Lassitude

1st September 2011 Thursday

No time to re-boil the chutney today.

Instead I’ve been trying to keep the flickering flame of my energy alive. But it keeps going out. I yawn all the way to Glastonbury and fall asleep in the car on the way home. I can feel the sun burning my arm through the windscreen. I find it hard to keep my eyes open driving to see my father ( in my very clean car - polished and hoovered by my lovely husband) even with the windows wound down and Beethoven blaring out.

After our visit to the clinic to check his Warfarin level I sit with my father while he eats my sister’s Victoria plums and two ripe figs. I tell him I’m suffering from his current condition which he calls lassitude. He says.

‘I’m so glad it’s not just me.’ If it’s two of us then he doesn’t feel so bad.

He tells me about his father and a letter written to his mother by a friend and colleague after he died. This friend said ‘He had the sun in him.’ I’d love to have met him - this shining grandfather of mine. I’d ask him how he kept burning bright - even in the foggy times.

I expect he'd say all the answers are inside me already - just a question of tuning in - with love.