Category Archives: What to do when life gets in the way

Getting my Ducks in a Row – One Day at a Time

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Rubber_duckies_So_many_ducks

Well, this is all fun, isn’t it?

If you don’t live in the UK, you may not know what I’m talking about, but for the those of us who do: WTF just happened please?

You did not get your usual Friday Review last week, and I will be utterly honest about why:  I couldn’t take my eyes off the telly.  One minute we were all voting in a General Election, and the next minute, the news just got a little more bizarre every time I blinked.  To summarise, our Prime Minister called an election to increase her mandate, sat back and smugly expected to walk it with hardly any campaigning at all, and then found she lost her majority and now must make a pact with the devil to get any legislation through parliament.  And this only a week before Brexit negotiations with the EU start.  Of course, by the time I’ve pressed the ‘publish’ button on this post, there could have been a whole new paradigm shift, and we’ll be having another general election in another 6 weeks etc etc.

Take nothing as read, people.  We are through the Looking Glass.

In the face of all this, I’ve decided (to purloin a suspicious Tory slogan)  ‘to go back to basics’.  Take one day at a time.  One job at a time.

I’ve found lately that making even a week’s worth of plans in this maelstrom can be self-defeating. Not when my body and my brain are caught up in the uncertainty swirling around at the moment (politically, and in my own life).  So my plan is this:

(Nothing fancy.)

  1. Take one day at a time.
  2. Write every day.
  3.  Do the things that need doing.

Sure foundations, as every little pig knows, are what keep us going in the uncertain times.  So every day, I look at what needs doing – the washing, the cleaning, the doctors appointment – and do those things.  Get them out of the way.  See to Life.  Get the ducks in a row.

And then I write.

Every day.

Sometimes its just a bit.  Sometimes its a lot.  Sometimes its something new.  Sometimes its finishing something old thats been hanging about, annoying me for ages.  Sometimes it is writing practice.  Sometimes it is a personal essay.  Sometimes its just all the pages in my journal that I need to cover to get the s**t out my head so I’m not a complete basket case.

Every day.  Just a little bit. And only for that day.

One day.

I can do this, if I just do today.

If I didn’t write yesterday, there’s nothing I can do about that now.  And tomorrow will take care of itself.  So I’m just getting my ducks lined up for today, thank you.

(And maybe if I can line enough ducks up, for enough days, I’ll have a novel at the end of it.  But I’m not thinking about that now.)

If you are in the same boat, you might find this podcast on prioritising your writing from Sarah Werner useful.

Happy Creating,

EF

The Friday Review No 8: Exploring the Shadows

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toddler sulk

I don’t want to write today.

I feel angry, resentful, depressed, bitter.  I want to sit with my back to the world like a toddler, arms crossed, refusing to cooperate.

But I’m not a toddler, I’m an adult, and I can’t bury my head in the sand.

Neither can I stop being me.

So I sit down at the desk, because that’s where I feel safest, and I pour the toddler’s complaints onto the page.  Whining, sulking, complaining. Resentful, spiteful, selfish.  I let the toddler have her say.

And when I sit back and look at what I’ve done, I find I have page after page of scribble, malformed letters sliding together in a hurry to get away from their meaning.  Angry, it says.  Voiceless, it says.  Unheard, it says.  But today I have listened.

I’m a great believer in writing as healing. 

To me it is a refuge, even when I don’t want a refuge, even when I don’t want healing.  When I want to wallow.  It allows me to wallow, and then move on.  Sometimes we all need to hold a pity party for ourselves.

In the last month, I’ve had something of a ‘slap upside the head with the Frying Pan of Enlightenment’, as they say.  It’s been about acceptance.  Accepting my shadows.  The things I don’t like about myself.  The things I hide, even from myself.  The anger, spite, pride, pettiness.  All the things that were dirty words in the house where I grew up, the worse qualities you could display – lazy, selfish, greedy.  As a child, I would have done anything to avoid being labelled with those words.  As an adult, I’m pathologically terrified that people might think those things of me.

But honestly, we’re all lazy, selfish, greedy, sometimes.  It is part of being human.  It doesn’t stop us from being transcendently kind, loving, self-sacrificing, compassionate, gentle, patient, all of which we can also be.  Sometimes.

Accepting that human beings can all display every human characteristic, good and bad, is one thing a writer needs to be able to do in order to paint vivid characters.

Accepting that, as individuals, we can all be those things is something we all need to do.

And as a writer, I can use my experiences of feeling those things, of wanting those emotions, those behaviours, of indulging them, as insights into my characters.  I can use them as rocket fuel for my writing.

But only if I can accept that I have them.

(It’s a bloody hard job, this self-knowledge stuff, but I’m having a go.)

So here I am, sitting in the shadows, gnashing my toddler teeth, sulking fit to burst, and at the same time, observing myself, knowing that all this is going to make a great scene in my novel.

And you know what?  I feel so much better now.  I might even crawl off my naughty step and go and find myself something nice to eat as a reward for exploring my shadows.

Happy Creating,

EF

Sometimes I forget

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paintbox

You may think things are quiet here at Evenlode’s Friend.

Well, I suppose they are, on the website at least.  Not inside my head, however.  Not inside my life.

I haven’t been writing much here lately because, well, I’m going through another growing phase.  By which I mean, the shit really hit the fan again.

Sometimes you need to take time off for your life.  Sometimes you need to remember to take care of yourself.  And thats what I’m doing at the moment.  Intensively taking care of myself, and Husband, who was recently diagnosed with coeliac disease, almost a year since he was told he had diabetes.  This, along with coping with dementia caring, and my own health issues, has rather forced my hand.

Sometimes you need to take the time to devote everything you have to healing.

And the really odd thing is that this morning, I was reading an article about creative blocks (which sadly now, I just can’t find) and I thought:

I’ve forgotten how to do this.

I’ve been so focussed on healing my life that I’ve forgotten my creativity.  I’ve been so immersed in studying nutrition and recipe books, delving into spirituality and psychology, chanting mantras and ploughing through academic papers on brain degeneration in Alzheimers patients, that somewhere along the line, I’ve forgotten how to write.

Forgotten how to create.

Something new.  Something unique.  Something mine.

A creation that is truly of my soul.

Of course, I haven’t forgotten.  I still tell myself stories at night as I fall asleep.  The stories of love and redemption that comfort me in the midst of the storm, enough to enable me to believe that there is something good at the other end of all this.  Because I’m an old romantic at heart.  Because I believe that there has to be hope.  Because I believe that a hug makes everything better.  Even if its only a hug in a story.

But holding a pen?  A crayon?  Conjuring the contents of a new character’s pocket or handbag? Wondering why a character might take a tennis racket on a train trip to Switzerland in 1947?

Where did that go?

Cue that slightly dazed feeling that something is missing, like a limb, but you can’t quite work out where is has gone, or how, or even when.

I know that what I am doing right now is deeply necessary to my future wellbeing, and that of Husband.  I know I need to step up to the challenges that face me.  I need to delve deeply into my Unravelling.

But I don’t want to do what I did this morning, and sit there, staring at a photo of coloured pencils on a blog post, and feel a yearning that took my breath away.  Somewhere in all this, there has to be space to create.

Sometimes, I forget.

But from now on, I intend to remember.

Happy creating,

EF

Resuming Normal Life

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Taking time to rest

Taking time to rest

Hello my Lovelies,

I am sorry I have been absent for a whole month.  What started as a bit of a staycation became a full-blown nightmare, when Husband’s mother became seriously ill and nearly died.  We have spent the best part of the last month travelling between home and Oxford, juggling doctors and carers, fighting needless battles, emotionally stretched to the limit.  I have to tell you that this is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, trying to help not one but two old ladies who refuse to admit they need help, and who have lost the capacity for reasoned argument.  Anyone who has had to deal with Alzheimers disease will understand what I mean.  On the other hand, I was able to find reserves of compassion and care that I never thought I had.

Last week, we finally managed to have some time alone together, something of a holiday, although we stayed at home.  Husband is desperately exhausted, a situation not helped by the stress, and his diabetes.  He has gone back to work today, but I think we had a little respite that did him good.

And so today I resume my own life, my writing life.

This afternoon I am going to sit down with my diary and journal and work out what I want to achieve this Autumn, where I want my writing to go after all this upheaval.  I am grounding myself once more in my life, in my creativity, because I know that the only way to cope with this ongoing situation (and lets face it, it could go on for years more) and stay sane, is to have a life of my own, work of my own, something to distract myself from the worry, something to sink into and forget.

This is why we need creativity.

(Or at least, this is why I need creativity.)

Because Creativity rescues us when nothing else can, gives us a distraction, a reason to keep exploring, keep hoping, keep going.  And there are times in our lives when our art, our creativity, is the only thing that can save us.

I hope that where ever you are in your life, whatever challenges you face, that your creativity will provide you with a lifeboat to carry you to safety.

And I also want to thank you for being here with me.  Its really great to be back!

Happy Creating,

EF

The Creative Void

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sussex churchWhen she said those words, I actually felt the psychological shrug inside.

Oh yeah, I know this part, this is where we talk about the bit in between creative projects, the creative drought, the bit where I am waiting for the next idea to grab me. 

(And yes, I definitely am in that place.)

But that was not what she was talking about.

She was talking about the Creative Void.  The place where new things begin.  The space that is needed for seeds to root and grow.

She was talking about the fact that, in giving myself this year of EASE, this space to get myself well and let go of my OUGHTs and SHOULDs, I have created a void.

My job is to sit here and hold this space.

My job is to allow the Universe to fill it.

Ooo, I’m not very good at that.  I’m no good at the whole sitting thing.  The whole ‘Let go and let God’ stuff.  I don’t think, as human beings, we are.  We are scared so we need to control the world, our lives, the shapes on the page.

However, we are human BEINGS, not human DOINGS, as the old cliche goes.  The clue is in the second word.

I’ve learnt over the years how to be in the space between creative projects.  I know how to do the Creative Void in the creative, work, sense.

Now I need to learn how to do it in the emotional, physical sense.

Two sorts of creativity.  Who knew?  (Or are they really?)

If you are in the Creative Void, or the Space Between, or anything that resembles it, you might find this post from Jennifer Louden comforting.  I did.

Happy creating,

EF

Post Number 200!

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Flow at Ardnave, Islay.I can’t quite believe I have written two hundred blog posts for this site since I started it on 18th April 2013!  Thats quite a lot of information to write down, and I’m fairly proud of myself for managing it.  And I am grateful to everyone who has read, supported, commented and subscribed.  Thank you so much!

That said, you will have noticed that posts have been a bit scarce lately.  Please don’t think I have forgotten you. Nor have I run out of enthusiasm for blogging.  I am determined this isn’t going to be one of those blogs that just stops, mid-conversation, and hangs there, never to be continued.  I don’t want that.  Besides, the work of creativity never ends, and neither does learning about it.

Nevertheless, Post Number 200 feels like a turning point.

I dont really know where I am going with this blog, any more than I know where I am going with my life.  I’m always talking about seismic shifts going on in the background, I know.  That’s the kind of life I like to live – one in which I am constantly in a process of of Becoming.  But right now, well, I feel as if I am changing right down to my very DNA.

Let me explain.

At the start of the year, I decided to take part in Sas Petherick and Meghan Genge’s Heart and Hearth Circle, and just after that, something extraordinary happened.  I decided to sit down and do a Goddess Card reading, as I often do.

The card I pulled that day was Kali.

(Cue meltdown.)

Kali is described by Juni Parkhurst in the book which accompanies the pack as follows:

“Kali is black, full-breasted and bloodthirsty, and dances on the bodies of her enemies.  She is alive with power.  She is creator and destroyer.  She is not a goddess to mess with.”

No, indeed.  Kali frankly terrifies me. Parkhurst goes on:

“Drawing this card puts you on notice that major changes are taking place.  Structures around you may crumble and fall, leaving you temporarily lost.  Remember, however, that destruction must sometimes come before creation.  The old, tired, redundant parts of your life must fall away in order to create space for the new and vibrant life that is coming…”

No shit, Sherlock!  Since Kali appeared on my desk that day, its been one darn thing after another.  My mother was taken very ill in January, and I travelled across the country to look after her and help coordinate her treatment (she’s lots better now, thank goodness!).  Shortly after that, Husband was diagnosed suddenly with diabetes, which necessitated a stay in hospital, and a major shift in lifestyle and mindset for us both.  Then I had a bout of profound anxiety and depression, followed by a heart problem (luckily that seems benign!).  And for the last three weeks I have been prostrate with some kind of virus that has affected my throat and reignited my ME symptoms, leaving me utterly exhausted, and unable to mentally process.  Throw in elders with dementia to care for, and constant travelling, and its been a very tough five months.

All this has resulted in some very profound soul-searching, and a readjustment of everything I previously deemed important. In the face of the (admittedly distant) spectre of losing my dear other half, so much that seemed crucial to existence now appears totally and laughably irrelevant.  While he continues to respond well to treatment, I am all too aware that he is a similar age to that at which my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, a sobering thought.

All this is a lot to process, and when one’s brain power is reduced by illness, there isn’t a lot of juice left over for anything else.  The result has been what I would describe as something of a story drought.  Not writer’s block.  I’m perfectly capable of writing.  But I’m finding that no new ideas are being delivered in the usual way.  I’m a person who is used to fresh stories popping into my head on a daily basis.  I’m never short of new ideas.  Except now I am.  So this is something of a surprise.  I am determined not to be phased by it.  After all, its understandable given what I’ve been in the midst of during the last few months.  I’m in subsistence mode.  Life is just sucking up all my neurons at the moment in order to arrange basic survival.  There’s nothing left for cave paintings at this point!

I suppose I must have invited Cosmic Intervention into my life on a grand scale by opting for the Heart and Hearth Circle, and signalling that I was ready to get ‘spiritually naked’ as it were.  I’m not sure I realised what I was signing up for, but do we ever?  Life has changed beyond belief in the last five months, and so have I.  And I don’t know what is going to come out of it.

But it will be something really, really good.

So as we move into the next 200 posts together, I hope that you will stick with me through all these upheavals, this drought, and whatever comes out of it.  My brain is currently toying with new sewing, quilting and illustrating ideas.  I am keeping afloat by journalling and pursuing a version of Natalie Goldberg‘s writing practice.  And I will keep you posted as to what emerges, though my missives may be a little less regular than they have been for a while.  I know you understand, and I shall look forward to sharing this new life adventure with you in the coming months.

(And incidentally, I really, really recommend the Heart and Hearth Circle.  I’ve learnt so much, and Sas and Meghan are wise and wonderful.  And I’ve met such lovely kindred spirits too!)

Happy Creating, EF

The Confundus Charm

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sussex churchHusband arrived home today after his annual walking holiday on the First World War battlefields with his mates.  And I breathed a sigh of relief.

Not because he managed to come home without stepping on unexploded ordnance, though of course there was that.

Its just that since before Easter, there has been a continual series of appointments on the calendar, friends visiting (which I love, btw, don’t get me wrong), elder care visits to make (emotionally as well as physically exhausting) and illness.  And I’m not very good at times like that.

When the diary fills up, or like this week, is forcibly emptied by the need to lie in bed and groan, I sort of go AWOL on myself.  Do you know what I mean?

Today I read this article by Meghan Genge, and thought:

Yes.  That is where I am too.

I’ve forgotten who I am.  I’ve forgotten me.  I’ve forgotten what I do to be me. The core practices.  The core feelings.

When I’m busy, when I am rushing around from appointment to appointment, or looking after others, its not just the little things that get forgotten, like shaving my legs and flossing my teeth – no time, no time!

I forget where I put my soul.

So now His Lordship is home, I have a small window of a few weeks between elder care visits to remember.  I’ve finished the hurdling for a while.  As I’m recovering from a nasty virus which has knocked me flat for the last week, I plan to take things gently.  But I’m going to pick up my journal first, because whenever I need a compass to find myself and my creativity, thats what I find in my hand.  Pen and paper.  And it never fails.

Happy Creating,

EF

Wonder Weeks

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Bungay from the banks of the River Waveney

Bungay from the banks of the River Waveney, the perfect place to contemplate my own personal Wonder Week experience!

You see, I haven’t forgotten you!

Taking a bit of a blog break has been less of a necessity and more of ‘I only have so much energy and something has to fall off my todo list in order for me to survive’ thing.

Its not that my life has been event-free; more that it has been so event-packed that there has been no room to breathe.  Recent weeks have been so full of stuff – appointments, health problems, elder care, visitors, travelling, and aggravation – that there has been almost no space to remember who I am, let alone what I want to create.

One thing struck me this weekend, though, as I talked with my song-writer friend.  There are times in life when we have these emotional growth spurts, when life is difficult and challenging, and when all our energy has to go into dealing with whatever mountain we have to climb.  These are the times when we learn and grow.  They are not necessarily when we are in the right place to create the Great English Novel! (Or poem, or song lyric!)

I am reminded of friends who have become parents talking about their baby’s ‘wonder weeks’, those stages in development when an infant’s brain grows to allow it to gain new capacities to interract with its world.  These are often times when a child is grouchy, sleeping badly, and crying for no reason.  Get to the other end of a wonder week, and your baby has learnt to sit up unaided, or vocalise in a new way, and it was worth all the pain and sleepless nights.

As adults, I think we have wonder weeks too.  Its just sometimes we go for months or years without development, and then a dozen wonder weeks come along all at once, leaving us feeling like we have been hit by a steam roller.

If, like me, you are caught in a chain of adult wonder weeks, it’s worth noting that while your brain is preoccupied with making new neural pathways, and driving a bulldozer through old ones, it is unlikely to have any energy, space or interest in anything else.  Time to be kind to yourself.

I’ve had to accept that this is not a time in my life during which I am going to have the ability to concentrate on complicated activities.  I’ve given up trying to read fiction, watch drama or write anything complex.  I seem to be only able to cope with reading books about history (which feels strangely comforting), or wellbeing (which are directly relevant to my situation), or to watch TV documentaries.  I can’t even read blogs at the moment.  I just can’t take them in.

But that’s okay.

My brain is doing other stuff.  So I’m not trying to force it back onto the straight and narrow.  I’m trusting that it knows what its doing, and that eventually I will come out the other end with my pockets stuffed full of psychological doubloons from this unplanned diversion.  It may be an adventure I didn’t sign up for, but that’s how life sometimes is.

Don’t pile yourself up with SHOULDS.  The blogosphere is full of exortations to fulfil your Life Purpose, organise your house, build your dream business, learn Mandarin in a week – but if that week happens to be a grown-up wonder week for you, believe me, trying to learn Mandarin at that point in your life will be the emotional equivalent of trying to run a marathon when you are lashed to the Rack.  And just as pointless.

Give yourself a break.  Don’t live in SHOULDland.

Unfortunately, adult wonder weeks don’t arrive in calendar-friendly order like those for babies.  We never know when the Universe is going to clock us round the chops with the Frying-pan of Enlightenment, or fell us with what feels like a very back-handed ‘opportunity’ for growth.  But that is what they are – opportunities.  No matter how wretched they might feel.

Give yourself a break.  Be where you are.  Accept where you are. 

Stop fighting it.

Rather than try to soldier on when brain and body are apparently no longer willing to cooperate, it is far better to let them do their thing and hang up the whip for a while.  Preferably permanently.

Give yourself a Break.  Choose a new way. 

Choose kindness towards yourself.

In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted as to when I surface from my wonder weeks!

Happy Creating,

EF

Lemon Lessons

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Hilarious card sent by our niece to cheer us up. It worked.

Hilarious card sent by our niece to cheer us up. It worked.

You may have noticed a distinct absence of Evenlodeness on your dashboard lately.

This is because here at the Evenlode Burrow, we have been struck by a hail of lemons.

Yes, I was ill.  Quite ill. Verging on very ill.

And then Husband got diagnosed with diabetes and taken into hospital overnight.

This was, despite all expectations, a major shock.  Diabetes is endemic in his family, so we can’t say we weren’t expecting it, but somehow seeing him in a hospital bed still felt horribly distressing, not least because he is close to the same age that my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Both my father and grandfather died at the age of 52, and Husband celebrates his 50th birthday this year, so the rational part of my brain sort of went AWOL.

Matters were further not helped by the fact that the doctors can’t decide which sort of diabetes he has.  Type 2 is what you would expect given his age, but apparently his blood tests are not clear.  Trust him to be awkward!  He could be either, so the quacks are going with treatment for Type 2 for the next fortnight, and if the tablets don’t work, reassessment will follow.  Cue uncertainty on an epic scale.

So many people have been telling me how their relatives live healthily with diabetes of either type, and believe me, I know, I know.  Husband’s brother has been living well with Type 1 for thirty-odd years.  I’m well aware that its not a death sentence, and that it could be a lot worse.

But it has still rocked our world.

There are, however, unexpected gifts even in this hail of lemons:

1) Yay for the NHS

Here in the UK, we have the National Health Service, and it is one of our national sports to complain about it incessantly.  But when the s**t really hits the fan, the NHS is there for you, BIG TIME.  Yes, we had to sit in a corridor for three hours the first evening, waiting for a bed to become free.  Yes, we had to wait two hours for a doctor to be free in order to prescribe two paracetamols for Husband’s headache.  And yes, the information we came home with was not what you might call exhaustive, to say the least.

BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, we didn’t have to worry about paying for any of it, a fact that we were profoundly aware of, and grateful for, throughout the whole process.  We were treated with unfailing kindness and courtesy, and given everything we needed.  Husband came home with equipment and medications without paying a penny.  He can ring up for help any time he needs to.  He has a series of further support and assessment appointments to attend, none of them requiring him to cover fees.

To me this is a sign of a civilised society.  Anyone who thinks people should have to pay for healthcare needs to reassess their capacity for empathy, which is the key quality of a human being,  And anyone who has ever had a sick relative or partner knows just how important it is.

2)  Hey, I just stopped giving a stuff!

When the life of the person who is the centre of your world is threatened, suddenly everything becomes very, very simple.  All the things that seemed so important have now become completely irrelevant.

Please note the use of the word IRRELEVANT.

I no longer care about all the SHOULDS and OUGHTS that seemed so important to my future last week.  I don’t care about having the right filofax or whether the kitchen floor needs mopping, or what people think about the fact that I don’t work, but don’t look sick either.  I don’t care about not having a career at 47.  I don’t care what people think about me not having children or an income.  I don’t care about the piles of stuff we are keeping in the house. It doesn’t matter what people think of how I wear my hair. It doesn’t matter what I think of how I wear my hair.  It doesn’t matter if there is nothing in the house for lunch, or the DVD player gets bust – we’ll just buy another one if we have to. (We did!)

Because its all IRRELEVANT.

3) Pure Freedom

The consequence of all this IRRELEVANCY is pure freedom.

I can concentrate on being here, now, with the man I love, which is all that matters.

This is a freedom I have never been able to give myself.  The freedom to concentrate on getting both of us well.  The freedom to be myself and not worry about trying to start a business or get published or do all the other things that my friends and acquaintences think would be the sign of success, but mainly, the things that I put myself under pressure to do because I don’t think I am enough as I am.

I don’t have to think about any of that now.

My sole intention for the next year will be to get both us well, and to enjoy every single second of the time we have together however the hell I can.

Because nothing else matters.

4) Creativity Caveat

This doesn’t mean I am going to stop writing, or being creative.  Rather the opposite.  It frees me up from all the SHOULDS and OUGHTS.  I can do whatever I like, whenever I like, whenever I am well enough.  And I can concentrate on him whenever I need to.  I can use my creativity to process and express this new journey we are on.  I can enjoy doing it for the first time, instead of making it a labour of OUGHTS.  (In fact, I started a new story today.)  Its just that from now on, I don’t have to apologise for doing what I want.  All that matters is to be happy and healthy with the man I love.

Because when it comes down to it:

from @geraintgriffith on Twitter

from @geraintgriffith on Twitter

I don’t know where this journey will take us.  I hope that you will join me as I endeavour to go on using my creativity to live up to what is increasingly speaking to me as my own motto:

SPEAK YOUR TRUTH

In the meantime, I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported us during the last week as we have negotiated this crisis.  To all our dear friends, supporters and readers, we owe you a huge debt of gratitude, and I hope that you know that if you ever need us, we will be there for you too, no matter what.

With love and gratitude to you all,

EF

 

 

 

What to do when Life interrupts (again)

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I have to go travelling once more.  My mother is ill and I am needed to go down there to look after her.  My brother and his partner have been doing a sterling job, but its really hard and they could do with a bit of respite.

This is what you do when you have to.  You go and pick up your shovel.   And you get to work.

I need to remember to look after myself, as well as her, whilst I am there.  It is so easy to forget that you can’t care for someone else if you are exhausted and sick yourself.  And I can get that way very easily.

(Witness two hours spent in a freezing bathroom in the early hours of this morning with a poorly tummy.  Trust me to choose the coldest night of the year so far to have a stomach upset/nervous meltdown!)

I’m taking my creativity with me, though.

I’m going to have to be creative about how I get her to eat and drink enough (and drinking enough is a real issue with old ladies.)  I’m going to have to be creative about how I keep her entertained and lift her spirits. (Hello Scrabble, crosswords, endless episodes of Miss Marple.) And I’m going to have to appear to be relentlessly optimistic (even though a part of me inside is a gibbering toddler afraid of losing her mummy.)

I’m tired just thinking about it, and thats without the fact that I only had three hours sleep last night.

But there are thousands of people out there right now who are doing exactly the same thing.  Caring for their elderly relatives.  Coping with looking after those with chronic illness or dementia.  Wrestling with the health care system.  Trying to face inevitable grief.  People like you and me.  A silent army of carers that is only going to get bigger.

In the face of this upheaval, I don’t know when I’ll have the chance to post again for a while.  I ask you to bear with me. I’ll be back soon, I promise.  The nib of the pen doesn’t stop moving, after all, and neither does the Muse,

Happy Creating,

EF