Sunday 23 February 2014

Innocuous connections

Mum and Dad flew over from London for the weekend and leave tomorrow. Ruby was the elephant in the room.


The music playlists on my phone need refreshing so I have been spending a few hours each night going through all our music on the laptop, making new playlists for running, cycling, work, etc.
It occasionally means I unwittingly listen to songs Ruby had bought or songs that have a particular connection to her. I suspect I will come across innocuous instances of her influence in our lives until I am very old. And I suspect they will always make me cry.


I have an image in my mind of billions of neurones connected in myriad ways with an almost infinite number of lines of communication between them. New ones are growing on the periphery all the time and making new connections. Ruby's connections are so wide and complex. Her absence feels like a dissolved skeleton leaving unconnected connective tissue and weakened muscle with no contraction.
Sometimes the loss feels like phantom limb syndrome as if a huge chunk, a quarter or a third of who I am, is simply not there. At other times it feels as if that skeleton has crumbled and there are thousands of tiny hollows that run through everything, weakening my foundations.


Philosophy class last night. Kant. 10% relevant.

Saturday 15 February 2014

Flexibility

I ran 15km this morning as usual. i am off work every Friday for a number of weeks. Claire has a bug and is in bed. We used to have tough immune systems but now catch every bug passing our way.
After my shower I lazed in bed and read the news.
Then I took an hour or so just to look out the window. It is very wet, windy and cold, lots of sleet. The neighbours' conifers were bent double by the wind. It occurred to me that their survival tool- flexibility- is key and that the idea has many applications.
Going with the flow, rolling with the punches, yielding to an agent of force is so very important. For me, I guess, this means knowing I have to grieve and then letting myself do exactly that. I have to let myself go through that process in order to come out the other side. I am sure I will be a bit broken and bent. I know there will be irreparable fissures that go all the way down but I hope to be in one piece.
Be flexible; relinquish.


Week three of my philosophy class tonight- Utilitarianism and Deontology.