Today the surgeon Dr. Mary Stephens dug with some determination into the sweet spot where the temple arteries run on the right side of my face directly in front of my ear. The arteries were delicate and elusive and it seems to have taken longer than usual to extract a piece of the artery to examine. A delicate specimen that indicated success in her handiwork. During the hour I was wide awake on the pillow, I turned my head on its side. In my ear throughout the procedure I hear a clanging and squishing and the inaudible gestures of a surgeon's blade. I resort to pranayama yoga breathing in my mind and in my mouth and in my lungs. The discipline calms me as a I think how this day surgery is definitely a very good strategy for torture movie scripts. Excruciating begins to encompass it.
Category: memoir
Pandemic Journal 3/11/2020 — freaking out (still smiling)
Stuck inside a pandemic at a moment when the monolith south of the border is dominated by a fascist, it is sometimes hard to focus on the view up close - the provincial politics that undermine our well-being, the city politics that juggle a budget vulnerable to COVID effects and a vengeful governing provincial party that hates our progressive voting patterns. Sometimes it is hard to sleep.
Pandemic Journal 22/4/2020 — Earth Day Walks
What Brings You Down? Alberta's other contagious and deadly disease - the UCP virus.
Our Alberta provincial government is failing. Unsurprisingly.
They are killing people.
Doctors are fleeing the province. Rural clinics are closing leaving the UCP voters high and dry without medical care. All the better to create a vacuum that will be filled by Kenney's plans to privatize healthcare.
Pandemic Journal 24/3/2020 — a time travelling walk after dawn…
24 March 2020 Dear Pandemic Reader,Shall we let the calendar blur into a whirl of days? Dress up at night for our dreams? Sleep like perambulating beauties outfitted in day wear? Love, In social isolation for who knows how long? I confess... I long for the touch of a friend, the hug of a child… Continue reading Pandemic Journal 24/3/2020 — a time travelling walk after dawn…
Split
Two things are happening simultaneously. A propellor whirls. My being is moving in two directions. My body is twinned in two places at once. The present tense and my long ago past collide every morning. I am in 2020 Oaxaca City, Mexico City. And in my great grandmother’s nineteenth-century English home.
Retirement 101 – Winter Solstice 2019
Winter solstice is in the rear view mirror. This year, spring is once again on its way as I write. Six hours and nineteen minutes into a next year. Every day creeps closer to a high rising summer. Yesterday afternoon was a solstice celebration of connection. Acres of food, hours with friends, a happy visit. Though I did miss all the beloveds too far away or stricken with illness or long gone.r