It would be a strange diary if i didn't write about the death of my little cat Comfrey. On thursday October 8th i had to take him to the vets to be put to sleep. He was a brilliant cat and i loved him. They say its the final act of kindness we do for our pets, and maybe it is or maybe it isn't, but it never feels good and the memory of it never feels good. But seeing him in pain and knowing that death comes to only a few of us easily i made the call. Archie took me there because i don't have a car and i didn't want to carry his poor tired little body in a cage in the rain to his final moments and i wanted to be able to cuddle him home. Amis came over before and we cried and he said goodbye, and Rich video called him on wednesday and Jessamy saw him on sunday which was the day when it became clear that he wasn't going to get well again. I spoke to the vet, Tom, on tuesday in a phone consultation he had seen him a couple of times over the summer so he knew his condition and he had been his vet for the past four years. i made the decision that evening knowing it was the best course, it hurt. It feels like betrayal not mercy, but not doing it also feels like betrayal not mercy. 

Comfrey had been ill in January and it didn't seem like he had long to go then but he made a recovery. From then i knew really that i was on borrowed time with him counting each day as a blessing but also wondering if in the morning i'd wake to find him dead, everyday my heart would leap with joy when i came downstairs and was greeted by a little mew or if he came upstairs to wake me. 

The thing with animal friendships is that they are so innocent. I guess being different creatures we are not part of their politics and they are not part of ours. The connection is special if you love them. Watching him go downhill i was struck by the courage of old things which is different to the courage of youth. To be in a body that is letting you down and to keep going, keeping letting good in is no mean feat. 

I don't know how much of this is diary, how much blog, how much me thinking out loud but Comfrey was my Covid companion so it seems right he should have special mention in my Covid Diary. Rest in Peace little one. You were brilliant.  

Dedicated to Comfrey died October 8th 2020

October 10th 2020

Covid19 Diaries - part 3

Also thanks to Archie & Amis for helping me bury him.

....

And in response to stained glass artist Sophie Hussain's kind comments on his facebook obituary

"Sophie Hussain xx he runs past me in the garden when i go out in the dark to check for foxes so he knows it is safe ... is on the wall coming back from a roam ... is in his tiny old poor sad body on his bed in the hall ... is lithe and young and re-meeting his mummy who i had to have put to sleep in summer 2016 ... i hope she is looking after him ... he is a kitten in my son Richard's base drum bashing the skin with his paws ... and snubbing Amis on his way home from a night shift in the small hours ... he is exploring the house and the garden we used to stay in on holiday ... he'll always be my boy xxx"

Here we are in October already and it feels like this year disappeared while i was away. Away where ? No where. At home mostly. Lucky to have a home but home alone is lonely. Sometimes when i am lonely my best cure is deeper solitude, connecting to the place and space i occupy. But the yearning for understanding and witness by another being like me, for exchange of thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams, feels like a trapped flame. Will i ever meet a like companion again ? Has the virus made the lack of such a companion more painful or is it just another environmental circumstance, a convenient excuse for my discontent. Here i am in my life, like a fish in the sea, a bird in the air, a flower in the field, excuse the tired language, but just that, here i am a being in a body within a body like any other living thing and it is life that is the purpose rather than the arbitrary goals i or other people set. My MA fail is a wound that has not healed yet. A flesh wound perhaps but still sore, still hurting. And it is on and on and on with covid and it isn't just the lack of physical liberty that troubles me but that my mind is also feeling trapped. I do not know what to do with these thoughts so i thought i would write them as part of my covid diaries to give them some release and so i have them to look back on later.

Oct 1st 2020

Covid19 diaries - part 3

Rain falling, soft & luscious, i feel the plants drinking it in, bathing in it, bodies meeting, water on leaf, branch, bare root. Last night the prime minister made another speech about covid, i didn't watch or listen, he sickens me. As we enter a new phase of dealing with the virus i hope that me & mine get through it without death or mishap but uncertainty is this year's guest. He/she/they have outstayed their welcome, it doesn't feel good to be permanently anxious. My way of coping is to take each day as it comes & make things as simple & gentle as it is possible to make them. Step by step, breath by breath, & taking time to pause & be still as & when pausing & being still is needed. 

Covid Diaries - part 3

23rd September 2020

Coming out of lockdown. Yesterday afternoon, junkies shouting down the street, fast paced walking in the middle of the road, a small dog at heel.

July 10th

Covid19 Diaries - part 2

...

Because we are still in the thick of a killer pandemic aren't we. And its hard to say "this is the new normal" but this is the new normal: masks in shops and a slight fear when doing something that isn't safely done within my own house boundaries: a bus ride or train trip is risk assessed, a meet-up with a friend or member of my family is weighed and measured to make sure all parties understand that guarantees of clean contact are only as sure as the guarantor's word and integrity. 
The birds still sing tho' not with quite the same great loveliness as when we, man, were briefly silenced. The flowers still flower but Spring has become Summer has become Late Summer will presently be Fall/Autumn. Car traffic has resumed and with it its choking fumes that stifle breath. 
And because the virus is still here, not under control, and in the UK our government is uncaring and unwise, the edge of uncertainty, the knowing how little my life is worth, makes , each day a little odd and sad, and also precious because it could be anyone's last.

July 29th 
Covid19 Diaries - part 2

Today is also my youngest's birthday.

Feels like the season has changed. Not autumn but summer's middle to end. Blowing out wind in the trees, and light coming from a falling sun. I can't think about covid but i will wear a mask in enclosed spaces, for my sake and other peoples, because the virus scares me.

July 4th 

Covid19 diaries - part 2

I come to my blog this morning because i think my mental health is beginning to break. There is a fine line between being able to cope and not. People who are good at masking are often the ones whose line is finest. I may smile and seem ok, and i may be ok, but i may also be covering an inner turmoil, and only the sensitive will notice. And even they, busy with their own lives and handling their own stresses and strains, may not pick up on the hidden trauma. 
Coping is a habit. Learning to cope is a life skill. Fall over. Pick yourself up. Fall over again. Pick yourself up again. If you are lucky you'll have been caught before you fall as a child or held when the catch was not quick enough, this creates a sound base for coping. The childhoods of each of us are different, even within the same family children are treated differently, character and birth order affect this, rapport with other members of the family, and the environment into which a child is born all go to make up a person's notion of themselves and this affects our ability to cope and our life outcomes. 
So i have had a fall. I failed my MA units. Both of them. Four learning outcomes to each, and one marginal fail on each. 3/4 and 3/4. It hurts. I received my marks about a month ago. I am still taking it in. It is hard. But it gets worse. There isn't support from my uni. Responses to emails initially were curt and offhand or just didn't happen. University policy maybe. It didn't help. Eventually they came back with two tasks for me to do to pick up my grades. Two essays that both require time and deep thought. 
I pondered these essays for some days after receiving the brief but i am also currently making work for the Raveningham Sculpture Trail, an exhibition i have been in before curated by Sarah Cannell who is quite brilliant. I have a choice. I can try to do the essays but i suspect i will not pass and the energy it takes for me to do that will mean that i can't make the work for the trail. Or I can not do the essays, accept my fail, let go of my MA. I know that my mental, emotional and physical strength will not allow me to do everything. I will break. 
I had hoped that my university, especially in the peculiar circumstances that Covid19 has created, would be wanting to be flexible around students. Maybe they feel they are. I had hoped that perhaps i could retake the term, but no that's not possible. I eventually picked up the threads with my course tutor in a long and emotional tutorial on Monday. I said what i would most like to do and he intimated that he thought it unlikely but would make enquiries which he did. The post-grad team got back to me and i to them and my understanding is now that if i fail to submit the essays for the tasks set my mark will be down graded to Fail. It is semantics, word-play, both fail and marginal fail are fails but a fail is a harder fall. And because i submitted for last term i cannot re-do the term again. There are forms to fill in. And just thinking about it all pushes me further to breakdown. 
So here is my dilemma. Let me paint a picture. I have fallen over a cliff edge and landed on a small outcrop of rock, if stay here i will die anyway, i can try to climb back up to where i was, i may fail and fall in the attempt, or I can take a leap of faith and go over the edge into the abyss beneath me, it might feel like flying, both scenarios are a risk. 
What do i want ? I want to be able to make the work i am making for the sculpture trail as well as i can. It may or may not appeal to all eyes but i hope that it will make some people happy. It's a take on Alice in Wonderland, a prayer piece, a contemplative journey through Wonderland. Making it is helping me to stay alive. It is about hope, joy and curiosity. Curiosity keeps me moving forward, whats this round the bend ? how is this feeling moving me ? who are you ?
The tasks set by the university are not unreasonable, they are interesting even, and i might at some point do them for pleasure, tho i probably won't, but with a deadline and judgement at the end, and a head that is full of fear and sadness, screwing my head to a table trying to fulfil criteria that i have already failed once is driving me insane. 
Also, I am exhausted. I don't know if others are feeling this way but the huge surge of adrenalin that pumped through my body before lockdown in March and after official lockdown in March, and during that lockdown while trying to put together an online hand-in knowing that it was taking the time i had allotted to picking up the shortfall in my studies (this shortfall was what i failed on), receiving my fail, assimilating my fail and then to this point receiving the tasks asked for if i want to be called good enough, whilst also taking in the peculiar political space we are living in, where the government is seemingly winging it with not much care about who dies or gets hurt but mostly minding the money bags and shovelling what they can into the hands of the people who have put them where they are, has left me brain shattered, bone tired and sad. 
How do i close this blog today. I must close it because i have stuff to do. I suppose that i know that thought is a stream that keeps flowing and, having reclaimed this space as my own and not part of studies, my voice is free again which feels lighter. Covid19 is making me rethink my values, what i want, what makes me happy, not superficial happiness but true joy. At the beginning of lockdown there was a peculiar rapture that happened, humanity silenced and largely stopped created a beautiful void that got filled with birdsong and flowers. It was not that i'd not noticed or loved them before but absorbing nature's grace fed my heart and soul at a time when i was screaming inside, with fear, for myself and even more for my family, my children and grandchildren, mother, father, stepmother, godparents, humanity. Nature softened the edges in a way that university emails and teams meetings did not. 
I wonder now if i should have let go of my MA then, not bothered to submit, i might have made more soul-healing use of my lockdown time, but then i would not have written my term up in my blog which i have a feeling will be useful to me in future for reference, and similarly would not have created my MA page on my website which presently i will need to add an NB to to mark that it was not completed and that my work failed. 
So there i leave it. My head feels softer for writing and that i guess it what i use my blog for, voicing that which i cannot voice to a blank page and letting it go where it will without strictures or edicts. I have learned a lot over the past six months and made work that i needed to make. So although i am marked as a failure. I feel i can hold my head up and say that i tried. Now, back to my cliff edge scenario, what do you think ? jump or climb ? 

Covid19 nightmares last night.
Death, hunger, conflict. Not good.

In the morning bees on the hypericum next to the back door, 
their hum soothes my soul.

And later a male blackbird washing in the birdbath, quite gently for a change, 
quiet water slopping in dull summer light.

I am unsure. The virus is still with us. 
The pain of this moment is intense and peculiar.

June 30th 

Covid19 Diaries - part 2