annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catch up Every day so far I've had to click back to the last entry to see what day we're on - it's just not sticking in my head at all. Good, really. Today I emailed people to find out properly what courses/workshops I've signed up for, what I've paid for, how I access them etc and I think I have it straight now, written down in my notebook. It's been madness having a panic three minutes before the start of everything I do, but now I have a zoom folder on my email, with everything in there and I'm all paid up till the end of next week. Phew. I had my first art therapy session since god knows when - it wasn't so much therapy today as catch up and as it was on the landline it wasn't art either, but we're doing it on zoom next week so it will be. It was good to talk to her, to tell her what I've been doing since this all kicked off and to realise that I'm doing fucking great actually. I know I have it easy - I have a house, a garden, and none of the things that many people are struggling with. Last night I slept for more than eight hours for the first time in ages - the relief of Daughter being given a clear account of what's happening and what to do. Today she said she took a very slow, very short walk and has totally chilled out, thank god. We did the pub quiz this evening - it's live on Youtube from 7.50, pausing at 8 for us all to go out and clap which was amazing – I grabbed my phone and made a pretty shit video – I was over-excited to say the least, but here it is. I feel so amazed and moved by the idea of almost the whole population standing outside at 8pm every Thursday to clap for the carers. And it is happening - even here https://youtu.be/p6heX2D-O6Y Next week I will prepare – I’ll be outside early and I’ll scan round slowly. Honest. The pub quiz is surprisingly enjoyable, even though we’re both crap at it. This week I got 21/50 and Bloke got 18/50 with a lot of different answers. If we’d been a team we’d have done better, but we’re not a fucking team are we? Friday Laptop still being a cunt but I’m writing anyway, on Word and will post tomorrow if Bloke can mend the poxy thing. Today was the writing workshop which will be every Friday afternoon now for about six weeks, and this was the first time it was kind of weird for me rather than enjoyable. I was feeling sad anyway – I’ve been doing the grief meditation series on Headspace and it’s letting all the sadness come up to the surface which is hard in the moment but feels better for having happened. The teacher, B, invited us to use recipes as an extended metaphor to write about whatever. I started all full of myself then kind of broke down half way through, like this: “Recipe for Keeping Going You have the ingredients you need for this. They’re only just out of sight, behind the tentative plans for living a ‘normal’ life again, if ebver there was such a thing. The base layer, spread firmly over your day, is made of the present moment. Live in the here and now, if you can … [here is where I suddenly became overwhelmed with the knowledge of how lucky I am to live in a house with a garden, with a Bloke who is only fucking annoying, not drunk or abusive and does the shopping and most of the cooking, when people out there are ill and dying and cramped into tiny flats with kids and old parents and teenagers and no money etc but I blundered on] … as I write I’m reminded how lucky I am to have space and no dependants – so if you can, rest in the now. Don’t let the unknowable future spoil the taste of today, the song of the birds, the hum of the bees. On top of this base, lay some activities, nestled together, side by side, hours and minutes snuggled up. A walk, a dance, a date with Joe Wicks or Adriene, something to stir the blood and the breath. A class some learning, something to stretch and engage the mind, to feed it as it dwells in the now.” So, pretty meh. I felt embarrassed by it, uncomfortable, guilty. And I cried as I read it out. Marvellous. But I stayed, I fronted it out. I’d prefer it if the other participants thought I was great, but to be honest if they think I’m crap I don’t really give a shit. For the next exercise she asked us to think of an activity we knew well and to make a list of some of the words associated with it. I chose yoga and listed: stretch, mat, tall, bend, balance, hold, breathe, om. Then we had to use these words in some writing – seven minutes. “We are in the stillness now, no need to search for it, it is here and all around us. We have put our mats down in this silent world and lay our little lives on them, stretching our arms and legs into unknown corners to see who we will be. At night we fold forward into comfortable, safe places, breathing out, breathing in. Here we are. Om. In the morning we raise one arm then another, saluting the sun, breathing in, breathing out, finding the balance, first on this side then on that. Noticing the difference, that it’s not the same on each side. Breathing out, breathing in, breathing in, breathing out. Om.” So that was writing group. After that I sorted out the garden, the bit by the house and eventually quite a bit more. I reverted to my old method – which I feel as if I’ve used for something else recently – of a swift toke on a pipe and some music playing, then proceeding slowly and persistently. Pictures tomorrow. And I did a yoga nidra - a maega relaxation which was just fucking bliss, bliss I tell you, even with sciatica. But mostly a sad day. Low energy, low mood. Lack of faith in the future 6:41 p.m. - 11.04.20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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