News from death row

I had a letter from Irving today. He says:

We don't have acess to the prison laundry or even detergent. I wash my clothing in the state issue soap. Some guys wash clothes in the toilet, but I use my sink.....To dry I use my shoestrings. I hang one end on the light fixture and the bolt sticking out he back wall. I can only hang two articles at a time in order not to break the line. In the summer time when the wet air blows through the vents and the humidity is high, nothing dries.

He says he's no longer has access to the prison library and if he "doesn't get to read something, he'll go mad".

So. No work, no radio, no television, nothing to read, and no opportunity for redemption. And the US is supposed to be one of the most civilised countries in the world. Yes, I know this man committed (or probably committed) a vile crime. There are no excuses; not even his appalling childhood.  But he is a human being. What is any of this achieving?

I could weep.

Magpie 206

While waiting for Matthew in bed,
Katie sometimes gets bored. So instead,
With pursed lips, like this,
(As though blowing a kiss)
She  can blow her hat right off her head.


(With thanks to Tess at Magpie Tales for the picture)

After the clearout...

...it is possibly time to plan my spring wardrobe. Ha. I have never, ever had a spring wardrobe, but this year, apparently, shorts with Wellingtons are in, as are flat shoes, smaller bags and...I've forgotten the rest.

Does anyone actually take note of all this advice? In my time, skirts have gone up, down and midway. Trousers have gone in, out (flares, then. How my children howled with laughter at pictures of me wearing those; until, that is,  they came back in as "boot cut". Boot cut were apparently okay) and cropped. Knickers have got smaller and smaller, until they reached the tortuous-looking thong (don't ask*), plus there are the naughty crotchless ones, which sound lazy and draughty.

And then there's the face. Now, apparently, Big Brows are in, and models are photograped with what look like two enormous black artoropods cawling towards each other across their brows.

None of this advice seems to be directed at people like me (Older Women); we are the lost, the forgotten, the ignored. I wasn't going to take any advice anyway, but an offer would have been  nice.

(PS the girl in the photo isn't me)

*okay, if you insist. No.

Work in progress

This is awful. I decided this morning to clear out our wardrobe. After fourteen years. How shameful is that? (Sadly, I am not like Meike, who posts wonderful photos of her organised wardrobe.) But I just can't bear to throw most of it away. There's that hat (worn years ago for a wedding), and the lovely top (foreground, on the floor, with turquoise sparkly bits. Not me at all) which I bought at hideous expense just because...I loved it. But I have hardly worn it (because it isn't me. See above). And denim. I LOVE denim. Anything denim. All those jeans. But jeans don't go out of date, right? And the rather nasty beige skirt (top left) which I've probaby had for more than twenty years, before most of you were born,  but which occasionally Comes In Useful, when I'm desperate (I rarely wear skirts). And there are hundreds of clattery skeleton-in-the-cupboard coathangers (will Oxfam want  those?).

And then there are the books, which have been heaped up by the bed, and badly need pruning. But I hate getting rid of books, even those I didn't  enjoy.

(The smudge, top left, won't stay. It's my finger over the lens.)

Time for a coffee break.

Pain; out of ten

There seems to be a relatively new way of assessing pain. As I expect most people know, doctors now ask you to assess the severity of your pain by saying how bad it is by scoring it out of ten.

I have a problem with this. I suppose I know what a one is (a minor bump or scratch), but what on earth is a ten? Is it my own ten, or a general ten? Is a ten the thumb screw,  the rack, being eaten alive by hyenas? That kind of thing? I've  never experienced any of these.

And my own ten. What is that? Childbirth? Broken back (where I lay on the ground, begging for pain relief, watched in bewilderment by my son and daughter-in-law, who are, incidentally, both doctors)? Or the broken elbow? (You know that knobbly bit at the end of the elbow? Well, that came right off, and was rolling around inside my skin like  a ping-pong ball in a sock.) Or the large, full jar of peanut butter falling onto my bare toe?

Gentle reader, what is/was your ten? I'd really like to know.

Magpie 205

There was a young lady called Rose,
Who played Chopin etudes with her toes.
When they asked, "why your feet?"
She replied, "you can't beat
Them, when all of your fingers are froze."

(With thanks to Tess at Magpie Tales for the photo)

The nature of grief

This is a strange time of year. Even 22 years on, I still go through the mental journey of the run-up to my husband's final illness and death. Cold weather, dark evenings, snowdrops...all these things remind me of that terrible time.

And yet we survived.

In thoses 22 years, I have learnt three things. Firstly, that grief is like labour (as in childbirth). The pain comes in crashing waves, but there are lulls in between; periods of calm, and sometimes even of optimism. At first, these waves come thick and fast; unbearable in their fierceness and their sheer physical pain. But gradually, they begin to tail off, become manageable, and while they never go, they are just a part of who I am. As for the lulls, I am convinced that it is the lulls that make grief survivable.  And while there's no baby at the end of it all, there is something like hope.

Secondly, as someone once said, over time grief turns from a wound into a scar; still there, still very much a part of me, but no longer so raw or so obvious.

Thirdly, love is love, in the present tense. You never stop loving someone who has died. I find it sad when people speak of their love in the past tense. I loved him, and I still love him. Why would I not? But my life goes on (in no small part, thanks to my wonderful second husband), and he lives on  in all of us, especially  in our children.