July 6th - blog 1 - the future crystalises

I have been awake for hours this morning. God knows why but I seem to just have been awake since 4am – I did doze for an hour at some point (from about 5am til 6) but since then have been awake. I was also shivering and had to ask for a cup of tea this morning. I’m tired and just feel quite knackered.

However, yesterday I had a phenomenal trip to the old haunt of Goring seafront. Walking along the familiar pathways to the old café and sitting on a bench looking backwards down the bay was truly sensational. I really enjoyed seeing my legs work in familiar, though completely unfamiliar territory. I also appreciated the fresh air and warmth, and the stretching of muscles which walking allowed. It was also another opportunity to escape this ward, which has become even more claustrophobic over the last week with the prolonged stay of Beryl and Mary. These two women opposite me seem to be challenging my patience and encouraging my desire to leave! It’s simply a patience thing where I cannot relate to them being so a) miserable, b) complaining, c) out of touch with their own healthcare or d) so melodramatic. Looking at Mary I realised how little I complain of my physical ‘symptoms’: headaches, nausea, dizziness, black spots, hazy vision, blurring, coldness, shakiness on my feet are regular, daily and almost constant for me and part and parcel of my situation. Mary seems to find a vocal expression for her dizziness (“actually…”) and sickness (“actually”).

Just as a humorous aside: she has a dreadfully irritating tendency to put “actually” on the end of every complaint about her health. In this manner everything becomes, “I just feel so dizzy, actually”, “I’ve been feeling really sick, actually”, “I think he’s given me the wrong tablets, actually because actually I usually take two Nanapril on a morning at home, actually, but they’ve split them up here, actually, so that I actually take one in the morning and one at night with my Diazapam, actually.” “No, I tried to walk to the bathroom, they made me actually and actually it’s just my head actually, I’ve such a headache actually and feel so dizzy, actually…” You get the point.

Nevertheless, there is a vocalisation of whatever her struggle happens to be at that moment. It is oppressive and depressive and constantly negative. There is no way she will attempt to get to the bathroom without being half dragged by a nurse and crying – more like insistent whimpering, actually – all the way there, back and probably during. She then whimpers for a good hour afterwards and complains. All of this is juxtaposed with ‘conversations’ in which she nosily asks personal questions about my treatment, weight and diet or Beryl’s daughters, husband (who died 20 years ago) and Maud’s diabetes. Then she comments arbitrarily from time to time about her apparently fairly privileged lifestyle in St Albans – where she should ‘never have left, actually’ and ‘actually I don’t feel I’ll ever make it back there, they might as well put me in a grave now, actually’. It’s the pessimism and the depressive-ness combined with the complaining vocal expression of pains which sound almost identical to my daily experience of life which just refreshes for me how little I do say about the way my body feels on a 24-7 basis. I do comment openly on the way my spirit is, the way I feel around and about the ward with regard to the patients and staff, but most of my take on life is about people and their attitudes, not about the way I’m feeling it physically and airing all of those empty vocal complaints which achieve nothing and focus energy onto pain and suffering instead of success.

All of which commenting leads me neatly onto what I have been thinking about since 4am this morning…

…my future and my book. And they are both linked. I feel that I have identified some key aspects of myself through experiencing the vocalised thoughts of others. I have been able to observe the precise things that interest me and cause me to say something – and it is always to do with the story. I love the story of anything, not the actual event itself but the way people experience it. I keep imagining setting a novel in the backdrop of the current credit crisis. It would never, ever be about the credit crisis, but it would be about the impressions, experiences and dilemmas of those who are going through it. It’s more interesting to have backdrops of events and stories about people. Far more fascinating to me would be a story of love against a backdrop of financial crisis – not despite it, you understand, or even linked to it at all really – just with that hovering in the background affecting absolutely all of the action without ever impacting directly.

And this leads me to my future with the novel writing desires. I don’t know what I want to be or do in the future but it isn’t active, I can sense that much. In reading an article on café culture it became apparent to me that the culture I aspire to is far more cosmopolitan and European (perhaps even American or Australian) than British. The archetypes of the traditional British Pub versus the continental outside cafés of Italy and France seem so juxtaposed – and it is the latter at which I feel more at home. I can imagine sitting in those pavement cafés
but the key is that I am not doing anything active, I am watching and waiting, sitting and observing – and writing. That is the activity of my desire. Observation: through written comment and note-taking enabling myself to make observations on the lives of others and watch interaction as opposed to involving myself within it. I am fascinated by the interaction of people. But, as I said about experience – it is not what happens to people that interests me but how they relate it. It is the dominant factors in the telling of their story that illuminates their attitude, approach and take on their own lives. Far more interesting than the events of their lives is the way they will describe them to others because it tells you so much about the way they experienced what they experienced. How they are taking it and receiving it will affect their whole approach to the rest of their lives and in this hospital it is possible to observe so much about how people take things. Only one thing – it is a very narrowed rarefied perspective of existence in hospital – you get to see how people receive and deal with illness – but it is a start.

But it is also an ending of sorts. Because I can see within the desire to comment that there is a whole future mapped within that. Examination of the ways in which people deal with their life events is rooted in that café culture where I can observe, listen (earwig!) and nosily absorb all of their detail in order to use it and put in into some sort of novel/journalism/diary – I don’t know. The end result is difficult to see but the vibe of the experience of the writing is something I think I have always sensed possible within my life and within my future. Where, when and how needs refinement before it is reality. But the energy is the same, and the future is something that I do sense is coming clearer with every moment.

And just to close - noticing the post I made yesterday. I was fine with Marion yesterday. She is opinionated and good at her job but she accepted the changes I had undergone without comment or even over-involved judgement. She was sufficiently distant and non-commenting, even being one of the nicer people to help me get foods out of the fridge. She was nicely endorsing of what I was doing. I don't think she does actually judge but is just one of those people who give the impression of venom towards everything with the swiftness of their approach to life and the speed with which she attempts to get everything done as efficiently as possible. I don't know what she's thinking about me...but I do get the sense, perhaps most endearingly and commendably and setting her apart from every single other person on this ward - whatever she thinks does not overly interfere with her conduct and her level of nursing care. She is exceedingly efficient regardless of her opinion, and yesterday was almost prepared to be surprised by me - and whilst not encouraging or complementary she was entirely endorsing and accepting of my behaviour.

More importantly: I like being proved wrong.