The Quagmire of Ick and Brene Brown who is not even a bit in it.

Oh, you know, this week has had no form.  I remember on last Monday morning, writing my plans for the week ahead on the whiteboard in the studio, and feeling blank then.  I am not sure if I wrote anything more than the very basics of what I wanted to get done this week, in the vaguest of language.  For example, on Tuesday in the Family bit, it had "bath".  And in the Work bit of Tuesday it had "paint".   And now it is Saturday night.  Here I sit on my fancy sofa, my twinkly cushions all around me, having had a bath and put on my dressing gown that smells gloriously of scented washing liquid with added fabric softener and the essence of kitten laughter and snow;  here I sit and think what, what was it, that I did this week?

How about this then.  On Wednesday evening, a friend took me to see Prof Brene Brown talking about vulnerability, shame, guilt, love and hope.  Brene Brown is wonderfully amusing and clever.  Have a look at this

and now, I can't think straight.  I can't tell you anything at all about the week just gone, it feels as if my head is stuffed with cotton wool.  I loved seeing Brene Brown, and I think there is much in what she says about dealing with people who face dying.  When someone is facing their death, they are sometimes paralysed with vulnerability.  We, looking on, trying to help, may not understand this, we may not recognise it in them, nor in ourselves. We are ever so vulnerable too.  At the Hospice this week a parent that I had met just once a day before, said to me just hours after his daughter had died, will I recover?  I felt lost and vulnerable.  I didn't know what to say, I would love to have been knowing and right and the boss, but I was just a volunteer.  There was nothing I could say, and you know, one of the things that I felt was that of all the people to ask, I am the worst.  I am not a nurse, I am not a therapist, I am not trained and I don't know what to say or do.  So I hugged this father and held him tight and thought that nothing could be as bad as this for him ever again.


You may have to forgive this week's blog for being a bit below par.  I feel a bit below par.  There are butterflies in my tummy and I am trying to work out why they are there.  Here is what I have come up with.

• The real success of flea treatment from the Pest Control Department is leaving the stuff they put on the floors untouched for 3 weeks.  No hoovering, no washing, no nuffink.  So now, a week later, I am beginning to feel the panic of a housewife who knows that very soon, she can write her name with her foot, in the detritus on the floor.  So, in my mind, my house is falling down around me.  I hate dirt and mess in the house, and feel if I have it under a bit of control, my mind will work and I will come up with full and complete ideas and not stint on the follow-through.
• I am not Brene Brown who I think is really who I am meant to be.  Only she got there first.
• I have a talk to do on Spirituality and Well Being at the End of Life.  I haven't started, and I keep not doing it.  It is for very soon and if I don't do it, I will have proved to myself that I should be fired by myself.  I had a horoscope done many years ago and one of the things that was recommended for me to do, for which I would be absolutely top notch, is running a typing agency.  I shall do that then.
• I can't remember where anything is. 15 year old son thinks I am going to die soon. 
• Older Son is gone from the house.  He has found a bedsit and a college place and has moved away.  Oh what a good thing this is, but I worry.  
• Instead of doing my talk, I have said said to anyone and everyone, Oooh pick me!  Pick me! so I now have tons of meetings to go to and very important things to do for other people.  I have begun to ask anyone who is nice to me if they wouldn't mind writing the whole presentation for me, but no one really knows what I am talking about.  Not a good thing for someone who needs to get a message across.
• What message?

I have just forced myself to do this week's plan.  I did it in green pen so that I would be happy when I look at it because I love the colour green.  It is a busy week, there is no doubt about that, and I hope that by this time next week I will be like Hilary Clinton, or Boudicca, or Elizabeth I, getting things done, with nice hair, and lots of authority.  But this week, I am lost in a quagmire of ick.  What a good title for an autobiography,  Lost In A Quagmire Of Ick, a life by Antonia Rolls.

As I was writing this, I looked to my left and there, waving the front two of its long legs at me, was a very large black spider.  It was just a breath away from my shoulder, on the sofa cushion next to me.  Think yourself lucky, it seemed to say with its legs testing the air in front of it, think yourself lucky.  I am a nice spider, full of charm and wit. I do a lot of volunteering too, and am very keen on green issues, but do you think it makes any difference?  No.  not a bit of it.  Despite the redoubtable character qualities that I possess, people run yelling Mama!  when they see me.  I am handicapped, don't you see, from the start.  But you, continued my noble spider, have everything.  No one runs yelling when they see you, and you do not have to hide your light under a bushell, as I do.  You can afford to go out there, do your stuff, and you are given chance after chance after chance.  All I get if I come out into the open, is a person with a hoover, or a broom, or a fly swat.  So buck up my darling, buck up.  An early night, a cup of tea, and tomorrow is all yours for the taking.

Mama! I yelled, Spider!  And then I felt guilty because it wasn't fair to tease it like that.  So I picked up the cushion and put the spider on the floor behind my sofa, and wished it good luck in its volunteering, and  climbed back on the sofa quick in case it came anywhere near me and I would have to hoover it.   You are right, large spider, I said to it from the sofa as I sat with my legs tucked up underneath me, not one part of me touching the floor - you are right.  Thank you, I will go to bed now, and let us hope that you find an equal amount of peace, there, under my sofa, as I will from my bed.  Just don't come out till I have left the room. 

And now, to leave you, the answer to this Quagmire of Ick.  This must have been magicked by the spider, who I think was a kind of guru.  Here is a quote from Heart Jewel by Geshe-La and sent to me by spider power and by my friend Gail on Facebook - thank you Gail, I am healed.

'Your mind of wisdom realizes the full extent of objects of knowledge, Your eloquent speech is the ear ornament of the fortunate, Your beautiful body is ablaze with the glory of renown, I prostrate to you, whom to see, to hear and to remember is so meaningful...' (from Heart Jewel - Geshe-La)

What I look like when in the Quagmire of Ick.  That is chocolate in my mouth. 

 And then, after the quote from Heart Jewel via Gail, and after the words of wisdom from Super Spider

On top of a mountain, a winner, with my three glorious brothers.