Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Crushing

Believe me, I know I have a pretty good life. I live in a beautiful place called Laurel Canyon. I get to see trees and birds and squirrels every day. I have two healthy, happy children. I have a cordial relationship with my ex husband. I have warm, kind, funny friends. I have work that I love and clients who are brilliant and chill. In Laurel Canyon the sun shines most of the time. [But we could do with a little bit of rain or even a bloody huge downpour for a few months]. The only thing that I sometimes think about, even as my three four-legged friends snuggle up to me in my bed at night and make noises that I consider affectionate, is being lonely. I have bored my kind and patient readers with this subject more than once. But, if I am honest I have to say that these last few weeks have been particularly crappy. It started with a dogfight. My dog started it as she is wont to do by barking furiously at the dogs on the other side of the fence. This time, they had had enough and they pulled us through the iron bars and proceeded to maul her. More foolhardy than brave, I leapt into the fray, and did exactly the one thing you are not supposed to do in a dog fight – put your hands in. I did. They got bitten. And after a visit to the emergency room for both of us we have puncture wounds [Both of us], broken bones [me] and a lost nail [lucky me, again].

Don't believe what anybody tells you, finger injuries hurt like a mofo. Stuffed full of Tramadol [both of us], we lay in bed together and moaned softly and pitifully. My two favorite things in the world are writing and riding and I can do neither. I am dictating this into my iPhone and hoping that I don't sound completely moronic.

On top of that, after lovely parents weekend spent in Maine, with my daughter and my ex-husband and various friends, a weekend filled with football games and beer pong and lobsters and L.L. Bean and laughing and staying at friends houses and visiting book shops in small New England towns and seeing old friends and eating pink lady apples fresh off the trees, I have come home cleverly with a miserable cold that has turned into gravelly voiced bronchitis, so that I sound like a distinctly un-sexy old man.

But, I am aware that while lying in bed at night and looking out at strange stars, or finding poems in the early morning when I can't sleep, or even driving to a Q&A with my client last night, down Sunset Boulevard, packed with cars driving too fast, or looking at the way the night comes early now as I sit at the dining room table and mourn the passing of summer, and whenever I feel even a little despair, I conjur up an image of the sweet man I have a little crush on and suddenly all is well and I have a silly smile on my face. It's so odd isn't it that even the thought of a wonderful person produces a warm and not unlovely glow, akin to the way you feel on bonfire night as a child when your hands are cold and it's slightly raining but somebody brings around the hot sausages on sticks and you can see the embers of the fire smouldering, with pictures in them. For the first time in quite a long while, and this may sound a little odd, it's easy for me to fall back asleep when I wake up in the middle of the night because I just close my eyes and think lovely thoughts and then everything is cozy and warm and OK. The world no longer seems menacing or even slightly scary. I said to him the other day, "it's nice to have someone in your corner" And it is. It may be nothing. It may be something. But today, with the ghastly broken finger and the voice that sounds like a coalminer and the prospect of spending 11 hours on a Transatlantic flight, absolutely nothing seems unsurmountable.

The second thing is I have discovered or re-discovered Robert Bly. Listen to this quote; "I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness."









(sent via voice dictation as my fingers heal, please forgive shoddy sentence construction and dodgy punctuation)




4 comments:

LPC said...

I am so impressed with your dictation! And, so happy there's something sweet to think on late at night.

Katherine C. James said...

Your injuries sound significant; I hope you are healing. A wonderful person in our corner is a very good thing, whether it turns out to be something more or nothing. Your Bly line is gorgeous and true. Your dictation, as Lisa noted above, is excellent. xo.

Rowan said...

I hope he treats you gently and with respect for your feelings. More than that, I hope you have a wonderful time!
Here's hoping your fingers heal quickly. I'm full of admiration that the inability to type has not stopped you. As the others have said, it doesn't sound like just straight dictation. You've done well!
Cheers,
Deborah - Melbourne, Australia

Unknown said...

I concur with all previous sentiments re your dictation, I had no idea until you told us. I hope you get better soon. I too have a feisty (and very small) terrier, but luckily after a few fights in London, he's finally learned his lesson and now behaves impeccably. I also hope the someone in your corner is nice to you!