I Am a Hot-Water Bottle

 

I am a hot-water bottle.  Explanation later.

On the 9th April, I went to work at the kiwifruit orchard as usual. I remember exactly what I was doing - using a stanley knife, I slit open the old plastic spray-guards off the now-mature plants as they were way too tight around the wood. Those plants loved me, I know they did,  for liberating them from their sodden, mouldy hell. Dragging a big bag behind me, I collected all this old filthy plastic and emptied it into a huge trash pile at the end of the row. 

By smoko time I realised that I was "coming down with something".  But, silly me, I ignored the blah and, in fact, picked up the pace like a grand burst of fireworks. 

At lunchtime I knew I had to go home. 

My body was on strike. Spinning crysanthemum in the sky now dead and dark.  Fizzle splat.

Bed, please, all I want is my bed. 

Coughing, headache, body collapse. Dizzy spells and brain-fog. Brain-slog. Slain.

After a hot shower I crawled into bed and that is where I remained for the first 5 weeks of my illness except for appointments or the occasional miracle of enough energy for coffee with a friend. 

Smashed. Depleted. Done in. 

For those of you who may be puzzled, "Hey, but I saw her during that time and we chatted as usual in the chemist or doctor surgery. She seemed OK", let me tell you I wasn't ok at all but I have an extraordinary capacity to put on a chirpy face as etiquette or stupid pride requires. Then I crash extra-bad when home again.  

It is now over 3 months later. I am considerably improved but not yet able to work. I've accepted that there is nothing I can do to hasten my recovery but rest and go with the flow of slow.

Post-viral fatigue, says the doctor. Rest up.

I am emerging from this tiresome tunnel and learned a lot from my exhaustion. 

A lot which I'll share another time. 

For now, let me tell you that the last thing I needed this morning was a huge wet patch in my bed. No, not the result of that midnight cuppa but a burst, failed hot-water bottle.  

Entirely my own fault. Yes, I had noticed all the bits of blue rubber in the kitchen sink each morning as I emptied it out. I knew my thin and fragile hot-water bottle was dying but I ignored it. 

(Just one more row at the orchard...) 

Just one more night of this cosy hot-water bottle thawing my frozen feet. 

(Just one more row ...)

I filled that hot-water bottle up fat and tight and, of course, it burst.

( Can't carry on...or can I? )

Inevitable. Stupid. Sheets and wool-rest and blankets all sodden. Hours of washing and drying in our inadequate winter sun.

Yip, today I identify as a perished hot-water bottle. 

Tomorrow I am free to identify as a trans-gender radish or a neuro-diverse ostrich, stuck with head in sand forever and ever, amen...but no...

...I think I'll opt for sensible wahine who looks after herself. 

A Dead Gerbera

Our old friend, John, doesn't have much life left in his mind or body. We visited him in the dementia wing where he lay reclined on an awkward angle on his bed until a male care-giver secured him around the waist with a harness so he could sit up in a chair and try to chat like people generally do.

His voice however was too soft and his words too slow and confused for us to understand him. 

No strength. No joy. No reaction even when the cutest puppy ever was led into the room by a woman who volunteers her time to cheer people up. While we cuddled this wagging-tail golden retriever, John sat there with vacant eyes and dribbling mouth. 

The lady left to try bringing a smile to someone else. Maybe in the next room but probably not.

In the corridor a woman paced up and down crying. Pitiful to see. A  nurse said, "Tragic huh? She is always like that. Cries day and night and we don't know why."

I looked at the gallery of photos on the wall which shows a younger version of these dementia residents and it said that the crying woman used to love mountain-biking.

John was a maths teacher and flax-weaver. Another man in the gallery was a pastor and to his right an accountant. Minds now going, going, gone.

Before we left, I glanced around John's room and noticed a very dead pot-plant. It was a gerbera once upon a time with bright red flowers, The plastic label told us that. It was now just shrivelled up leaves. The staff would have watered it for a while but forgot to toss it out once it died because they are too busy to do everything.

Dead pot-plant under my arm, we asked the Argentinian care-giver, Enrique, to please let us out of the locked door which separates this fuddle-headed world from so-called "normal".

I asked Enrique if his job ever depressed him.

"No, it doesn't", he replied in his soft, kind accent. "This job help me every day to prepare myself to go home and look after my daughter".

"Oh? In what way does it help?"

"Our daughter have cerebal palsy and need much care. I learn patience here and take it home each day to look after her".

Coss and I looked at each other with eyes close to tears. 

"Have a good Christmas!", Enrique said before continuing to care for people who, for the most part, are unable to thank him and, of course, his pay-packet will never reflect his true worth.  

Then, back out in the so-called "normal" world where people supposedly know who and where they are but not always why, I braved K-Mart for a few items I thought I needed.

It looked like Santa's over-loaded sleigh had tipped over in every aisle. Racks bulging so tight with clothes it was hard to pull out the shirt you wanted. On the floor were tee-shirt tangles, blingy bangles, single sandals with spangles and several bright red snowman dressing gowns abandoned after a hasty fit and still inside out.

Shiny wrapped Santa chocolates spilling from boxes and coat-hangers trying their best to secure gaudy plastic shoes and pink tutus so cheap that impatient grabbing hands have ripped them through like a tornado of consumerism.

Oh God. Get me out of here.

Each and Every Day

This afternoon I ducked under the half-open roller-door of our car-garage only to find four frantic baby swifts dive-bombing a side window. They were bashing against the glass frantically trying to find the wide blue sky they could see out there but not fly into. 

"Over there!", I pleaded with them. "Look! The door is now wide open!"

But they couldn't see the wide open door inviting them into the sunshine, so intent were they on bashing and crashing, over and over again, into a dusty pane.

So, I grabbed a soft hand-towel and, one by one, took hold of those tiny throbbing baby birds and released them skyward where they needed to be.

"Goodbye, Basher!", I said to the first.

"Fare thee well, Crasher!", to the second.

"Good luck, little Smasher!", to the third.

"You'll be ok now, Thrasher!", I whispered to the fourth.

And each, in the blink of an eye, a soar in the sky, was gone like an arrow of joy.

Note to self - Sometimes we need a friend to help us out. We can resist that wise, guiding hand extended out to us, but what then? We crash and bash against a hopeless window until we collapse.

Or, do we accept that sometimes we need someone else to help us find the sunshine? 

There are patches in life where all seems dark and hopeless but you and I both know that the sun does rise each and every day.

Each and every day is a new opportunity to be set free.

Phew!

Tim employs a few of us more mature folk all year round on his 12 hectare kiwifruit orchard.  He never consciously chose us as staff- we just arrived as chattels from another orchard that his father owned several years ago.

When he first inherited us, Tim looked a tad unsure but, if he found our team rather unsettling as a potential work-force, he was too polite to say so and gave us the benefit of the doubt.  Would we prove to be fit and capable or a set of decrepit old dead-beats that, if we died on the job, he would have to cremate in the fire-pit behind Block 9?

But despite our wrinkles, bad shoulders, sore necks, bung knees and selective memories, we reckon  our approval ratings have soared off the Richter scale.

Apart from our beautiful personalities, we work with such dedication and gusto you'd swear all 5 of us were half our combined age of 327 years. In my own uninformed opinion, our work ethic is unsurpassed and each of us astonish Tim each and every day with our talents and skills.

It may seem a bit like we are blowing our own trumpets but I ask you this. If we don't, who will?

At our age, we are sometimes to be found at doctor surgeries or x-ray clinics instead of at the orchard. Spike, especially, has injured almost every part of his anatomy and one time even got whisked off the property in a helicopter when his thumb was severed from the rest of him. During the whole flight he was praying like crazy that some clever surgeon could re-attach it to his hand, not because he still wanted to be able to prune kiwifruit but so he could play his guitar.  Poor priorities in my opinion.

Our team follows Tim's instructions with the utmost care and accuracy except for the occasional blip like when I demolished an entire kiwifruit plant with my chainsaw.

As recorded in my last blog I felt it really important to confess the magnitude of my blip, my appalling blunder, to our boss, Tim.

On the other hand, I was kind of hoping not to see Tim that same day so I had more time to mentally recover but Spike and I were zooming around on the buggy when around the corner, who is driving along the track, but the very man himself.  He pulled over for a chat and we small-talked about copper spray and how we need rain and Donald Trump while the whole time I am plucking up my courage...

"Tim", I blurted from buggy through his ute-window, "I have something terrible to confess..."

I think he thought I was about to announce that I had, all by myself, pulled off a bank robbery or sneezed Covid-19 all over his grandmother.

"Tim, I am so sorry but I destroyed a plant"

Tim laughed. "How do you mean? Cut off the wrong bit?"

Spike ever so helpfully interjected at this point, "Um, she destroyed the entire plant complete with canopy cover. All gone, Tim. Gone!"

It took a few seconds for this news to register but, even when it did, Tim remained calm.

"And what did you learn from that mistake, Bernadette?"

"Oh, I learned such a lot, Tim. Like never to do that again"

"Well, then", Tim grinned, "These things happen. I have way bigger things to worry about"

I thought to myself how anything he worries about has to be bigger than the stump my chainsaw left behind but thought this was no time to be humorous.

"Bernadette, if you learned from your mistake, then it's all good".

"Thank you for being so understanding, Tim", I said with huge relief.

Apart from learning to always check and double-check before using a chainsaw, what is the best thing I learned today? That Tim is a very good person. He is kind and calm. He expects good work and will tell off a worker when necessary but puts people before profit and admits to his own mistakes.

Respect.

I Did it My Way ( but shouldn't have)

There are good days and then there are days that I could just curl up in a foetal position and howl like a coyote.

Today started off alright - in fact I was in quite a jovial mood - but at about 9.15 am my work-buddy, Spike, came running over because I had gone all white and was trembling so much my secateurs rattled in my leather-pouch. I felt nauseous, went hot and cold and clutched my chest.

I was in shock but do recall muttering over and over, "Look....look what I've done, Spike. Oh, look...look at that.  No don't! Spike, grab your loppers and stab me to death right now. Please do it quick!"

Spike saw the problem immediately. Well, actually the problem was that he couldn't see what he was meant to see - the perfectly good kiwifruit plant with two new leaders all tied down to the top wires was no longer there.

It had been reduced to a near-stump. Yes, my chainsaw had miscalculated!

What you have to realise is that the fatal cut inflicted was only about 20 centimeters below where it should have been so please don't think I make a habit of randomly swinging my chainsaw around to see how much mayhem I can create. On the contrary, I am usually careful and can only put this disaster down to a moment of insanity.

It is a sobering thing that permanent is so permanent. Some actions - like a chainsaw cut - are irrevocable. You cannot un-saw what is sawed, just like you cannot revert an omelette back into its original eggs.

A surgeon, if he or she amputates the wrong leg, cannot just super-glue it back on the patient. The patient henceforth will be leg-less. That is a serious consequence indeed and that is why every care is taken to ensure such a terrible mistake does not happen.

The medical team in hospital ask you over and over which leg you are getting chopped off today. You sign papers. A red cross is painted on the doomed leg, and even so, it is checked and checked again.

How I wish I had checked over and over before slaughtering an innocent kiwifruit plant that had years of potential in it.

I never thought of myself as a chainsaw-killer.  It sounds so harsh somehow but, Bernadette, tell it like it is. That is a precisely what you are.

After the initial shock, Spike was very merciful and said reassuring things like, "Oh, well, we all make mistakes but, yeah, this one is particularly bad", and, " It couldn't have happened to a nicer plant".

Spike said not to lose sleep over it but I wondered how to tell the boss. Would he even notice a gap in the canopy? Would the Pope notice if someone fired a cannon through the Sistine Chapel ceiling?  Would the Queen miss one of her corgis if it were abducted? Of course!

After a good strong coffee and a Tim-Tam I regained some of my equilibrium in that I felt silly and guilty in equal measure but the trauma was lessening and common sense told me we all stuff up sometimes and that I am a human-being, prone to mistakes now and then.

For instance, we didn't go on and on and on and on and on about when Spike was parking the buggy in the shed and stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake. The resulting damage to the back wall was considerable but, after we all fell about laughing, we consoled Spike. We were there for him and fortunately, so was the company's insurance to pay up.

And Nodge, look at how many wooden posts he has demolished with his tractor.

These things happen so tomorrow I will tell the boss about what my chainsaw did. The result of that awkward conversation will be the topic of my next blog.

In the meantime, I leave you with Frank Disastra,

'My Way'. 

"Regrets, I've had a few,
But then again, I hate to mention,
I did what I shouldn't have done,
And sawed it through without exemption,
I didn't plan this uncharted course,
That careless chop along the by-way
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew it, 
When I sawed too low and really blew it, 
But through it all, when there was doubt.
I didn't think, just cut it out, 
I'll face it all, one day walk tall but... 
...woe is me, I did it my way"

So, it is over and out from me! And over and out from the kiwifruit plant!

Bocelli in My Bubble

I awoke at 5am to watch Andrea Bocelli sing "Music for Hope" live from the Duomo di Milano in Italy, one of the countries most ravaged by Corona-19.  I sat here in the office in my pyjamas with a cup of tea in front of my computer, my hair unbrushed and a duvet wrapped around my legs.

Andrea Bocelli was a solemn figure, suit and bow-tie, singing from his heart in the magnificent Milan Cathedral. Lasting just half an hour, the concert included favourites like Ave Maria and Domino Deus, the mood all the more poignant in that this famous man stood amidst stained glass windows, pious statues and lit candles, in this awe-inspiring cathedral, through which, normally, thousands of tourists traipse through every day, but today he had no audience. Got no applause.  It was beautiful but haunting in that he was seemingly singing forth into a silent vacuum but, in actual fact, was being beamed into living-rooms all over the planet.

When at the end, Andrea Bocelli sang 'Amazing Grace' outside the huge front entrance of the Milan Cathedral, well, who could not be moved by the words, 'I once was blind but now I see", coming from his serene face, eyes closed by blindness?

But, metaphorically, blind eyes can, given hope, see and a sick Covid-19 locked-down planet can be healed.

These words, translated from Italian to English, drifted across our screens before the concert started.

"I believe in the strength of praying together.
I believe in the Christian Easter.
A universal symbol of rebirth that everyone,
Whether they are believers or not, truly needs right now.
Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together
Millions of clasped hands, everywhere in the world,
We will hug this wounded Earth's pulsing heart".

Sometimes what we see in life is determined by what we choose to focus on.

When I went on my first lock-down walks I took along a big bag in which to collect the tossed-out-of-car beer-bottles and RTD cans that seem to litter all New Zealand rural roads. All I did on those utterly stunning blue-sky, sun-in-your-face days was gaze at the ground and resent the dumb-asses who were too lazy to take their empties home with them.  I saw glass, tin and plastic. I saw old milk-shake containers and disintegrating KFC cardboard boxes.

I was intent on rubbish and that is what I saw, That is what I collected and carried with me.

All very commendable of course but, after a week, I knew I still had to exercise my body but relax my mind. Just enjoy. So I took no bag along. I let the simply gorgeous day caress me. I looked here and there at cows and horses, wetlands with quacking ducks, manuka and cabbage trees.

It did me a lot of good looking up, not down.

"Hello, fencepost, what'cha doin'?
I've come to watch your cows a mooin'" 

Blog from my Bubble

Day 12 of  the Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand.

Today the Queen addressed the Commonwealth and I must say it was a jolly good speech. It is a rare event for her to speak other than at Christmas time so I guess she thought her subjects, whether ardent royalists or ho-hummers like myself, could all do with a stiff shot of reassurance that we will indeed get through the turbulence inflicted upon the planet by Covid-19.

Better days will come, the Queen promised us and I believe her, don't you?  She has, after all, survived 100% of all the dramas she has ever been through.

On a personal and selfish level, I hope for better days when it comes to my writing.  It has been years since I wrote a blog.  Oh, I have my excuses , the least plausible being, "I was busy", but that is just feeble because we all know that the most productive people are always busy. They have learned to prioritise, organise, strategise and well, they just do what they have to do - and then some more.

I, on the other hand, am horribly prone to paralysis and it baffles me as to why even what I love to do most - creative writing - is so adversely affected. Why, oh why, do I find it easier to mop the kitchen floor than write a blog?  Why does melancholy set in, smothering my energy and focus? Of course that in turn exacerbates the paralysis and I spiral into an even worse lethargy. This vicious cycle has been driving me crazy for decades.

Even now, in the midst of this Covid-19 lock-down, when I have a blank canvas in front of me every single day, my creativity eludes me. An opportunity wasted. I am the frustrated child who longs to unwrap my gift from under the Christmas tree but there is too much sticky tape. I am the weary adult flipping through a book of amazing motivational quotes but finding not one that can lure my fingers over to the keyboard to tap out a single sentence.

So, what is wrong?

One young woman I had coffee with over a year ago said something interesting to me. She had spent most of her 31 years under the spell of a cult-like church where she was told what to think and when to think it.  Eventually she got a gut-full and these days she is a kickin' and fightin' to reclaim who on earth she really is.

She urged me to write whatever I want. She told me that I am a scaredy-cat. She told me we are not placed on this planet to tailor our opinions and thoughts to what we think others want to hear. We are here to be real.

So who knows? Maybe my paralysis has been nothing more than an understandable terror of negative feedback? Or simply a resistance to writing stuff that is personal? I have been long avoiding the word, 'vulnerable' because it is is such a trendy concept these days but, actually, there is no adequate substitute. I have been avoiding both the word and the feeling.

If nothing else, maybe I should start writing for me. Just for me but allow you into my world now and then?

Wish me luck.