annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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After dancing

Yesterday I danced on the beach as the sun went down.


julysanddance1


julysanddance2


 


julysanddance3


Today I am knackered. I still managed to make another mixed media print


gelli2


 go for a swim at the nearest beach (not very nice as the main road is right there, but OK if you only look out to sea) and do a yoga session. That's a total of three hours activity all day, mostly sitting down. I've only done one yoga class since before Glasto and tonight's was hard. Use it or lose it starts to get right in your face as the years roll by. Last time I had a break, which was when I had pneumonia in 2019, the first class back was hard like tonight's was. My body had seized up and whereas before I could get my head almost on my knee in a forward fold, now it was nowhere near. Just about every pose was the same. Last time, the second session was back to normal, so I hope it will be this time. 


People who have been important to me include:



  1. The new matron who came to the boarding house where I was at school from 11-14. I was a weekly boarder, as I lived too far away from the school. The first matron was horrible. When the second one came, when I was 12, she called me to her sitting room on the Thursday evening, at 7.30, when Top of the Pops was on, and left her television on. We didn't have TV so always missed this crucial programme. She asked if I would like to join her in knitting small toys for the children in the hospital up the road. every Thursday, at 7.30. I agreed. She later told me that the first matron had warned her about me so she'd been fairly sure she would like me, and she did.  She was the first person who did something for me, me in particular. Not everyone was as horrible to me as my stepmother, but mostly I was unnoticed. I always remember her, though I never knew her name. Just Matron. 

  2. My friend Joan, who I met in my first term at university, when we were on the same Critical thinking course. She was sixteen years older than me, so 46 when we first met. We clicked at once and started to hang out and chat on the phone. We were both single parents, skint, babysitters in the evening were rare so we talked on the phone for hours and hours and hours. Our friendship lasted nearly twenty years, till she died of a sudden heart attack in the waiting room of the oncology dept where she was about to start chemo for cancer. It was only after she was gone that I realised that she had treated me with that thing I'd heard about called unconditional positive regard. Sometimes she was a bit disappointed, and said, "Oh, Anna!" but that was it. She'd had a child when she was 16 and was made to give her up for adoption. The child would be the same age as me. I don't know if that counted or was conscious, but although we operated as two friends, the age difference not counting as we were both adults, after she'd died I knew she'd been like a mother to me, in her unconditional positive regard. I hardly have any pictures of her, maybe two as those were the days of film, not digital and photos required more effort and intent. Joan died in 2004. I had a dream a few years ago where we were on a scooter, both of us, in a hot, third world country where the road was rough and the driving pretty free range. We were talking, like we used to, me looking back over my shoulder to see her face as we chatted and laughed, going really slowly, swerving all over the road, but happy, so happy, both of us. When I woke up I had no idea what we'd talked about but I felt satisfied, replenished, that I'd spent time with my dearest friend. It took me years to accept that I couldn't just pick up the phone and tell her things. We used to swap books - I hate that she never read Susie Steiner - she'd have loved her books.


Bedtime now

12:30 a.m. - 18.07.22

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