It’s early October, still warm and wet, which is unusual for Suffolk, one of the driest counties in England. As usual, I’m thinking of cutting back the garden for winter, but am putting it off, enjoying the russet and yellow colours of the hedge shrubs, the leaves settling on the lawn, white mushrooms popping up and bright red berries. I’ve finally accepted that I will need help and hope the person I’ve engaged will grow to love the garden as I do. It’s early days.
The year started with a thump, when I learned that my DLA, the disability benefit I’d depended on, as it gave me access into work, had been cut, so I had to appeal and wait, then appeal and wait, go to a tribunal, get the money to buy my car, as it would be impossible to live out here in the country without one, attempt to get more medical evidence. I still didn’t get awarded PIP, the new disability benefit which replaces it. The new criteria don’t recognise my impairments, which are largely hidden. I don’t matter and I seem to be stuck with a system that doesn’t care as it once did.
This sort of explains why I didn’t start when I hoped.
The idea for a blog comes from when I was doing a course of creative non-fiction, and I got interested in personal essays, memoir and biography. I found that I was comfortable writing up to 1000 words, but not much longer. This may come from my training as a journalist. A succinct form suits me. Getting to the point in as few words as possible is a huge challenge.
I hope to include here a mixture of previous work as well as new writing and welcome constructive comments. All the posts are about some kind of journey; all of life is a journey. If you put them together you’ll get a picture of mine in yours, maybe.
Prologue
Pippa was a bit bleary from the night before and hadn’t removed her make-up, so that there were smears around her eyes. She was smoking, wearing her shell pink satin pyjamas.
She is still a beautiful woman. When she crosses a room, eyes follow her. She dresses to show her body, slim and boy-like despite having had six children. She wears clothes that are a little bit funky. When she was younger, she used to adapt clothes to suit her, by sewing on some lace, or new buttons, or doing machine adjustments. She wanted to be a fashion designer.
“I know it upsets you – and you shouldn’t feel guilty, not at all ……but I need to know. Apart from anything else I need to know from a health point of view”. I had been trying to research the long-term effects of impact on joints and bones because I’d started to get signs of early arthritis. Trying really, to piece together what had happened. I didn’t remember.
She blew a smoke ring and breathed in.
“No, I totally understand that……”
She stubbed out the cigarette then looked at me.
“We were driving along and then suddenly your car overtook us.”
“Was it going fast?”
“Oh yes”
“How fast? Fifty, sixty kilometres an hour?”
“Oh, over that, I’d say.”
“Did it skid or turn over or something?” I’d been told there had been no other cars involved.
“It went into a stone wall, head on. The police couldn’t find any skid marks or signs of brake failure……. If you think about it your whole body, your organs as well as your bones must have been going at that speed when the car hit the wall.”
She carried on with tears falling from her face.
“It was very clear Caroline was dead. There was so much blood. It took ages. You had to be cut out, you were at the bottom of the pile. You were alive when we got you to hospital, but the doctors were very surprised you survived the night.”
When she told me, I felt strangely shocked. It suddenly all made sense, as if finding a missing bit of a jigsaw puzzle.
I suppose everyone has something in their lives which mark a change, and a point from which they can grow. For some people it could be the birth of a child, for others, maybe, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one. For me, I think this was it.
New Directions 