The roll and stall
In it we move by
bearings and bushes,
Maybe I thought I heard brushes,
Then we have to spare our blushes,
For in the way we go not by buses,
Even as some think it be what flushes.
So handled tenderly lest
it crushes,
And by shifting motion we find it gushes,
Either fungal or avian both be thrushes,
For a cure many have become lushes,
Yet neither of the first will work for mushes.
Competing for myself
Making a modification
to the timings of my walking exercises, I now get up at the break of dawn and
depending on when I step out from 6:00 AM to 6:30 AM, I can do between 10 to 12
kilometres, getting back home just before 8:00 AM to start work.
In the evenings, I
add a few more steps to my already fulfilled quota from the morning. I even
entered a competition for a medal that required I complete 5,000 steps every day for 4 days in a row. There were no additional medals for the 36,000+ steps I
did on the first day and the over 90,000 steps I had done by the fourth day.
My Manchester anew
In a few days, I
should reach 5,000,000 steps having done the bulk of that from an average of
60,000 steps a month in the last 2 and a half months. It is notable that I
completed 3,000,000 steps on the 31st of December, I have probably
not felt any fitter for 25 years.
Sometimes, my pace in
slow, I try not to compete against the clock, I have set enough personal
records that the sense of euphoria is becoming juvenile with every achievement.
The morning walk is routine, and the evening walks lead me on new discoveries
around my city. I am surprised that I am still seeing new places within miles
of my abode in the 7th year of my residency. You need curiosity and
interest to discover and experience.
My burden lightened
One thing that almost
frustrated me and left me wondering if there was much else, I could do was
getting my weight down, the last kilogramme has been the hardest to lose. It
would probably not remain as low but seeing 79.8 kilogrammes this morning was
both a shock and a surprise.
I had languished above
81 kilogrammes for weeks. Brian however assured me that I will eventually lose
more because my exercise was continuing in earnest.
What Brian will not
countenance is allowing it to fall to 75 kilogrammes, which was my original
target. What we can agree on is, it’s walking and it’s working. I’m happy with
that.
Meetings for the body
When it comes to my
health and wellbeing, I look forward to my biannual medical consultation not
with any anxiety but in anticipation of presenting myself to my consultants who
have overseen my health over the last decade.
For instance, when I
get the opportunity, I would like to return to Amsterdam and see the professor
who first took on my care and gave a glowing reference reflective more of my
personality than my medical condition, it prepared consultants in the UK for an
interesting patient coming under their care.
My longer-term
consultants have been in Manchester, in Wrexham and in London, I only had a few
months of interaction before I was referred on to others. The reference from
London brought me in contact with my first consultant who has retired to embark
on humanitarian activities in Asia.
Meetings for the soul
When he left, my new
consultant sent a letter of introduction from which I researched her background
and career activities, I was better read up on her than she was on my medical
notes, from it a relationship has developed that we are quite pleased to see
each other when I go for my appointments.
The medical matters
are quite quickly dispensed with and we get onto matters of life, of the heart,
of happiness and much else. A patient is more than the notes and the
medication, doctors who explore beyond the medical into the person and
personality hopefully have a more rewarding doctor-patient experience and it
helps them know that what they are doing contributes to demonstrably improving
the quality of life of their patients.
Meetings for the mind
Another thing I enjoy
visiting the hospital and consulting room is we sometimes have medical students
sit in on my consultations, something I welcome. I engage with the students,
find out their intended specialisms and encourage them that what they are doing
makes the miracle of medicine possible in the lives of people like me.
However, with this
pandemic, that last time I saw my consultant was last year. I had a telephone
consultation in April and a rescheduled one from next week to today this
morning. It is very likely my next appointment in April next year will also be
a telephone conversation.
Meetings for the
touch
We were able to pass considerable
information between ourselves from the medical to the personal, but it was over
in about 20 minutes as she had a full book of calls to make. That interpersonal
connection was lost even though we deployed the art of conversation to the best
we could. A 15-minute window was scheduled for phlebotomy on Monday when I
could also pick up my prescription for another 6 months.
All other indicators
were good apart from a concern with how one of the components of my combination
formulary interacts with cholesterol. That will be monitored and reviewed for
our next session. Much can be done with technology, but you do without essential
human contact and interaction, especially in medical settings. I would suppose
my next human touch will be at the prick of a needle, something I am used to
and I am happy all is well.
Then I found freedom
It was one Wednesday
night in early April, 36 years ago that I discovered something on campus, a
livelier form of religion and devotion that put me at odds with everyone apart
from the community that embraced me.
There was some
turmoil I did not understand going on in my life, one in which I was at school
and attended lectures without any inkling of what was going on therein. Sadly,
there was no one I could explain my predicament to, but I found the distraction
of student union representation and religion to keep my head as things swirled
around me.
My sanity mattered
more
That I was a failed
student probably did not surprise me, though the reasons were quite different
from what my parents and some friends thought. I was fighting a battle for my
sanity whilst everything else fell apart around. Maybe, I would have liked for
everything to all come together, but what is a life without the trials and
tribulations that make for the quality of experience?
Indeed, I can say
that now, when in the midst of it, I was both helpless and hapless, yet taking
each day as it comes writing the story I can tell today. Seminal in those
experiences were events quite a few and one of which was the music of the time.
It’s a new sound
I had heard some Christian
music that did not suggest the singers were ready to explore the talents they
had, pedestrian, uninspiring, perfunctory with words that just needed mouthing
and hands clapping without a sense of rhythm like God was a boring sad and an unfunny deity of the sort that mother’s religious proclivities embraced.
Then I heard Andraé Crouch, the
whole concept of praise and worship changed, the uplifting music that you will
learn, sway and dance to that you were moving too well to even consider
clapping. You were dancing before the Lord and even if you become naked in the
process like King David once did, it did not matter. [BibleGateway
2 Samuel 6:14-23 (NIV)]
He holds me up
Too many songs that
became the way by which God held me through the difficult and seemingly
impossible times, for I did not see any light at the end of any tunnel, I
groped in the darkness and the Lord led me through the valley of the shadow of
death to new green pastures and still waters, but it was a long journey through
that wilderness where I strayed at times and predators were on the prowl to
devour me. I was spared, saved, and protected, to tell a better a story.
Today, from my Amazon
Music subscription I decided to ask Alexa to playback Andraé Crouch and that
has been on for hours, reminding of how in times of trouble, I need not be
troubled, I am held by the righteous right hand of God and my unsteady gait on
the rocky path is kept firm in the knowledge that I will not fall, nor will I
come to any harm. We have a destination and it is good to the end. [Andraé Crouch on Amazon Music]
The timely message on
Our Daily Bread – God Holds Us just
reinforces the sense, feeling and assurance that it is well with my soul. I
want to get my maracas out for this.
[]
Something, Someone,
Somebody
To know what it is
like, to love somebody,
When your heart is knit with not just anybody,
That someone that makes you so precious,
Calling you baby and not at all precocious,
You find great safety in their arms.
To have that feeling,
just with someone,
With whom it is so perfect apart from anyone,
They care for you that much to make a fuss,
The one who is there and close to discuss,
You get to whisper in their ears.
To give the needed
support, in something,
They are there holding you firm in everything,
Being a friend and lover more than ever,
Giving you all need to soar and recover,
They have you deep in their hearts.
Not beaten at last
Visualising a scene
where a heap of rubble has been poured from a height like an avalanche on the
person of the Incredible Hulk
we watch as the silence descends on the moment as if it were the end of his
story, destroyed by an event over which he had no control or foreknowledge
might come to be his lot.
Then, a stirring begins
from beneath it all, he clambers out with a defiant roar and whoever thought
that was the end of the Incredible Hulk by their hand will find retribution
beyond what they have started.
Out of the
overwhelming
It is the feeling
that has crowded my last week, almost a sense of helplessness against so many
things. The pandemic compounds the feeling of loneliness and separateness from
the ones with whom you have communion in heart and mind. An activity from far
away, if it were better handled rather than unilaterally done, would have been
less of a strain of one’s mental health.
Exhaustion and
weakness creep upon you to deplete your resolve, you begin to doubt yourself,
your strength, your fortitude, and your faith, then your health wants to follow
into a decline of despair and distress. This is not what you can allow.
As dawn broke, I do
not know what the day would bring, many uncertainties needing some direction so
that plans can come into view. Where do you go when there does not seem to be
anywhere to go?
His giving has only
begun
Then I remembered a
song by Danniebelle
Hall, she has been gone almost 20 years and this song goes back to 1974, it
was a hymn, though it is difficult to find the author, as the attributions look
suspect. He giveth more grace is the titled to what I played back in my mind on
my walk and then back at home. [AZLyrics:
He Giveth More Grace – Don Moen]
Let us revisit the
last paragraph, He Giveth More Grace started as a poem written by Annie Johnson
Flint (1866-1932) who was orphaned and had a life of crippling arthritis, yet had
unwavering faith in the grace of God. [Amazon:
He Giveth More Grace: One hundred poems.] [He
Giveth More Grace]
The words soothe me
and assure me that when I have exhausted my hoarded resources, my God out of His
infinite riches, riches in Christ Jesus, continues to give strength, hope,
grace, power, ability and supply, there is no rubble of life that can stop me
in the way, in my tracks or in the superhuman leaps and bounds to places of
amazing wonder, the green pasture and still waters where my soul is completely
and fully restored.
[]
A drama in my head
There is an American
situation comedy series titled, How I Met Your
Mother, I have never watched it nor do I know much about what it is about
apart from what the title suggests.
On my walk this
morning, a whole series of conversations played out in my mind, possible
conversations with my dad that I expected might end badly that I resolved to
put it to one side, but what transpired between the dramatis personae in my
head was vigorous and vituperative, I was angry, probably too angry.
A question seeking
answers
The other
conversation was between my mum and me; we have developed a friendlier and
communicative rapport, I enjoy it. I was going to introduce a topic with humour
and move it on to the fact that I was feeling unnecessarily stressed out by my
dad. He is becoming as impossible as he is inconsiderate and obdurate; I don’t
use those words lightly and they explain to a larger extent why we have much
conflict.
Then a sense of
exasperation overcame me, I felt like asking my mum, how did you meet my dad?
What was the significant moment that brought you both together as husband and
wife? Materially, without the union of these particularly significant people, I
would not have existed, someone else would have been born in circumstances and
situations quite different from the one I have inhabited.
A son a bit different
It is almost like the bane of life, a fate over which there is no autonomy or agency, we happen upon
a state and wish upon a star, each second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year
becomes a story writing itself as each moment passes. You then find that of the
things you can neither change nor alter, you make peace, make do and make the best
of it towards telling a better story.
Where I might have
found my dad to be a reasonable listening person, I find I have not been persuaded of
the reality of that thought. It saddens me, but I will not agonise, I find that
it is our attitude and our forbearance that gives us the means to deal with many things,
especially the difficult. I will be a son but can’t be my dad.
