Yesterday and Today

Thursday 17th March

Day 330

Yesterday

I walked in the park with my camera and took close-up photos of cherry blossom, candy floss pink against a blue sheet of shining sky.

I searched through my old diaries and journals looking for a sign post, for the beginning of my husband’s forgetting. When did we first notice any changes? The insurance company wants to know. There wasn’t a day or a date that stands out, a red flag on a map. Just my handwriting, sloshing across the pages, mostly ‘sound and fury signifying nothing.’ But it leaves a taste of the past in my mouth - a flavour I’ve left behind.

I sit in a hard chair in a dark theatre with my family and let Shakespeare’s words pull me into a different past where people carried swords and wore woollen cloaks and believed in the divine right of kings.

I sleep alone and imagine my husband in his single hotel bed in another city.

Today

For the first time this year I wear my sunglasses in the car, blocking the glare through the windscreen.

For the first time I hang the washing out on the spinner. The towels flap in the sunlight - changing the colours of the garden.

I’m disconbobulated by my tiredness - all day I feel as slow as syrup.

I abandon the egg shell cake - the sieve wasn’t entirely successful - and make a quick almond and apricot cake - thank you, Nigel - for tonight’s gathering.

I’m worrying about the pussy cat - is he throwing up more often than usual? Is he eating less than usual? Is he depressed or just old now? Nearly 78 according to the cat bible.

I can’t bear to watch the news from Japan, from Libyia, from Bharain but the pictures stay in my mind - the woman who carried her mother on her back to the hospital - where there are doctors but no food.