Daisy

Daisy and I earlier this summer. She loved that sheep wool rug

 Work-in-progress: Self Portrait with Daisy

Since my last blog post I have had surgery and Daisy has been put to sleep (it happened when I was in hospital; they let me go home for a couple of hours to say goodbye to her). She was over 16 years old, semi-blind and -deaf and had cancer on her nose and kidney problems. She was with us for one year, and it is nice to know that she experienced all four seasons in Spiddal. The scab on her nose had progressively got worse, and the monthly injections to prevent it from becoming infected no longer helped. Towards the end she was very disoriented, walking in circles and disappearing into the polytunnel - she loved her sauna - for long periods of time.

Animals feel it when we are suffering, and Daisy was so good to me. After the miscarriage she would lie on my belly, and she would curl up to me (or climb onto me as shown in the painting above) when I was unable to move during the worst times of the chemoradiation and nearly always cover or touch the affected area. I believe I received a lot of healing from her.

We miss her, but it was time to let her go, and we are so grateful for the year she kept us company. It is eerily quiet in the mornings without her demanding her breakfast.

The new reality

 Distraction and escape

Instructions from John

 

Discovering new pieces of music; a poem about a bee sent by a friend who bought my beekeeper painting; 

IMMA booklet; a sketch for a self portrait with Daisy the cat; a photo from when we thought all was well, 

sent with a wedding thank you card; a small apple from our garden, found in the grass by my nephew

That was a long unintended hiatus from this space. The chest pain I mentioned in my last post turned out to be a symptom of lung cancer, a diagnosis I never would have expected, but had begun to fear during the weeks of tests and worrying. It is a rare form that tends to hit young fit female non-smokers like myself. As I write this I am entering a four-week break after four cycles of chemotherapy and five weeks of daily radiotherapy.

In among the uncertainty, fear and shock and feeling ill from the treatment (as fate would have it, the week around my due date was the worst in terms of side effects), there have been a lot of good moments.  First and foremost, I am overwhelmed by the love shown to us. So much help and support has come our way, in myriad forms - practical things such as lifts to and from the hospital, visits, phone calls, lunches, road trips, lawn-mowing, impromptu birthday celebrations (the first round of chemo was on my 35th birthday - we have the best neighbours in the world on this little cul-de-sac that is our Baile), the kindness of health professionals and healers. Two friends in particular got me through the weeks before the diagnosis. There are always fresh flowers in our house; we have received hundreds of cards and letters and thoughtful gifts. I have regained old friends, and so many people, even people who don't know me, have got in touch.

I have never been closer to my family; they have been amazing. My mum has been looking after me for nearly three months now and is about to go home to Germany for a while. We have spent a lot of time with my sister (who, among other things, drove me to a faith healer three times and has been cooking and baking healthy meals and treats, all with a baby and toddler to care for) and her family, and my younger sister (+bump) and her family are coming soon - even though they are in Germany, it feels as if they have been here as well, as we have so much contact - she sends me carefully selected quotes first thing each morning and has been doing research for me. She also put me in touch with this incredible woman.

John and I made it to Dublin one Sunday to see the current Freud Project exhibition at IMMA. I felt like an old woman walking around the gallery, but I was glad we went. The curator has juxtaposed paintings by Lucian Freud with works by artists including Gwen John and Marlene Dumas and writers Emily Dickinson and John Berger, among others, as well as watercolours of plant and animal cells by Lucian's grandfather Sigmund Freud and various audio recordings (of a song, a short story, an interview with a plant biologist) - a fascinating, wondrous mix.

A few months ago John bought this beautiful book as a gift for someone, then decided to keep it. Most evenings he will look up that day's page and then find the corresponding piece and play it.

I was reading too many books about cancer and healing and have returned to reading for pleasure (getting lost in Zelda Fitzgerald's life and Michael Harding's latest memoir). After weeks of feeling stuck I am also drawing and painting again and have taught three art classes from home since starting treatment. John is helping me with my paintings based on views of Galway Bay - I would always take notes of the changing skies and the sea on our way home, and he supplied the one above, with detailed information and a gentle nudge...

A small island in winter

We picked the coldest day of this year for our overnight stay on Inis Meáin. To conquer the cold we spent most of the time walking and some of the time drinking hot whiskey. This was my fourth time on the island, and it has to be one of my favourite places for walking. If you struggle with practising mindfulness, walk on Inis Meáin. The view is spectacular no matter where you are, and the abundance of stone walls creates a trance-inducing pattern to traverse. You are reminded how very little you actually need in life. We certainly didn't miss wifi; we both read more than we had read in the previous two weeks.

I had brought Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life (I got it in the English translation, as I wanted to pass it on to others), and we both read it in one go and loved it and reread passages. With its themes of landscape and solitude, it was a fitting read for this place. Then I started and finished Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift, and while it would be far-fetched to make a connection, it also seemed a perfect read for this island retreat. Perhaps it is something to do with the act of reading a novella in a small house on a small island, a strangely beautiful haunting atmosphere evoked in a slim volume, an entire universe revealed in one sitting. There was also this contrast: It describes an unusually warm day in March 1924, and I read it on almost the same date of this unusually cold March of 2018 and imagined feeling the buzzing warm air.

The renovated cottage we stayed in gave us a glimpse into what life would have been like for the islanders of the past and still is for some. We saw picture book scenes that no doubt were the beautiful façade of a labour-intensive existence - a lamb next to a cockerel in a field, cows with healthy thick coats, painted water pumps. The Harry Clarke windows in the church are worth repeat visits. The people we rented accommodation from were in love with the island and chose to come back after time on the mainland, and while it can be bleak and harsh, especially in the colder months, it has its own rewards.

I read and walked and slept (or attempted to sleep) through stabbing chest pains that have had me on edge for the last two weeks and returned, if not without symptoms, more at peace. And the sun came out on the second day; we opened the front door and got a chair and sat in the perfectly sheltered entrance.

Slower

 

Daisy is more affectionate than ever. Animals really are able to tell when somebody is in pain. She seeks my company and purrs at the loudest volume possible for her 15-year old self. I regularly fall asleep on the couch with her in my arms.

I am finishing illustrations for a sweet story about a walking stick, and Rab's new book (with my drawings) has just been published.

One thing the last two months have taught me is to slow down. I am quitting self-sabotaging, energy-robbing actions that used to be so much part of my daily life that I wasn't conscious of how corrosive they had become.  And I have only myself to blame for most of them. One example: Now my default is that I only check e-mail once a day unless I am in work and don't have it open in another tab while working on the computer. I have never been tied to my phone: I have very few apps, it is on flight mode half the day, and it doesn't ping. But on the laptop I used to have e-mail open, and since even the awareness of your phone/e-mail in your periphery affects your cognitive abilities, I make sure to clear as many of the surrounding distractions as possible.

The days I work from home I have been taking breaks to do some gardening. Earlier this week I removed all the dead dead plant debris that was in the way of the daffodils that are trying to emerge. I only spent half an hour outside and gathered three wheelbarrow-loads, but it cleared my head and it was satisfying to see the transition from brown to green. 

I re-read Oliver Burkeman's piece on underachieving, a timely reminder. The fortunate side-effect of all this slowing down and doing less is that I am doing more of the things that matter as a result.

In progress

The moss stitch blanket I had been wanting to make for years is finally taking shape and is the easiest thing to knit, which makes it ideal for knitting while talking, but not necessarily to switch off your brain. Something more challenging would be required for that, though I do try to enter a trance of knit-purl-knit-purl, akin to a breathing exercise. I am using DMC Natura XL (cotton may not be the warmest choice for a blanket), but with size 8 needles, not the suggested 12, as it was too lacy with the latter.

The sky and the horizon in the large seascape change colour every day, as I cannot decide on the combination. Originally this was upside down and the dark blue was a beginning blurry cloud, inspired by a view from the car on our way home. Then John came in and turned it on its head, and now the sea has become the sky and the cloud is turning into who knows what, but I like it.

We watched a BBC documentary about the artist James Dickson Innes last night, and it made me realise once more how vague and shy my colours can be. I am tempted to start afresh.

Missed

(This post contains some details about miscarriage)

A week before Christmas we got the bad news. It was the day of our 12-week scan (after five days of being ill, which turned out to be unrelated, but was worrying as I had started spotting parallel to it and ran a fever), and we found out it was a missed miscarriage: the embryo had died in week 7, but everything else had continued to grow and develop, accompanied by first-trimester symptoms.

I had been fearful of pretty much everything relating to childbirth and being a parent, but for some reason a potential loss was one thing I neglected to worry about - not that worrying has the ability to prevent anything. It all felt right, and I trusted my instinct. Now I cannot believe how I was so sure of my body.

Before it happened to us I knew several friends and acquaintances had had miscarriages and stillbirths, heartbreakingly sad stories. Since then so many more people have opened up about their experiences, including recurrent miscarriages. We do not know what the future holds, and I am trying to learn to not worry so much about what may or may not happen - we have no control over anything - and to live with uncertainty.

Strangely, the first book I read afterwards and derived some comfort from was 10% Happier by Dan Harris. It took this sceptic's memoir about embracing meditation and mindfulness (he is not particularly impressed by the likes of Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra) to get me back into meditation, an on-and-off relationship for me (unlike my almost-daily yoga practice), but now perhaps more needed than ever.

When I started meditating again, I was surprised at how fast the 20 minutes go by. I will experience physical discomfort when sitting still and have way too many thoughts, but it doesn't feel never-ending. It is the same when kneading dough for sourdough bread (my sister gave me a starter): 20 minutes that just evaporate.

It has only been seven consecutive days of meditating and yoga, as I took a break while regaining my strength; even though I knew it would aid the grieving process I couldn't bring myself to do anything beyond the basics to get through each day, and my energy went into holding it together in company. We buried what is referred to as the 'tissue' (in my case an intact fist-size sac with the embryo, and the placenta) under an apple tree in the garden, and I am glad we did. My sister had a baby boy a day after I miscarried, so there was some light and joy among the sadness.

My confidence in my body has been seriously battered, yet in some way I feel stronger, even though I am struggling to gain weight. I had always been convinced I would want a C-section - which of course is not easy either - if we ever were to have a baby, but having gone through labour pain (I used misoprostol at home*), I have conquered my fear of natural childbirth, even though it was terrifying and traumatic and with no happy ending. I can only assume it is similar to what women mean when they say you 'forget' the agony of labour.

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Here are two articles about miscarriage and the silence that surrounds it, despite the fact that it is so common:

Earlier this month Kathryn Thomas, an Irish TV presenter, talked about her miscarriages on The Late Late Show

Actress Laura Benanti: My Experience with the Voldemort of Women's Health Issues


*There is no way to predict exactly how a miscarriage will proceed, and they vary depending on numerous factors. That may be the reason women are given so little information on what will happen (the lack of information is a recurring theme in the online forums). My obstetrician and GP were both wonderful. We were unlucky to have had a bad experience with Cytotec, including side effects, and I was weak from being ill, but I would choose this option (or waiting for it to happen naturally) again; I was glad I didn't have to go into hospital for a d&c. 

Books | The Vanishing Man by Laura Cumming

"The painting I saw that day seems to hold death back from the brink even as it acknowledges our shared human fate. [...] Because of Velázquez, these long-lost people will always be there at the heart of the Prado, always waiting for us to arrive; they will never go away, as long as we are there to hold them in sight. Las Meninas is like a chamber of the mind, a place where the dead will never die. The gratitude I feel to Velázquez for this greatest of paintings is untold: he gave me the consolation to return to my own life."
(Cumming, Laura: The Vanishing Man. In Pursuit of Velázquez, Vintage, London 2016, p.4)

"The truth of life, the mortal truth of our brief walk in the sun, has to be set down in a flash of brilliant brushstrokes that are themselves on the verge of dissolution. The picture, the person, the life: all are here now, but on the edge of disappearing. It is the very definition of the human condition."
(ibid., p.264)

Velázquez's Las Meninas is my favourite painting, so I was thrilled to see Laura Cumming (whose book A Face to the World, about self portraits, blew me away) publish this gem of a book. It is the true story of a 19th-century bookseller's obsession with a portrait that led him into ruin, and a paean to Velázquez's genius, exploring the extraordinary humanity and dignity of his paintings, his deep respect for all his subjects.

So much has been written about Las Meninas, but Cumming adds her unique vision to all the voices. I felt a particular affinity with the genesis of this book, which was triggered by grief over the author's father's death, but the way Cumming weaves the universal truth of life and death into her story of this and other paintings is bound to move anybody reading her book. Cumming's life was changed by Velázquez and so was John Snare's (the bookseller), and The Vanishing Man has a lot to say about how we are affected by art, which of course we never perceive in a vacuum.

Las Meninas isn't the painting at the heart of this story, but it is a vital part and appears throughout the book, which combines (art) history, mystery, a double-biography and psychology in an intriguing blend of non-fiction. Both the bookseller John Snare and Velázquez are elusive figures, yet Cumming manages to bring them to life, and their presence in this world, which she conjures so beautifully and with such love and empathy, continues to haunt me long after finishing the book.

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Here is a short video of Laura Cumming talking about the book.