I've been trying to work out why it is that my blog entries always seem to be about birds. But I'm not even particularly interested in birds! Definitely not a 'twitcher' or anything like that. Hubby (John) says it's because we spend a lot of time at the kitchen table at home watching them on the bird feeders. But it's not that - I've been writing about birds in all sorts of different contexts. I wonder whether it's somehow to do with the fact that their lives are so divorced from our concerns? When I am thinking about chemo and its side-effects, or the next scan, or how long I'm going to live, they are living in the moment (which I try to do but clearly fail at) and all they think about, if they think at all, is how to catch the next fly or worm, and how to feed their chicks, and how to avoid potential predators. Mm, well maybe not so very different from us after all...
I just want to tell you about the nights here on our Corsican mountainside. We have a fabulous view to the west, and I time our evening meal so that we can watch the spectacular sunset as we finish our dinner.
The sun sets just to the right of a hilltop village far on the horizon called San Antonino. It's actually rather a touristy place, but it looks wonderful from a distance, especially at night when the street lights come on, which they do at precisely 9.15pm, just after sunset.
Then the night noises start. First it is the scops owl. I've learnt about him from YouTube. He's a tiny owl the size of a starling, and he emits a mournful one-note call, all night long. Occasionally he is answered by another, half a tone lower or higher, and they carry on a sort of duet. I imagine him sadly searching the forest for his mate, hearing her but doomed never to find her, a bit like the Dong with the luminous nose.
Then, later on, at bed-time, comes this strange, loud, whirring sound. At first I thought it was a frog, then maybe some sort of cicada, but googling away and visiting YouTube again, I've discovered that it's a nightjar! They nest on the ground, and I think we must have a nest quite close. You never see either of these birds, of course, but the soundscape is enough. And the stars! We have no light pollution here, so when the night sky is clear of clouds, the stars are so bright it seems as though you could almost reach out and touch them.
But, lest you should think that everything in my garden is rosy, it isn't. Dealing with the long-term side-effects of cancer treatment isn't easy. And it's particularly hard away from home. I don't wish to detail my bowel problems here as it's a relatively public place. Suffice to say that eating out is fraught with pitfalls, and we (my darling husband is wonderfully sensitive to my needs in this respect) are always on the lookout for the nearest loo. You might ask why, if it's such a problem, do we go out at all? John says if he had my problems, he would hide away at home, but I choose to confront it head on and refuse to let it interfere more than it does already with what I want to do with my life. And you can't go to France and not try to enjoy the food. Anyway, John can tell, when he hears me hyperventilating, as we walk down some cobbled street or other after lunch, however modest that lunch might have been, that he has to push me into the nearest bar or café (I'm the French speaker, not him, so I have to make the contact) to cook up some story about being taken suddenly ill and please may I use their toilet urgently? They are usually very kind, but it's still embarrassing. There are practically no public loos here - I think the entire population must be constipated. Tomorrow we are being very ambitious and taking the train to Ajaccio and back - four hours each way plus three hours actually at our destination. Did I mention that I am married to a train freak? I couldn't deny him what is supposed to be the most spectacular train ride in Europe (actually we did it 21 years ago, but I remember nothing about it). We checked out the train yesterday and it's very comfortable, air-conditioned and has a very acceptable loo, so I'm prepared to risk it.
And there's another weird side-effect: I have pins and needles in both feet and my left hand. This appeared towards the end of the last chemo cycle, now nearly two months ago, and has got steadily worse. It even hampers my ability to swim. When I mentioned it to my consultant recently, he dismissed it, saying that if it was a chemo side-effect (hand and foot syndrome), I would have had it from the beginning of treatment, not afterwards. Well, I did have little cuts in my fingertips during treatment, but not the pins and needles. I'm sure he's wrong, I don't see how this can be anything else. It is a nuisance about the swimming, but I guess I just have to live with it for now and hope it goes away.
Lastly, my holiday reading has been 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt (ha, another bird!) It's totally absorbing, all 800 pages of it. I've just finished it and am feeling rather bereft. The message that I got from it might be relevant to some of us cancer sufferers - it's that good things can happen as a result of bad things (ie cancer?) It's the opposite of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, rather perhaps that the road to heaven may be paved with bad ones. Intriguing.
In the last chapter, the narrator does rather a lot of philosophizing about life. Some of it was rather tedious, but some I found encouraging and inspirational, so I'm going to leave you with a quote. Please read it right through to the end because that's where the message is:
Does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end - and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy?
So that's what I'm trying to do in this game of life. I don't always succeed, but am trying anyway, to play it with joy.
