Shattered Dreams, Oh and bones!
Part 2: Surviving adversity.
I am sure that my husband had no idea how bad my injuries
were. I had done a fair job at letting him think that I had just sprained my
ankle, though he had seen the swelling and deepening purple shading as well as abrasions
on my arm. The reason I say that he could not have fully grasped the situation was
that because to my utter surprise, after we had left the airport he did not
take me directly to A&E at Worthing hospital. Our first port of call was our
business warehouse. It was like being in
a nightmare that you couldn’t wake up from, I can only think that the pain had
numbed my senses. As Steve got out of the car he asked me to come in to see if
there were any emails that needed answering. This is a man who is normally very
kind and loving.
He can’t type and so I do all the emails and invoices. I
managed to type using mainly my left and keeping the damaged right hand in one
position, just the middle finger. I said nothing dozy tart that I am. After
what seemed like an eternity we left the warehouse.
Instead of turning toward Worthing, Steve turned toward home,
its is only two miles as the crow fly’s but about four going around the
farmland and houses along the main roads. If you imaging a square, our home and
our business premises would be on two of the opposite straight sides with no direct
road route, there is a way by foot but not for traffic. He stopped at a store on
the way home and picked up some shopping for our dinner. He normally does all
the food shopping and likes to do the cooking; we have a system of his and her
jobs that works well.
Continuing on my ‘No Escape’ nightmare, he did drive us
home. I struggled indoors and he unloaded our luggage. When he had done that,
he started to get us something to eat. He cooked some mini chicken fillets and
prepared a salad that was mainly Lambs Leaf. He is a most excellent cook and everything
was delicious. I was not able to cut
anything up and still locked in my own strange little world; I said nothing and
just stuck my fork into the little fillets and ate it from both ends toward the
centre with each bite. When we finished eating I managed to say “I won’t be able
to do the washing up….. Sorry”. That is something I always do, I am the washing
up slave. We have never bought washing up machine; that is something we both
agree about, it doesn’t make any sense to us. The Kings New Clothes.
When he came he came back in, he turned the TV on and handed
me a second glass of wine.
I sipped that and finally gathered enough of my senses to say
“I think you had better take me to the hospital tomorrow morning, hope you are
not too busy”.
I had worn odd shoes, one of my trainers and one of his since
the fall because my foot was so swollen. Steve looked surprised actually and
took a good look at all the damage and said that he thought I was right, I
should have both areas looked at.
The accident occurred on Sunday May 12th. Our
flight back to Gatwick was on Tuesday 14th
So it was the next day when we went to the hospital
Wednesday 15th.
I was a bit of an angry bunny for a few days afterwards
stuck indoors with my hospital booted leg up resting, and my arm in plaster
from my fingers to a couple of inches above my elbow. I tried not to be too
much trouble but I am a world class fidget and Steve called my daughter to look
in on me now and again while he got on with the work that had piled up while we
had been away. I had to go back to hospital a week or so later to have more
x-rays on the arm, so I had to have the plaster taken off and then after the x-rays
I was sent back to see the consultant after he had looked them, to see if it
was all in order, I was sent to have another plaster put on, thankfully a bit
smaller and not encasing the elbow. I had an appointment to have to plaster off
on June 21st.
I had plenty of time to think. I needed to make a plan to
get through the recovery time and not to go totally mad. I could not do any
training of course and I obviously could not drive.
So I tried to think what I could do to keep my mind occupied.
I had scuttled through some books but that was not helping my unrest.
When I was a school I was in a speech choir that was
conducted by the poetry teacher Mrs Thomas, and I loved the time spend learning
new poems and being trained in a group to perform them. She devised a number of
tests and duties for us and one was to read the lesson at assembly that I
really liked doing. Mrs Thomas entered us for festivals and we learned amusing
poems for school concerts and to keep the other girls happy on rainy days at
lunch time in the school hall. I was sent for poetry exams in Brighton.
All most enjoyable.
So that was it then; get back into poetry. I set about
thinking up a challenge to get me through this annoying time and that was when
I decided that I must… MUST….. write a poem every day until I could get back to
my triathlon training.
This was my first effort. I did write a poem every day and found that it immediately
gave me something that made me happy, not a task at all but sheer pleasure, my
bad mood lifted an drifted away. Steve does not have any interest in poetry but
was happy to listen to my daily word workout and comment after each reading. This
first one, he said was nice but he prefers verses that rhyme better. In fact he
only likes the ones that rhyme, straight four liners. A-B-A-B or better still
every line rhyming. I was happy enough that he would listen. It’s good to have
a sounding board. It made me smile even more. He still listens to all of my
work and is completely honest. If I write anything too serious he will just say
“Heavy man”. That fine, I can live with that. I carried on the one per day for
a couple of years. I still write regularly whenever I have time spare and find
it enormously therapeutic.
Gazing Skyward
Ribs like a Halloween skeleton, purest white
or a swan queen’s feathers cruelly drawn
ghostly fingers tease so soft and light.
Angel wings drift in, movement slight
tinted pink and gold as they were at dawn.
A warm spring sky fades to a hazier hue
as a gossamer lace wedding veil is spread
heavens sigh with delicate shades imbue.
Swallows dart to earth, like dark kisses flew
Dusk, crushing to a million shades of red.
So I got through the darkest days with the help of my poetry.
Looking forward to getting out of plaster but of course that is not the end of
it really because you have lost physical form and building up slowly into a
little bit of training, but making sure that I did all my physio first to get
movement back. It was long road back and when the ITU World Championships in London came along in
September I was nowhere near back to normal fitness let alone at my best for a
major race.
I had also put on a bit, no, more than a bit of weight and
that did not make trying to run again any easier. Extra weight makes no
difference for swimming or cycling but it sure shouts the truth when you try to
run. None the less I did take my place on the GBR team. I was nowhere near back
to normal but I was back, and that made me very happy indeed. I was well and
truly thrashed by other ladies in my age group and I came 6th out of
eight contestants. Still I was as happy as a pig in the brown sticky stuff.
You will get that what I am bellowing about is; that this
current state of affairs is a test for us all. We must apply ourselves to
getting our heads on straight. If we
stay strong through these dark days we will reach that light at the end of the
tunnel. If only our younger friends could have got that much earlier on the
situation it might not have been half as bad. But due to their denial, thinking
that young people didn’t get the Corona
virus, they carried on spreading it around until now the numbers of those infected
is doubling every few days.
An ambulance was called to the house next door to us today.
We now know people who have this plague like disease. Even the PM Boris Johnson
has tested positive, not to mention the heir to the throne Prince Charles. Stay
away from your very elderly but strong minded parents for the love of God.
I hope the spirit of Stevie Smith will forgive me for this abomination
that was number 149 in my poetry writing. It was a bit of a release at the time,
seeing that I had changed shape through my poor wonky foot.
Not Limping but Frowning
Nobody noticed me, said the woman
As she stood by the mirror glowering
I didn’t notice it happening
I’ll stop limping and frowning.
Poor lady, she thought of remarking
My hips no longer match
Limping on that broken leg has made me lopsided
I will the limp despatch.
Oh bugger, tits and bum and shit
Walking straight, and in pain drowning
I have hobbled too long that’s it
And now not limping but frowning.
Stevie Smith 1903- 1971
Not waving but drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much farther out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave
way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but
drowning
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