Saturday musings

R is off for a weekend getaway with his gf and I am at home with the two pups and my head. I sometimes wonder if I should be writing more, but there are days when words simply elude me and thoughts that came at 2am are no more than wisps of fog across my brain at 7am. So I will stick to my mantra that quality is better than quantity, even if that may be a little delusional!

The inevitable has occurred and a family member back in South Africa has COVID. It’s my fathers wife who has it, and he is not isolating from her in any manner, so he will get it too. I could hear in his voice that he is not well, I think he is still in denial, but that is not my fight. After the very short chat and text message, I was amazed at how nonchalant he was about this whole virus and also how surprised he was at how quickly his wife’s workplace had been infected. His assurances that I need not worry as he was taking precautions, did very little to lessen same. It is what it is and we wait.

My rounds of doctors and tests are soon coming to a close. The last round (hopefully for at least 6 months) is due in a months time. Except that may change all based on a test today. I will find out in a week if I will be referred to an oncologist – something my doctor failed to tell me when I saw her a year ago. She told my GP, who also did not tell me that if I tested positive, oncology was next. Obviously a year means that whatever this is it is treatable and not aggressive. But a week is a long time especially since I am home for most of that thanks to some public holidays.

Am I scared? Yes. Any attempt at bravado will be insincere. But I also know I am lucky to be in a country that has good health care and it is affordable.

Today’s news has made me really think about what is important. I had so many things lined up to do while R is away. Instead I am here, reading the words and thoughts of people I admire and consider pen pals. I am reading a favourite book again because I can easily conjure the images in my mind and it has depth and flavour. I am enjoying the small treats I got for myself, the house sighing and settling, the sound of the crickets as the temperature rises and my clock ticking resolutely on. The dogs who come for cuddles at random moments and then lie curled up in a cool space, bodies twitching as they dream their dreams. I am slowing down for the next 3 days and letting the moment decide what is important.

I don’t often recommend books here, but Brian mentioned this one in a Halloween post and I updated my Kindle accordingly. “Something wicked this way comes” is an amazing read. Words ebb and flow and sometimes you can hear that throb as Bradbury weaves his magic. Of course the title flows from Macbeth and the witches, but there is a paragraph that lives for me:

“Death doesn’t exist. It never did, it never will. But we’ve drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we’ve got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, and end, a darkness. Nothing. And the carnival wisely knows we’re more afraid of Nothing than we are of Something. You can fight Something. But … Nothing? Where do you hit it? Has it a heart, soul, butt-behind, brain? No, no. So the carnival just shakes a great croupier’s cupful of Nothing at us, and reaps us as we tumble back head-over-heels in fright. Oh, it shows us Something that might eventually lead to Nothing, all right.”

Which rathe circuitously leads me back to the start. Dad may not get COVID (very unlikely since he is not isolating from his wife) and he may never have complications. I may never need an oncologist. But it is better than Nothing, to have Something to fret over. What I can say with certainty is that I don’t worry over death itself. There Bradbury has it right – it is just an end. What comes after it, I am not sure, I have my own theories and beliefs, just as you have yours.

But I’ll continue for now letting the moment dictate the mood and what I do next, and let Something worry in those hours somewhere between witching hour and dawn. Have a good Saturday!