A DAY OF RAINBOWS

'Asthma never goes away,' I told him, 'Not if you don't use the medication to fight it - fresh air isn't going to do it Musician.'

 

I switched off from his ideas, not wanting to hear the feeble answers for neglect. Thank God the doctor gave him a bollicking, and kept him in; that was a first, along with the canula in his hand; that little tap on his blood. He complained about it, and the time we'd had to wait. I shouldn't still have to be this mother, to a thirty year old man. Why don't I have a son who can cope with his own small space in the world? Another fault of mine, I supposed.

 

Now I had to pick up more medication for him from ward 20, on my way to work. He was knackered, he said, and sleeping the whole incident off because they'd woke him every half hour to take his blood pressure, then took him for a chest x-ray at 5am! Not once did he ask how I was, driving home at 3am last night.

 

And down came the rain - in torrents, behind the sun. I had to switch the wipers to insane! Motorways are dangerous places when there's water thrown about but driving over fly-overs through rainbows is worth every moment of near-death collision. They arrived in front of me, one after another, strong bands of colour being born right before my eyes; I'd never seen anything like it in this city before. God was making me jump through hoops - well, drive, but still an effort.

 

Everywhere I turned, a rainbow waited for me - even as I parked at the hospital. This is a sign, I thought. I'm too good to go on strike, to refuse to be a mother to my son, even if he was fifty! So maybe this is his turning point too; it might be his day, his epiphany - even if he is sound asleep in his dusty flat with his loose-haired cat.

MEETING UP WITH ORACLE

I had lunch with Oracle today – well it was really a kind of early supper. We love to sit in Peckham’s and graze a cheese board once a month, with an assortment of drinks; latte, Earl Grey, water, pear cider, coke. Fabulous way to sift through a very late afternoon, though now the clocks have changed, it was dark when we left.

 ‘Ooh, I’m out in the city in the dark!’ I said.

 

He had a new toy, which he showed off; we poured over this beautifully flat and smooth iPod Touch. Oh I just love it. At the moment I carry around five or six books in my work bag; with this wonderful little thing I wouldn’t need any at all – it has access to hundreds of books you can download and either read off its big screen or listen to. Wow! is all I can say. Actually that’s not right, because what I said was…

 

 ‘Hello lovely daughter (in a text message), Mummy wants an iPod Touch from Santa asap. Please.’ I know she’s getting her first big wage this week, because of the promotion, so I’m getting an early Christmas present. Now that is wonderful!

 

All these free aps, including newspapers, notebook, astrology, iChing, Google Earth and loads more. It catches free wifi and just clicks onto it, so you can send emails, blog, do Facebook and Bebo etc. what really attracts me is the books and writing; I should be able to upload some of my work and edit it; or I can write as much as I like and it’s already typed in, isn’t it? I do love my notebooks but I hate having to type it up, so don’t tend to write a lot in them – just notes really, or little pieces of inspiration.

 

So, a stimulating day was had and I sat musing on it and the iPod Touch during the 40 minute train journey; thinking of all the things I could have done to entertain myself with the lovely contraption.

 

WHO ARE WE?

I’ve just joined another writing site – oh yes I did. Some of my online friends from another site are there but under different names. I know that they belong to lots of other places, but wonder how they remember who they are? I can’t depend on my memory remembering who I am at any one time so must be consistent; there will only ever be ireneintheworld for me from now on. I have loads of old email addresses lying around in the ether, and domain names I’ve long forgotten; and MySpace places etc.

 

God, I come across pieces in my notebooks and stagger back in surprise, saying, ‘Did I write that?’ Of course I bloody-well did; who else? How come I don’t remember writing that stuff? The other day I found a whole poem about the Erskine Bridge suicides; it had six or seven verses and I couldn’t remember a word of it. Is this it? Should I be getting myself checked for Alzheimer’s? Mind you, they’d have to think up different questions for me because I haven’t read newspapers or listened to the news for years, so I never know what’s going on in the world – or the name of the prime minister. I don’t know why or how Steven Gately died.

 

I drove across the Erskine bridge that Monday morning, on my way to work, completely unaware that two young teenage girls had joined hands and jumped together, into the cold, dark river, only ten hours earlier. People at work were talking about it so when I drove over after work I felt the emotion rise within me for those poor souls who couldn’t think of another way out. 14 and 15 years old; how tragic is that? Now I’ve got myself upset just thinking about it again; how two girls that age could even contemplate leaping 120 feet, into a dark river.

 

Who we are is important and I’m very happy to stick with ireneintheworld now because she is who I am. I spent a lot years, lost in the wilderness; drinking in a raunchy life; experimenting in further education and creative possibilities; but I know that I’m lucky to have survived all the confusion and desperate moments so offer up prayers to whoever helped me. I am grateful.

BACK IN THE SADDLE - Maybe

Well, I have really lived up to my title here as only Sometimes Functional but I am Present now. Long time since I’ve blogged; I’ve been forced to lie down and worship the big silver box, and my sofa was just sooooo comfortable – I don’t think I’ll ever have to buy a new one. But, I’ve slapped the box off and have taken to my bed – no, not with the vapours, with the laptop…but, I’m still the procrastinator, messing about on chatty writing sites but I am writing poetry. So that’s all right then.

 

Spent my whole day off, Wednesday, lounging in this freshly-made bed, writing fresh poems, then decided about half-past-nine to pop over to the local shop for chocolate – it closes at ten. So imagine the whirl to get some kind of dressed to walk the twenty-five yards. God, I felt light-headed, on strange legs.

 

I almost sailed around that shop, musing on bargains, with a black bra hanging from the fringes of my bag! As I’d left, I felt my bag tug, and thought I’d caught the fringe in the door but was free to carry on. When I arrived back, with my bags of fun-size chockies, I noticed something black lying on the doorstep. I couldn’t believe my luck to see this bra actually jammed in the door; imagine it swinging around me, hooked from my bag – I would only have noticed it when I came to pay, with a queue of people looking on behind me!

 

This could be a new phase in my life, where I return to blogging and work on the writing more, but it might only be a fluke – time will tell. November is National Novel Writing Month so I’ll be battering away at that and, hopefully, finish the novel! We’ll see.