In transit

Living abroad led us to migrate temporarily back to our homeland at Christmas when the children were little. This traditional transition was very in keeping with biblical precendents except we travelled in a Renault Scenic and the purpose was not to be counted for a census but to visit relatives. We also followed the GPS of course and not a star. Sometimes there was a rain god that would actually cause it to rain around us as we progressed, it seemed.  This annual migration was often fraught with strife. Having been left with the task of looking after the children and loading the car while spouse was at work one year, I gave up trying to fit everything into the space available for transport and gave the children some of their presents to occupy them.  There was the year I bought a frozen turkey in Waitrose at 6.30 am in the morning in Kent and put it in the roof box to keep it cool as it defrosting while we drove up the motorway to Bourton-on-the-Water where we had rented...

This is day 6 of the Second Wait for the lab results following surgery. The First Wait was for the biopsy results. I wonder about walking again, gently, and slowly at first to retune my body from its restive slumber. My mind runs and does circles, stopping in the air sometimes, usually in the middle of the night and wakes me up with a worrying thought as it processes the stress of the last few weeks. This mental overactivity punctuates an otherwise calming time with metaphorical storms. I also get waves of fear that leave me unable to move. These have been subsiding since the surgery as I know that whatever path I now must follow, the source of the cancer has gone. My cup size continues to shrink on one side as the swelling from the surgery goes down. It is healing well, and any pain reminds me that the cancer has gone so it doesn’t cause any discomfort: in fact, the complete opposite. I worry that it will be necessary to go through more surgery to remove more suspect cells when we get...

  I’m writing this, thankfully, with a section of my right breast missing and a number of lymph nodes removed. I am more worried about there being any of the cancer left frankly and would have gratefully let them hack off the whole breast but that is not their way. It’s the next step of waiting. This time I’m waiting for the results of the lab tests on what they’ve removed to see if there is a safe margin.   I wondered about getting my hair cut short. It’s annoying me and I’m giving up on my identity as an attractive woman. I find the stress of being on this pathway to heaven difficult. I haven’t got it cut mainly because I didn’t want to get Covid at the hairdressers and delay the surgery. Although shaving it off did occur to me, I think I will get a professional to do it, if I do.   Waiting for the surgery was horrible. Since the biopsy I’d had pain from the tumour and it kept on reminding me that it was slowly killing me. I was frightened it would spread. ...

  It was with great relief that I was able to walk through the door of the airport gate into the thick, stifling, Maltese heat to get to the waiting plane. It was there. We could all see it. A crew walked over as the people, the previous passengers, with their cabin bags poured off into a waiting bus.   The plane was finally waiting to get us out of here.   One of the larger standard-sized cabin bags overhung the overhead locker. The air-stewardess pushed and pushed to get the door to click shut. It bounced open defiantly, again and again. Good-naturedly, passenger and stewardess rejigged the luggage until the locker could be crammed shut. As this drama played out, passengers with grim, determined, get-me-out-of-here faces flowed past me. Strange smells, vaguely of burning and jet fuel hinted that we were preparing to leave.   The air-stewardess was now struggling with the plane door, apparently jammed part open. It was stubborn, not wanting to be air...

  Writing from the gap ‘There is a crack, a crack, in everything, that’s how the light gets in’ Leonard Cohen   This is written from the gap somewhere between safety and fear; between sanity and madness; between confusion and understanding; between health and cancer; between holding on and letting go….   Escape One   Looking through posts on social media: scrolling for meaning and distraction.   I was waiting for the gate to open, wishing my airline hadn’t fallen out with the Star Alliance cooperation which would enable me to bag drop at any major airline’s check-in point. The airport blanket of noise is punctuated with occasional beeps inside the terminal. There is muffled talking echoed into the great metal and glass cathedral structure, as it stood reverently, the St Christopher of travellers.   In the end I post:   Coffees: one from the machine groundside Earl Grey tea: one from the little café, also groundside Walkin...