's Your Most Peaceful Dream?' -

"That's an intersesting question. Being of the revolutionary spirit most of the dreams I can recall are about The End of Time, perhaps I have peaceful dreams but don't remember them, you've really got me to scour memory. Ah!

Ah - I had a dream twenty years ago, when I was sixteen - I was in my bedroom in my Father's house, somehow we had acquired a plastic tray filled with an array of single doses of experimental psychedelic drugs in various capsules.

My father took one of the pills and I experienced his hallucination - I was a skull, floating in the void, and all my teeth were rhythmically jumping to the centre of my head and then back into place - over and over and over again.

Then I took a different capsule - I was lying down, again in the dark void. A bubble of light was forming around me, like a new moon progressing to full moon. I was in agony. The suffering became more and more unbearable as the illumination increased, as the circle of light came closer and closer to fulness. The pain was the most excruciating when the circle was almost complete - I wished that I would die and thought I surely would - yet when the circle was complete the torture terminated abrubtly. I was in a state of grace, of full illumination. The sense of peace was overwhelming, like nothing I had felt before, and it went on and on for what seemed like a blissful eternity. Mmmmm.

The more aware an individual becomes aware the more suffering and conflict one perceives. It is not until one sees the whole picture that the greater purpose can be understood and the conflict reconciled. Its bizarre yet elegant how all dreams make sense on both a microcosmic (personal) and macrocosmic level."

x

MORE RAIN

10am
I've decided to start posting to this blog in earnest again. I began keeping it as I felt like I was bottling things up (hence the enquiry I posted about counselling). I stopped because I thought no-one was reading it, it had started to feel like speaking endlessly into a dead phone, or trying to fill a dry lake by pissing in it, if anything it was making things worse . However, when I discovered Sarah (my ex) had been following it religiously - this made me feel retrospectively a lot less isolated, just knowing that someone was there with me as the events unfolded. It also gives me a stronger sense of the passage of time - if I don't reflect on them the days can just blur into one.

Nor is it practical to write it in big chunks, as I have been doing - I didn't complete last night's entry until 1.30am, so didn't manage to wake up until 9.30am. Mum is getting up later than she was, but its still about half seven.

I found Mum in the kitchen making us both coffee. I arrived just in time to stop her from adding tea-bags to the sticky brown liquid in the bottom of the cups. She'd probably have remembered that the hot water goes next if I hadn't arrived and distracted her, but I had to stop her filling up the remainder of the cups with more milk while the kettle boiled. I try to be discrete and soft when offering this kind of assistance, but its tricky, particularly when you're ill and have only just woken up. She was becoming a little short and fractious following my interventions, so I took a step back - she immedietely grabbed the jug of milk and poured the whole lot into her coffee. I stepped forward and she shrieked at me and waved her hands.

'It's not a problem, Mum, yours is just a bit cold, that's all, we'll put it in the microwave'.

We put together a shopping list - eggs and milk. I thought I had a moment to use the loo while she drank her coffee, but I could hear the door going the moment I sat down. Fortunately I had not started, so was able to intercept before she shut the door beind her - with her bag and money which she had forgotten. This time she thanked me for the assistance.

Got to go, shes at the door now.

11am
Mum had already eaten, so I made myself some eggs while she made herself another coffee. This time I just let her fill the cup with cold milk. Unless she does something dangerous its better to just let her get on with it. She's not with it today, not really agitated like Monday, but not finding things easy or enjoyable. She shrieked at me yesterday too, when I brought her some bread. She had cooked the eggs and bacon perfectly, but was pulling faces as she chewed great spoonfuls of 'I Can't Believe it's Not Butter', sat on her plate where her toast was meant to be.

She pulled the same face today as she tasted the cup of cold coffee she had prepared. She didn't shriek, but quietly poured the cold coffee into a pan, then placed it on the stove and waited. When she turned her back for a moment I turned the stove on and sat down to watch 'In The Night Garden' (basically  Teletubbies without the televisions on their tummies).

Mum joined me a minute later with a steaming hot cup off coffee.

'That looks like a nice latte, Mum'.

x

I'M LEAVING SO SLOWLY I'LL NEVER DISAPPEAR

Three out of the past four days were really lovely days - which isn't bad going really, though I've got a cold.

When Mum shines? She simply sparkles, like a little girl, and her delight is mine - then I smile & sometimes shed a single tear of joy. When she is not happy? I force a smile and try not to cry, yet all the while the little boy inside bawls and bawls - between the serried sobs and gasps he screams 'I WANT MY MUMMY', a tired refrain, 'I WANT MY MUMMY' - yes, I know she's here, but it's not the same if you have to hold the tears inside and she doesn't even know your name, 'I WANT MY MUMMY!' - yet, somehow, it is the same - it is the same voice that heeds me now that comforted that little lost Nero's grazed shins, here I am, Mummy, here to give back what you gave me, all those warm embraces in an uncertain world, here I am,  we are the same, I see the same drop of The Divine peering out through older eyes, I have my Mummy. There's some sacred symmetry to this divine tragedy, I have my Mummy, I have my MUMMY! - I have come home.

On Sunday, in the torrential rain, Mum's friend Ruby and her mother came. Unscheduled visits are not always welcome. I had met Ruby briefly as a child, but otherwise did not know them, and was uncertain when Mum told me they were coming if it would be unsettling for her or a treat. Despite the monsoon and getting lost on some ill-advised and poorly planned adventure, it turned out to be a very welcome visit indeed, they had that reserved British demeanour and civil tempo she finds easiest to meet.

I listened to them chatting from my room. Through the door you hardly tell Mum was the wrong'un amongst the sane, it is nice when she just slips in and feels normal. Sometimes she can tell when people are treating her like a child, it serves as a constant reminder of her secret shame. They were drawing maps and telling her how to get to Hoddesdon on the bus, her former fondly remembered home. Of course, there is no way that Mum could manage this, but I left them to it. I could not blame them for assuming she was more able than she is, she was on form, but I did feel slightly insulted - I am here all the time, if it was possible for her to get on a bus on her own wouldn't I have shown her how by now? What do they think I am, her captor? I am being silly, that is not how people think.

I joined them at the end of the day, they were doing a jigsaw. Well, Mum and Ruby's mother were - Ruby looked disgruntled and grunted 'I don't like jigsaws', so I engaged her in conversation while the puzzle people sorted sky and straight edges from the grass and The Lion King's mane. I was quite embarrassed when they left - I had not seen anyone in days so all the words inside came out too fast, compounded by the fact they were neighbours and familiar with another of Mum's friends, a lodger who had been like a father to me and I had not seen since way back when.

Monday morning. The sun didn't come up, such was the rain. This was the bad day,  the day the little boy inside had to cry 'I WANT MY MUMMY' in vain. The monsoon was still ensuing when Mum's German friend came. She took her to a craftshop, which I thought Mum would like, but Mum came back with nothing, and was shaking, shaken, breaking, broken - for the rest of the day.

What happened? I don't know, yet, I'll ask.  German friend had to rush off and left me with this mess, I am not blaming her, she is lovely, but I would like to know what happened out there. Perhaps nothing happened, bad days will be bad.

How can I describe it? Jittery is what she was. Fractured. She was restless, moving from one thing to another - but sometimes this is okay, this was different. What am I trying to get at? I could be wrong but I think it was fear. She seemed like someone who had just had a traumatic experience, but it didn't go away. There was no way of getting back to a safe spot, every new place was contaminated by some looming fear with no name, even the sofa with telly and tea, even here something was wrong. Usually the idea seems to be to change the subject if things start to seem threatening to her, now I was trying to keep her on one subject, she was unsettled. I made an arrangement for her to visit Local-sister, hoping that a brisk walk in the cold would clear her head, but she was still a little wrong on her return. Perhaps it didn't help that I accidentally sent her out in mismatched shoes. I tried to get her to stay, but she wouldn't forget she was going, though she kept taking her woolies off and on which delayed things. I should have gone with her but I have a cold and it was freezing out there. Why didn't I go with her? I'm a bastard.

It had subsided, but there was still something wrong on her return. I made her tea and snuggled with her on the sofa, at last the little boy inside had his mummy. We watched Doctor Who and she was almost back to normal, but there was still a small cloud of unidentified frightening memory lurking at her shoulder when she went to bed.

In the morning she was my precious little girl again, all delighted smiles and dewdrops.

'I've got something to show you' she said.

I got up and went into the front room. It was a single muddy child's glove with rubber fingers that she had found whilst shopping, placed with pride amidst a gathering of small plastic animals. Yes, it's lovely.

Tuesday and Wednesday were lovely. Monday was just plain wrong. I looked at some pictures on the internet, 'this is your brain' & 'this is your brain with Alzheimer's'. Maybe another important bit of her brain had imploded, whipping another long trusted component of her psyche away from under her feet. Maybe it was because the sun never came up, maybe just she got out of the wrong side of the bed.

I remember a song I almost wrote. I should write it now, with Sarah (my ex) who admired its melody ten years ago. I should finish it with her, it meant nothing at the time, this is what it was for. How did it go? I think:

So wise and so pure, she opens the door

She's leaving so slowly she'll never disappear

So hold me, my dear, and I'll make it clear

I'm leaving so slowly I'll never disappear

x