Getting to the Big Stuff

2nd August 2011 Tuesday

We have been away for a few days in hot wide Wiltshire, walking through chalky downs and vistas of wheat fields and circles of standing stones. We stayed with a dear friend in a borrowed farmhouse - soft deep beds, pristine white towels - chickens to feed, silky eared whippets to stroke, a swimming pool to cool off in, lunch of salmon and salad, strawberries and cream to eat in the shade of an arching white buddleia. And feeling so cherished in her company.

I write this with my leg up on a stool. The small black hole in my shin has turned into a suppurating cavern. I love the nurse at the clinic who has been treating me. She is calm and warm and professional and listens to me. And says she’ll talk to the surgeon who did my operation. I trust her totally. She is also lean limbed and suntanned and wears high strappy sandals and short glamourous dresses. She packs the hole with iodine cream.

The lovely homeopath I consulted this morning says,

‘Take it easy. You have an open wound to heal. That takes up a lot of your energy.’

She also says she will send me remedies for unexpressed anger and being over-responsible for everyone in my life and something for my knackered adrenals.

Later when I’m in the roaring town she rings on the mobile and asks if I have a pace maker or a hip replacement as the remedy she is going to subscribe is to eject unwanted stuff from the body. Which could also eject good stuff. That is a powerful remedy.

I’ve been thinking about ejecting those smouldering feelings. Practising on the small stuff. Like doing some ranting and raving on cushions about the neighbours’ children who scream and shout on and on and on all day in their garden. And their parents allow it. And about my father’s doctor who took him off his diuretic and now he’s all wobbly and breathless.

And then maybe I’ll get to the big stuff - about losing my husband.