feminish

I ended last week’s fast the evening of the second day.

Those first two days I felt drawn-out and a little bit wonky. Time passed slowly, droolingly and lethargically. I felt empty; spare.

I stopped happily and gently, enjoying the savouriness of a bouillon soup.

In fact, it was kind of the cosmos to arrange the early-finish, because first thing the next morning we received a phonecall from the Patterner’s grandmother up the hill:

“I am dying”

We flew out of the front door and into the car in, I warrant, no more than 15 seconds. There are now some small roadworks in the village, so we even had the chance to blow a red light.

The doctor and ambulance seemed to take an age; time steadied and thickened. With one hundred percent concentration we stayed with her, following our breath and helping her to follow hers. When fear came up in myself I had to immediately take care to dissolve it - and to call on every last drop of my resources of meditation to be present, calmly present, so that she could be present too. We could tell that only if she was calm and not-fearing could her Heart and Will make it.

The women came - Paulette, Anne-Marie. Soon she was swaddled in wool blankets, soft towels and crisp linen; the sweet-smelling feminine trousseau. We comforted and coddled her away from the abyss as Anne-Marie brushed her hair: That’s better. You can’t go to the hospital without a quick brush.

Within a few hours and after a few more alarms she was there, on a wheeled bed in the corridor, shaken and exhausted but returned. Her particular shade of grey was, we remarked, still somewhat better than the grey-whites of certain barely-bodied-humans swooshing past, each chased by their own urgent, white-coated entourage. At one point her blood began to rise up, rich and red, through the drip-tube.

“That’s a good red,” I said. “Just like a British Letterbox.” (”I’m surprised they make it in France”, I might have added, but didn’t.)

She smiled a weak but willing smile, and the Patterner and I fell into humming chorales as we waited for Radiology.

I ended last week’s fast the evening of the second day.

Those first two days I felt drawn-out and a little bit wonky. Time passed slowly, droolingly and lethargically. I felt empty; spare.

I stopped happily and gently, enjoying the savouriness of a bouillon soup.

In fact, it was kind of the cosmos to arrange the early-finish, because first thing the next morning we received a phonecall from the Patterner’s grandmother up the hill:

“I am dying”

We flew out of the front door and into the car in, I warrant, no more than 15 seconds. There are now some small roadworks in the village, so we even had the chance to blow a red light.

The doctor and ambulance seemed to take an age; time steadied and thickened. With one hundred percent concentration we stayed with her, following our breath and helping her to follow hers. When fear came up in myself I had to immediately take care to dissolve it - and to call on every last drop of my resources of meditation to be present, calmly present, so that she could be present too. We could tell that only if she was calm and not-fearing could her Heart and Will make it.

The women came - Paulette, Anne-Marie. Soon she was swaddled in wool blankets, soft towels and crisp linen; the sweet-smelling feminine trousseau. We comforted and coddled her away from the abyss as Anne-Marie brushed her hair: That’s better. You can’t go to the hospital without a quick brush.

Within a few hours and after a few more alarms she was there, on a wheeled bed in the corridor, shaken and exhausted but returned. Her particular shade of grey was, we remarked, still somewhat better than the grey-whites of certain barely-bodied-humans swooshing past, each chased by their own urgent, white-coated entourage. At one point her blood began to rise up, rich and red, through the drip-tube.

“That’s a good red,” I said. “Just like a British Letterbox.” (”I’m surprised they make it in France”, I might have added, but didn’t.)

She smiled a weak but willing smile, and the Patterner and I fell into humming chorales as we waited for Radiology.