Tag Archives: NHS

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Slow

The water seems kinder today or maybe I’m just more aware of it that’s all. I wash my arms with consciousness as though cleansing myself from within. It helps.

I wonder about the woman in the black dress . It looked black though its print was of tiny bright flowers, red maybe orange. She passed me on day one, eyes pooling, brimming, hand to nose and mouth as she rushed out. I couldn’t hug her but the feeling pulsed up through me. It would have startled her anyway if I’d reached out, she had enough to deal with. She spilled over as I just about kept it in.

That was last week.

I wonder about her this morning. Is she having a shower, does she have time for a bath, is she thinking in the water like I am? Is she held in its amniotic fluid, giving her strength for another day.

Maybe she has a quick wash, doesn’t bother with make-up, or maybe she needs it as a shield against the world. 

Does she feel the tightness in her chest, her tummy flip as she sanitises her hands and pushes through the heavy doors? Has she forgotten she’s even got a body, is she churning in her head, like me. 

The water is kinder today, present, healing, it tells me to slow down as it drips off my skin. Little spheres of surface tension, swirling rainbows dance inside. I send them out to the woman in the black dress, I hope she’s still  holding up, like me.

I must try to remember I have a body.

I breathe out.

It’s day eleven, (maybe twelve.)

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Changes

Now there’s a tree watching over the bed, birds scrabbling for food, people darting in and out the Costas just off to the right and if they looked up from their latte they’d see me in the window looking out.

I didn’t like yesterday’s room though, felt too far tucked away, almost a sense of punishment, of neglect.  Broken thinking on my part, of course. Tiredness doesn’t help.

Of course the care was on point and Senior Sister Gemma enfolded me with her reassuring London tones, her voice and her words and her ways. She called me darlin’ and we joked about the room upgrade. She should have been pulling pints but she was pushing beds instead and I was grateful .

And when the upgrade came, when trees were administered, when the relief of natural light came into view, I relaxed (a little.)

A ward with a window over green and the bole of the tree stands guard, steady, constant, dependable bark that’s been there a hundred years watching people change.

I feel like I’ve been there a hundred years but it’s only day seven or is it eight?

Maybe that’s why the previous room took me down, floored me with an echo of late pregnancy, of no privacy, of people poking and me hanging on. Propped up, out of time with a job to do, concerned faces, waiting, willing. Praying. 

I think that’s it, the silent magnolia walls, the speckled ceiling, just a little too high for my liking and a view, (if you can call it that,) over the scrag end of the buildings. 

Still, that’s not now. 

I’d better get up, I’ve got a job to do. I hope Gemma’s on today. I like her long black pony tail. When she walks, it swings like a metronome on her back, keeping me steady with her rhythm.

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Limbo

Is it day six or seven, I’m not sure? Not that it matters. Time has rolled in on itself. There aren’t hours, there are interruptions, people doing things, bringing things, taking, giving, adding observations to their charts. There’s no natural light, everything’s in suspension.

I walk the corridor in my mind, through the big old doors, nod to the receptionist, past the childrens’ drawings of a lion. The lion smiles, you know, the way they do? Secure in their strength, protected by a massive mane of gold. I think he waves a paw at me, not sure. And up the slight incline almost like a ramp boarding a ship to somewhere else, a sense of entering a different world.

The artwork on either side demands attention but I rush past, abstractions blur, birds and flowers shrug at me. They don’t care, they’ll be there on the way out, suspended in gouache, captured moments that mean the world to someone. 

My feet keep walking, step after step, soles squeak on their lino, sometimes heels click, depending on which shoes I’m wearing. It doesn’t matter either way so long as I keep going. Past the towering stacks of SHEETS and BLANKETS covered in thin plastic. They’re organised in here. I’m back in the machine, cogs turn, people sometimes smile, sometimes avoid your eye. Everyone churning, focused. 

I walk the corridor in my mind. It’s 06:08.  I’ll walk it for real again soon. I’ll say hello to Leo as I go past, Maybe I’ll imagine that I’m a lion too.