Somewhere on my desk there is a piece of paper with the covid helpline of my employer, the opening hours of the free PCR testing sites at the university clinic (Monday - Friday) and instructions on what to do and what to mention incl. the information leaflet of my medication.

Two days ago, one of the regular rapid lateral flow tests I am obliged by my employer to administer at home showed a positive line.  I went downstairs and told R that I would not be able to go to the farmer's market after all. Instead, I drove to the nearest testing center to get a conformation PCR test, only they refused to do it because I failed to bring my lateral flow test as evidence. Instead, they did another rapid lateral flow test which was negative. Back home, I briefly dithered between being seriously ill and who cares anyway, but as it was not Monday - Friday, I decided to get on with life and take it easy - my usual weekend activity as it were. This morning I did another test, again negative, and I asked google for information on false positive results with that particular test kit and it turns out that this is a documented manufacturer's fault that happens when the sample size is too small.

I cleaned the bathroom, kitchen and hoovered the hall and staircase, baked a blueberry-lemon cake without icing, cooked Sunday lunch (red peppers, zucchini and mushrooms with fregula and parmesan), had one cup of coffee and went on my usual 10 km cycle along the river. 

Later, we will make tea and maybe have some grilled cheese on toast and some fresh strawberries and then watch the Sunday evening thriller on German TV and the late news.

The tendency to treat my imperfect existence as if it were a shadow of my real life, the one I would be living without a chronic disease, this mental image of my healthy self, it slows me down every time as if all people except myself are healthy and fit and have nothing to worry about.

When you are not one of the seemingly healthy, you need to work hard sometimes so you don't fall out of love with yourself as the illness tries again and again to run the show. At least I need to do that. Cycling, baking, strawberries, it all helps.

 

garden secrets

Yet another storm is brewing, the weather app is pinging and shouting. Again, we cleared the basement floors, tidied up the garden furniture, shut the green house and with any luck, it'll pass.

The skies on Friday were dramatic. But that was it. Not a single drop of rain.

Others were not so lucky and who knows what this evening will bring.

My new friends, a pair of wood pigeons, woke me at the crack of dawn. The have found a favourite spot in the almond tree outside the bedroom window, where they bicker for a while before cooing back and forth at length and at volume. I have decided to actually not mind this at all. Even at 5:30 am. 

the Robin rose

I had to get up anyway for my immunologist check-up. The new guy is very jolly and we agreed that not much has changed or needs to be done apart from more blood work to figure out the low iron levels and sure, why not, maybe see a phlebologist because of that markedly swollen right ankle etc. etc. We discussed the 30+ hrs travel (two stop-overs incl.) later this year with medication that needs to be kept below 5°C at all times. Not a good fit but there should has to be way. And in the end, in connection with one thing or another, I forget which, he uttered the fateful saying "never change a winning team" (in English) and I tried very hard to keep a straight face but failed. We then discussed at length the origin of this phrase (soccer) and how it found its way into medicine (he did recall an actual lecture with this title) and for the life of him, he couldn't see how a patient as tolerant as myself could find this inappropriate. I told him, he will get there over time and how silly sayings convey not a message that one can trust and that especially when saddled with a chronic illness, these stupid remarks don't get any better when one has to hear them repeatedly.  To cut him short, I uttered WTF (in English) which he thought was hilarious. And so we parted as friends.

ash, black cherry, rambling rose and mackerel skies

On my way back, cycling through the lushest of forest, I stopped at the frog spawn pond but failed to take a picture. As it was still before 10 am, I sat down for a café au lait outside at the French place and then got some of fancy tea, which is black Assam with cream flavouring and blue cornflower blossoms and a punnet of blueberries. My life of luxury.

This here is our covid patch, four square meters in a sunny spot we have left untouched in the bottom lawn since spring 2020. We just mow around it, never water it. Currently, it has about 25 different wild flower species in it, all humming with insects, one small walnut tree and a fat hedgehog moves through it at night. The secrets a badly tended lawn can bring forth. With the help of birds and squirrels and the wind.

 

This is what defeat looks like, thankfully. The river showed me my place and when I arrived back home after a mere half hour, my knees were buckling under me and my conscience kicked in.

On a good day, I can cycle on and on until that castle ruin on the other side is a long way behind me. (In my fitandhealthy life, I cycled all the way to almost Switzerland.)
But it has been a while.

So yes, I am miserably unwell but what else is new. Keeping fingers crossed that it's just a bug or a virus simmering below the surface. Even cancelled the all important meeting with the big boss on Friday. Exhaustion is my middle name. Consequently, this post is all over the place.

But otherwise life is good enough, seriously. We got the first (hopefully of many) bunch of daffs.

The dawn chorus is swelling, mostly blackbirds. The ladybirds that have been hibernating inside the house are getting restless. They make these tiny sliding noises when they crash against the window panes. Don't worry, they are tough.


I have been reading, as always, and this here stuck in my head:

I’d like to teach my daughter to protect herself. I’d like to teach her not to be thankful for the leering eyes of a man on the street, or the groping hands of a man at a bar. I’ll teach her that she is the ruler of her body, and I’d like to imagine a world where she can go to the grocery store at night and not walk fast to her car with her keys poised like a weapon.

Because I tried, I swear I tried. I wanted her world to be so much safer.  I wanted her to grow up feeling free and welcome and fearless almost everywhere. I want all women to feel free and fearless and I think every single person I know wants the same and yet, I have failed. For a while I thought if I encourage her sense of fearlessness that surely will do the trick. But before I knew it, she learned that "N O spells no" in kindergarten - and we pretended it's a funny game, enrolled her in self-defense training not once but thrice and arranged for safe passwords, secret codes and pretend phone calls while walking home from the night bus. Mothers should not have to buy pepper spray for their daughters or warn them about the safe way to dress because men cannot help it or whatever shitty backlash comes next.

Meanwhile, listen to the fabulous NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is pregnant with her first child and will show the world that work and motherhood are not incompatible.

Three years ago, I crossed the 5-year survival threshold reserved for 75% of people with my diagnosis. It meant nothing. Life ahead of me seemed endless.
(Still does.)
This summer, I have reached the half-way mark of the latest, statistically confirmed life expectancy. Do I care?
(Yes.)


It has been raining most of the week or maybe only for the last two days, I lose track. Most evenings, we manage to fit in a short cycle along the river in between downpours, watching the fog rise from the small valleys on the other side. The fact that I have enough energy for cycling makes me so giddy, I forget to take pictures. Next time, I tell myself, there will be a next time. And one after that and many more and so on.

(just for fun, soundtrack of a wild year)

 
I went into a bit of a huff last week. Sliding into a dark pond covered in duckweed, knowingly and yet, the way it makes you feel. Guilty and couldn't care less at the same time.
Oh poor me and so on. But shhhh, nobody was looking.

And then I cycled. Twice. Short cold windy distances. Terrified I should do harm to my back. But, oh the freedom.

This is me with my first proper bicycle, in 1964 the summer before I started school, I am six years old.

This is my grandmother (never granny) with her bicycle in her hometown. She is maybe 12 years old, so this picture was taken 60 years earlier, 1904 or thereabouts. She never learned to drive, never had to. Every Monday and Thursday, she cycled into town, on the cobblestone pavement, for market, butcher, baker and gossip, until she was well into her nineties.

My application for the medical rehabilitation program has been approved, starting next week Wednesday, six hours/day, five days/week for three weeks. I expect nothing short of miracles. Seriously. Or else. (I am scared shitless it will come to nothing and I shall remain a stranded beetle forever).

This evening, I was once again the only person cycling through the dark forest. There was no moon and I had to be careful with the piles of slippery wet leaves and that sharp bend across the stream, but after all these years, I could probably cycle this stretch with my eyes closed anyway. All in all, I figured if there are monsters, I can handle them. Later, back in city traffic I cursed a lot at the top of my voice at the other monsters, the male drivers unable to use the indicator etc.
Possibly a hormone thing, testosterone-induced indicator blindness. Maybe they need a spell in my forest, in the dark silent forest. 
Anyway, I am home and didn't get wet, my fingers will eventually defrost and there is a nice man cooking dinner (he knows how to use indicators). We will pretend that all is well with the world. We are getting quite good at it.

I had a shitty day at work. The kind of day when I wonder what on earth etc. But then on my way home, this happened. It actually is like that every evening at the moment. Spring is noisy.

that plus sunshine = today


The only thing - apart from maybe a bookshop - that I missed when we lived in paradise was the change of the seasons. During hot tropical nights with the screams of the fruit bats and the boom of plopping breadfruit, constantly barking dogs and roosters crowing whenever - I would dream in slow motion of crocus and tulips, opening fruit tree flowers and the first strawberries, swallows nesting and bright evenings.

Our first spring back was a bit different, or rather, like actual spring when everything basically happens at the same time, explosions of green and colour and soft fruit.
Well, this year has been somewhat slow motion up to now - ignoring the fact that we did pick raspberries on x mas day - but it looks like the show is on the road.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the human race.

H.G. Wells

My luck has come in again and I have been that adult on a bicycle for the last two weeks now. This is what it looks like every day when I have managed to survive 8 km of busy city traffic. This forest is my antidepressant. What you don't see - and why can I not take a picture on my phone that shows how steep it is? - is that right at the top here in this picture is where the first of two very steep hairpin bends begin.

Once I have managed these two tough bends, it gets easier and after about 4 km, it is all easy peasy level.

Right here at the t-junction I could turn left and cycle on through thick forest, vineyards and more forest for a couple of weeks, cross the Swiss Alps and the Pyrenees and eventually arrive in Santiago de Compostela because this small road is a branch of the Camino, the Jakobsweg. There was a time when we were seriously contemplating this trip. Well, maybe in another life time.

But here I turn right and go on for another 4 km through the most gorgeous lush forest, complete with small bridges and streams and very noisy birds, until I reach the university campus and my desk.

I started cycling when I was 5 years old. This bicycle here is actually a fancy electric bike. I have just completed 10,000 km on it (since 2011). It has saved me from a life of miserable chronic illness.

you have no idea how cold it was

that and the fact that I packed it in after 10 km and slowly crawled back into the hotel with all the mod cons and the minibar and the terrific breakfast choices - and yet, I haven't felt more alive in weeks

May

The little lane leading to the secret entrance of the garden on Monday morning after coming back from the doctor, who told me to stay home for another week. I cycled because it's only a short distance. I didn't tell her, just in case. It was the highlight of my day, the short cycle.

Wisteria above the bicycle shelter at the bottom of the garden. There are worse places to recuperate - or to lock up a bicycle.

cycling in the forest after a week of rain

letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is 

Pema Chödrön

Cycling for 40 mins home in the dark, first the forest, no moon, not a sound, just heavy rain, then down the hill and into the city, icy drops on my face and the obnoxious swishing noises from my not-anymore-waterproof gear, the drivers who come too close in their fat cars, who forget to indicate, who try and push me off the road. Note: try, not succeed because I roar at them, cursing and hissing I move through the evening traffic. At home I peel off the muddy layers trying to find my solid self underneath and fail, shaking and weeping and tired, my gums shot to pieces, at least I hope it's just the gums - she said to wait for it to calm down, maybe a week. If not, we'll try and save that tooth, promise, she said. Don't ask me how I slept, don't ask about the gastritis pains at 4 am. At least I got to hear the blackbirds before sunrise. My sister calls to discuss possible procedures re our father. Wishful thinking. I want to put down the phone. We cannot lock him in, he is convinced he does not have osteoporosis. Yesterday, he said to me, sod the tests, ignorant young doctors, what do they know.

Most of all, I want to be rid of that tooth ache or whatever it is. As for the rest, I can handle it. I think. Maybe.

Cycling through the dark forest after work. I am the only person on this planet. The cold wind finds a tiny spot somewhere below my scarf into my zipped up parka crawling along my chest. The tyres make loud swishing noises when I hit unseen puddles. The clouds open up and the moon shines on me and me alone. Here I go, my hands are freezing, chronic gastritis gnawing away at my stomach, something painful going on between my bladder and my inflamed intestines, cold tears running from my eyes to my ears, my hands are freezing inside the latest thermal gloves, I am 57 years old. I am racing through the dark silent forest with the moon shining on me and me alone. I am a miracle. I am the only person on this planet.

and more cycling

The Cyclist Philosopher from fifty beans on Vimeo.

subtitles in English: click on the cc button

cycling . . . again

almost perfect world

This is the future.

Not only is Amsterdam one of my favourite cities, I am also a cyclist - have been since my father put me, aged maybe not even 12 months, in the little seat behind the handlebars of his big black bicycle. I have cycled wherever I have lived so far and I plan to do this for a while longer. Daily, if possible, like right now once I post this. Today is cold, just above freezing, but the sky is clear and blue and I'll put on a double pair of thermal mittens. I don't cycle for fitness or as a recreational sport thing, I cycle to get from A to B and back again. Sometimes, this can take a couple of days or even weeks. And I don't wear a helmet. Don't ask, I would only get worked up about risk assessment and behavioural studies and I have the statistics right here somewhere.