What's in the mind will come out in the body.  After Richard went into hospital I got sore.  Niggly pains became real pains.  Emotions I've more or less held inside for years lodged in various parts of my body.  Now they've come out.  I can't ignore them (they hurt!) but have tried to accept them, to just ride them out until they do what they must do - which is tell the recent story of my life.  Not to say I don't have a good life, I do, but there has been grief, sadness, anger, frustration, fear, etc. 

So the back spasms, the large and powerful muscles across my lower back - just spasmed for 3 days.  Today almost all gone.  My legs and the tendons and ligaments running from legs to groin are sore.  Must be like training horses for endurance; muscles get fit quickly, tendons and ligaments take longer and bones take longest of all.  So muscle soreness pfffft, gone.  But trust the tendons and ligaments will heal too.  Just doing everything I normally do yet make allowances and not 'work' through the pain - something I've been wont to do.

Yesterday a friend visited Richard in hospital so I had an uninterrupted day at home.  Practiced guitar for the second day in a row.  Miserably apparent I've missed practice as what little hard won facility I'd gained has gone ... pfffft.  Revamped Marvin's avaiary with new backsheet, quite a fashionable check pattern in warm hues, replaced some perches, raked out the poo and filled in his nest holes.  Only four more aviaries to go!  And then, when the weather turns dry with low humidity must replace all the styrofoam insulation.  Trying a new glue as the previous gunk hasn't been ideal. 

Brought up my art table the other day.  Lee came around and helped me move the huge and heavy electric reclinder into the shed to make room.  Last night brought up the drawing I'd been working on before all 'this' hit.  Not ready to create, there's nothing in the well, but can scribble on what is already on the board. 

Haven't written for months either.  Until Richard is settled it is difficult to get a working routine.  If he stays at Heritage, another 8 minutes up the road from the farm, I can visit him first, do the horses on the way home and then stay home.  This going out twice in a day takes up the day. 

A friend invited herself over with a bottle of red, a kind and thoughtful gesture - but I asked for a rain check.  Save for sometimes walking in company in the arvo with a friend, I want to be alone.  Alone to let everything settle - for all the nigglies to come out and have their turn, alone to think.  Alone just to be alone.

There was a strange light on one of  The Sisters last night.  Wasn't the moon as it wasn't up yet.  Wasn't fog - I don't think as fog settles starts in the valley and it didn't swell or drift as fog does.  Got the binoculars out but couldn't see enough to make sense of it.  It was just down from the summit, a fat flattened W shape encompassing both sides of the 'triangle'. 

Two weeks today.  That's how long Richard has been in hospital.  Two weeks and neither of his sons have visited him. 

I couldn't visit Dad when he was dying but flew over to see him when the cards were on the table.  Dad and I were never as close as he was with Tam and we had our problems.  I think he was horrified I'd become like the women he dallied with; promiscuous - that's the word used to describe women, or a wo'man' of the world, if speaking of men.  And I wouldn't come home and 'do the right thing' - like please him, get a career, settle down, marry a nice man.

Except I did marry a nice man and Dad met him and approved so it was a mutually agreed truce - and I think part of him begrudgingly admired me for going it alone and living the life I chose.

As for Mom, no regrets.  I did the best I could, lived my life around visiting and caring for her, as much as she would allow me to anyway. 

I'm a selfish person, self-absorbed, spoiled, wanting to do my own thing when I want to do it.  So I understand the 'boys' reluctance to tear themselves away from comfortable routine to come see him.  Except he's their father and the longer they wait the more distant he becomes.  One day he'll be so far away the strongest love, the closest ties won't reach him.  And that's the memory that will live most strongly in their hearts.  His absence.  And theirs. 

At sixes and sevens yesterday.  Emotions all over the shop.  Found the second toilet seat I'd bought to replace stained one also didn't fit and wanted to cry.  Couldn't settle to anything.  Finally went outside and weeded just to do something.  So many huge projects to be done - all the aviaries need a good rake, need to have the styrofoam insulation replaced - like trying to create a Braque painting in 3D! - and have the moldy old back sheets (used to keep the afternoon sun from heating up the metal backs of the aviaries) torn down and replaced.  The rock garden is more weed than garden.  The windows need washing.  The deck furnitue needs to be cleaned and varnished.  The deck itself needs a varnish, haven't done it in 2 years.  But I went out and weeded weeny weeds instead.

Finally gave it up, cleaned up and drove in to see Richard.  Found he hadn't been out of bed for 2 days so nicely suggested it might be nice to get him in a wheelchair and outside.  Took 3 people, he's still a big man in height, length of legs, etc, but  finally got his bum on the wheelchair.  I checked the brakes and off we went.

Cuddled him a lot.  Wheeled him to the deck of the outdoor cafe, high in the treetops with long views across the valley.  Whoever had the foresight to build the hospital on top of the hill did a good thing. 

We aren't meant to be in windowless rooms for days on end.  Richard needed the sky above, the fast moving clouds, the fresh cool air.  We chased the fleeting sun in the parking lot - turned his face into the sun for at least 2 minutes.  Not ideal but a start.  Then he had to go to the loo and our wilderness sojourn was over.

Told him he's going to Heritage Lodge on Tuesday.  Told him I couldn't care for him, reminded him how many people it took to get him into the wheelchair when he disagreed.  That seemed to, at least temporarily, convince him.  Standing behind him, smelling his hair, my arms around him, kissing the top of his head - how I would love to have him home, how I would love to be capable of doing it all.  My poor darling.  And me.

Is life the ultimate zen koan?  Rather than what is the sound of one hand clapping it is what is the meaning of life?  And when you 'get' there is no answer, that's the answer?

Somehow Richard had managed to get out of bed and fall over at the hospital.  Unhurt save for another tear on his poor abused elbows which always bear the brunt of his falls - guess better than his hips.

He was more himself yesterday but mentally off with the fairies.  Realized as I was leaning in listening to another fantasy (how would we ever manage to sell this hospital?) I was humouring a stranger  because that's what you do.  But then there was a moment, a hug, a fierce hug, and the Richard of old asking if I had any idea how much he loved me?  My heart breaks.

And mends again.

What else can I do?  How he would hate this.  How he would hate being dependent upon others.  How he would hate the incontinence.  How he would hate not being in charge of his own fate. 

I don't know why things happen.  I don't know why there is unfairness and injustice.  I don't know if there even has to be a reason.  Is it the nature of our minds that everything must have a rationale?  And because of that we make ourselves miserable when we can't find one? 

Sometimes things are just too big to grasp, to make sense of and the only thing left is to put one foot in front of the other.  That's been my unofficial motto.  Just keep going.

During the riots of 1968 Mom and Dad sent Tam and I to live in a caravan on Sand Lake.  I was 13 and not too concerned with politics or riots, the Weathermen, Black Panthers or SDS.  I was more concerned with the lake.  I swam constantly, often at night, with my eyes just above the waterline looking back at the shore, looking at the moon mirror of the surface.  It was a world away from shouting and fighting and fires and guns. 

How I would like to take the world and give it Sand Lake so we could reclaim who we are.  We are creatures of magic and beauty and peace and we should and could, have a society where it's not a mad life scrabble just for existence but where there is enough for all (and there is enough for all - that's the great lie, that there is scarcity and want - it's in Big Business' interests to foment desire and inequality).   The child who sees the wonder in a grasshopper or movement of clouds or senses the great slow life within trees still exists in all adults.  But we've allowed ourselves to be trained to want more, always more 'stuff', more money, more 'status', more more more - when everything we need is already here.

What's that ridiculous statistic?  How much wealth is concentrated in the top 2% and the rest of us have everything else.  Something absurd.  How much is enough?  Food, shelter, something to do, something to learn, companionship, community - and time enough to find and cherish that child, that tiny godchild within.

While things begin to assume the predictability of routine the reality of this new life starts to sink in.  Through the emotional tumult the only thing one can do is get through one day after another, do what needs to be done, settle what needs to be settled (and it's unsettled yet.  Until he is moved to Heritage and 'passes' - meaning he isn't too much to handle - we're in a state of limbo).  Yet, the new reality hovers around the edges. 

The new reality is I live alone.  I answer to no one.  My time is my own and save for the obligations and responsibilities of Richard and the animals, I am my own woman.  I haven't known that freedom for over 30 years.   The first day of waking up solo I thought I must begin as I mean to continue. 

But the overarching question is:  who am I and what will I do?  One thing I'll certainly do is sit.  Sit in nature.  Find a rock and sit.  Sit and look.  Sit near a tree and 'feel' its 'treeness'.  Stare at the sky thru the leafy canopy.  Be still long enough the birds forget I'm there. 

I grab nature moments on the run, or the walk as it were.  Walking Mikaela usually.  How luxurious  to sit and do nothing but breathe.  There will always be obligations.  Today I'm not visiting Richard.  Only one person per patient a day is allowed and a friend from the Men's Shed is going instead.  I'd like to play hookey  and go to the beach or launch my child's kayak on the river but the small lawn is overgrown and the weeds around the aviaries lap at the mesh. 

A man comes today to fix the leak in the shed.  I might ask him to help me carry the artist table into the house.  I can't manage it  up the steps.  Going to rehome or relocate Richard's recliner, perhaps to Heritage if they'll take it and I can find someone to help me move it.  In its place I'll put the table and an office chair.  I saw a painting in Mark Shield's office during his op ed with David Brooks on PBS.  Don't know what the painting is about, only saw the intriguing shapes and a small but celebratory itch began.  If the table is up here I can draw in comfort.  Not going to try and heat the shed but I can heat the living room.

Which reminds me how parsimonious I've become.  Doomed to fail living on $180 a week and paying for all the extras of home/car ownership but am giving it a damn good try.  So keeping records.  If I don't spend anything for 2 days then I can afford to buy a 20kg bag of cat litter and one bottle of wine.  Priorities met!