Sunday Brunch

Too Little Too Early...

Ed Ruscha at Fair Art

Dear all,

Sunday Brunch being dropped in your mailbox a day early. Well there is a novelty. The reason being: I don’t have that much to say this week. I have reached the maximum stretch to my resilience. I need to replenish. I will do so with some peace and quiet, a lot of crochet and (temporarily) letting go of my dietary restrictions. Oh, and I will be watching a sickening amount of Hallmark Christmas movies.

CANCER SABBATICAL

Starting tomorrow, with a proper good ole fashioned Sunday rest, I am taking a “cancer sabbatical”. That is, until I sit down next Friday to discuss the results of my final test (I think), the MRI.

READING & WRITING

I felt a little spark last week, when I noticed that writing had given me some headspace, more room to breathe and be. This week the walls caved in again. Living with uncertainty, the questions, while looking after my battered body, it is a lot.

I wanted to finish writing the essay about forgiveness this week and share it today but it remains a work in progress. I saw a lovely poem somewhere, perfect for a snippet, but I can’t find it. Also have a profile on Ruben Levav in the pipe works. He was a painter, a poet and and a tap dancer extraordinaire who clickety clacked his way into my life when I had just moved back to Amsterdam eons ago. I need to tell you about him, to make him live on, not just in my heart, but in the minds of people who never had the chance to meet him. But I can’t find the words now to do him justice.

Ruven Levav - Illusie III

I wanted to read this week too. I brought a stack of books with me when I left Valea: Botany of desire, Medieval Bodies, the mammoth book on Dracula, Kader Abdolah on Rumi. I also have Marianne Frederikson books on the children of paradise waiting for me. In the nice tangible paper bound version that I picked up at a local flea market. I love flea markets.

FEELING HOMELESS

It’s why I will need a home again. Not just to sleep and cook and do laundry in or cuddle my beasties lying next to a wood burner, but to have space for random treasures. This past week thinking about home and belonging has crept up on me and to be honest it has knocked me sideways. How I never felt I belonged. The first five years of my life we lived in a village where I felt loved. Safe. I have never again felt safe since then. Ever.

Valea Zalanului became the psychological horror version of this. Revisiting this right now, may not be the best thing to do (as it does make me want to look for an exit… I do not want to live in a world with so much callous cruelty, such a lack of compassion, the sadistic schadenfreude, the perpetual darkness that no light can lift), but I ended up writing about it on Facebook:

“I cry. Not because I have spent the past six weeks going in and out of the hospital. Not because people around me are shit scared of losing me. I am not even crying because my body aches all over. I am crying because I was looking at photos. I can barely make myself look at them. Because I can’t accept that the ones who died won’t come back. Because when I look at them I want to run to the hills and get the ones who are still alive back. I can’t find the words to explain what this does to me. The anguish.

For months I have stuck my head in the sand. Ever since I buried Muki and had to take his three half siblings to a sheep farm (because in spite of me sending literally everyone I know a TikTok video bawling my eyes out and begging for help to find them homes I barely received any response) I am broken. Six months later I still feel as shattered as the day I lost the last one. The day I dropped Banhi, Bark and Boru off I think I died, emotionally and spiritually I checked out. I still have not returned in full.

I have to now, my life depends on it, and I feel reluctant to. I spoke to someone recently, a shaman, talking about the root and reality of my current situation. I know that whatever is happening in my body now is the result of the year from hell. Never in my life have I suffered so much heartache and so much loss. They asked me: when did you decide the world is such a hostile place?

I think it started with getting burgled - which not only came with a huge financial loss and the blow of loosing things that had sentimental value but also broke my sense of safety. Then the judge appointed the case went out of her way to humiliate me in court and treat me like the criminal. It got so spectacularly rude and out of line, that afterwards even the opposing council representing the defendant came up to me to apologize. But this pales in comparison to what was yet to follow.

To people who do not connect with animals the way I do this may sound so alien. They were “just pets”.

They weren’t. They were my family. They were entrusted to me to keep them loved and safe and I almost got destroyed in the process. I failed and it did not just break my heart, it isolated me. I lost connection with the world, with other people. I don’t think I have ever felt so abandoned in my life as I have this past year and a half. Kind and loving words from a distance and digital hugs did not ease the pain or take away from the fact that I stood by each grave alone. I don’t ever want to be that lonely ever again.

I have months of tears still ahead of me. All this clogged up emotional gunk needs to be purged and released if I want to have a chance to heal. The shaman said: stop looking for the exit.

I know I am responsible for creating my own reality and I am dissecting it all to see where the learning lies. I am working on my Substack essay on forgiveness and in writing I realize I have a long way to go again. I have lost faith in the world. Faith in “people”. I was never a cynical or suspicious person but boy how I have changed these past few years. It’s scares me in a way. Instead of walking away with my head held high I feel a different urge. Scorched earth, burning bridges, fight fire with fire… yes there is a rage still so raw that there is nothing but sharp edges.

Boundaries are a big one. I have a little bit of Buddha in me but I am far from enlightened. Compassion, understanding and patience are important to me. I care and want people around me feel that they are cared for.

Now I need to first and foremost care for myself. Persistent depletion and desperation have ultimately led me into a “put your own oxygen mask on first” situation.

I listen to my favorite healing meditation and hear Deepak Chopra say: Every decision I make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle. Beyond all grievances, resentments and regrets I choose the miracle.

I hope the miracle chooses me too.”

I have to be fair too. Fair to those there who do still choose the light. I will always think of my neighbour Eva and her family fondly. I love them. My other neighbour Margit is someone who I would want to go for a walk in the woods with every single day, for the rest of my life. I honest to God do not know how they manage to stay kind in such a harsh and unforgiving environment.

How I experienced my time there, is filtered though previous hurts, and it is bigger than just the village. There were too many broken promises, false friendships and so much flaky nonsense all around. When will I learn!?

(I recently read a post on Instagram that was so eerily apt: Narcissists make future promises to get what they want from you now, without ever following through on their promises… that one hit very close to home, multiple times…)

My babies Banhi (left) and Bark (right)

FEAR AND FAITH

These past weeks, ever since my midnight trip to the ER, I have been making a conscious effort to focus on the good stuff. The people who are here for me. The people who pulled me out of Valea and offered me refuge. Who did all they could to help. Who found the farm to take in the pups (where Bark sat proudly staring over the hills, while Banhi and Boru hid underneath the tractor, and where the farmer consoled me saying: “Don’t worry, Bark will take care of them, they will follow her lead…)

The love, the kindness, the support. Good food, the way the light trickles through the trees onto the moss after the rain. The way it sparkles as if covered with a billion tiny diamonds. I have even allowed myself to dream a little of things that may still lie ahead. In my daily meditations I let it all fly and let myself fall into the universe.

I wish I could explain to you properly how I am feeling, but maybe later. Right now I feel a strong resistance to all of it. I need time, to sit with it. Feel my way through with myself, and for myself first. The way I used to go into the the oncologist’s office alone. I am a lone wolf in that sense. I cannot bear the presence of other people in pivotal moments. “Do you have enough warm hugs to comfort you?” my cousin asked when I told her yesterday how I am. No, I told her. I cannot bear anyone touching me right now.

I didn’t read, I didn’t write. I spoke to a few people but then put my phone on flight mode. I don’t read the newspapers, I don’t watch the news. I can’t let the world in. I also have very little capacity to take in other people’s troubles. I want to be supportive of friends and family but I can feel myself get more drained with each conversation.

Ever since the MRI scan last Thursday I have felt out of sorts in every way. I became dizzy, nauseous, ears ringing, blurry eye sight (new glasses are on the way but it may not be entirely down to that). The weather is wreaking havoc on my scars and my nerve pain is through the roof. I am beyond tired. I am exhausted. Emotionally, physically, spiritually. I need to find a way to feel safe again in my own body, before I can broaden the scope.

Thank you for reading, for being here, for witnessing this moment with me. Even if in silence…

Love Lee XXL

PS Here is a song I love