A Friend’s Birthday Drinks; When the Party Finishes; Burger Delights; In the Night; Love from an Indian-English Pair; Real Happiness

28.03.2024

Yesterday, I felt pretty low. I talked to her for five seconds in the whole day. And in that five seconds she attacked me. The genuine moment of happiness was when I was going home and picking up a free treat on my loyalty card at Marks and Spencers. I was thinking about who to give it to. First I thought of my work family. Then, as I was walking past the homeless guy in front of the train station, I suddenly decided to give it to him. The smile that lit up his face was the genuine moment of happiness in the whole day. Here was someone that didn’t have anything and they were happy with just an inexpensive bag of sweets that a stranger had given them. He smiled like it had made his whole day. When I am feeling low, giving something to someone makes me feel good. Because you share something with them and you feel like you are making someone happy. Even when you are not happy yourself.

I gave my tour which I wrote on request to an Indian man with a white woman and their child. They were so pleased with my tour that they kept on thanking me afterwards and they wrote some really lovely words on the feedback form. But what I think made them the happiest, although they wouldn’t say it, was that I told them that I was Indian as well and I talked about one of the posters which features Indian women.

I went to a friend’s birthday drinks. I told him yesterday that I would go but because I was upset yesterday I felt tired today. So I had to make myself go. Life is passing me by. I can feel it. Nothing is happening. No one loves me. I can’t meet someone that I like that likes me back.

But you know what, these people are my friends. I get on with them so well, especially the one whose birthday it was and another person there. I forgot about how tired I was around them. We learnt more about each other and we had a good time. I left the earliest though because there is a certain point in any of that kind of social gathering that I start missing the woman that is not there with me. You feel the ache of emptiness. You are going to have to walk home alone. You are going to have to sleep in your bed alone. There is no one there that you can call your special own. So I got up and left. And I rushed off so fast to get away from everyone that I left some stuff there.

The Tiger hunts alone. The world has denied Tiger the one thing that he wanted the most in his life. Love. So, Tiger is hungry and wounded. But without hunger, there is no Tiger. Without the wound, there is no aspiration to a cure. This is the fate of Tiger.

It was my friend’s birthday. It was an occasion. One of my best friends in museums and art galleries. So I treated myself with burgers at Burger King for a change after the drinks. They are the best. They are the ones that I have enjoyed the most since I was a kid. And, since it has been so long since I have eaten them, they were breathtakingly good. I really enjoyed myself. When you are sad and you don’t have a woman in your life, food is a substitute for a lot. You can’t hold her hand. But you can eat food. You can’t kiss her. But you can eat food. You can’t talk to her in your bed. But you can eat food. You can’t learn about her in an intimate setting with candlelight and music. But you can eat food. You can’t stroke her hair. But you can eat food. You can’t run your fingers down her arm and tickle her. But you can eat food. Food is something you will always have in this country, unless there is a major disaster. And it comforts you. Thank mother nature for chocolate and junk food.

Today’s highlight was the birthday party obviously. But also sharing some of my fancy chocolate biscuits I keep in my cupboard with some of the other friends I have in the museum. Even better than eating it yourself is to make someone happy with it for a moment. Sharing things. Sharing happiness.

In the night, I think of Helen. She is the one I have pillow talk with in this diary. Like a couple that talks about their day in the night in the bedroom. It was a busy day. Sometimes, you don’t think of her much the whole day. You feel like you are finally beginning to escape from her hold on you. But when the night comes and you are alone, that is when you miss her the most. Just looking at her once in the day makes your whole day, even if you think about how she has disappointed you. And when you don’t see her, your day isn’t really complete. But then, at night, you keep on remembering how she looked while she was talking to you. You replay the conversations in your head. The first one where I actually noticed her, when she was talking about the potential outbreak of a war in her country. Asking her about the watch that she wore which made me think that she was so stylish. Her reaction when I asked her how busy she was when she didn’t even have a boyfriend and didn’t live with her family. When she told me about an issue she was having with a sibling, which was the first time I thought that she trusts me with her personal stuff. The beautiful scene with the notebook when she jumped up and down for joy and clasped that book to her chest. When she ambushed me and her eyes burned with brown fire. When she was angry at me. When she talked to me in a different place and what she was wearing, those beautiful clothes. What is your life without your memories? Even if you think of them sadly?

I have forgiven my frenemy for how she treated me. I always forgive her. It is not her fault. She is sensitive and she is also young. She doesn’t know the problems I have had and I can’t write it here. She doesn’t know what she is doing. I’m just going to leave it and not say anything. Whatever she does, I think of her as my friend and I like her. Even more than a friend. As everyone says to me, I am soft when it comes to women. Too soft.

Frenemies; Encouraging Research; Suffering

27.03.2024

the tree of sadness

27.03.2024

a sudden bloom of doom

a heart stretched out

with limbs and fingers

poisoned toes

which strive

through the ground

and into the mind above

the tree of sadness

the structure of pain

burnt into your being

One of my frenemies – the main one – was mean to me. I thought since I hadn’t been around her for a while, she would have gotten over her anger. She is still angry and judging me and everything I do and say. The incident today was over literally nothing. You have to be careful when you become frenemies with a woman. She would never say what she said to me to anyone else there. She is sweet tempered and kind. It was really upsetting. I would like to say that she doesn’t know how much it hurts when someone you like is mean to you. But actually, she is doing it because she knows it upsets me.

So that ruined my day. When she said it, I had an awful sinking feeling in my stomach. I suspect the reasons why she is doing it. I keep my speculations to myself.

What can I do about it? Nothing. If a man spoke to me like that, I wouldn’t put up with it. But she isn’t a man. And she is sensitive. So the best thing is to just leave it alone.

Hopefully it won’t disrupt my sleep patterns as now I have been able to sleep again properly for the past few days. The last time someone I liked was intentionally mean to me, it took seven months to get better again. You know about it. You are reading my diary.

What she said keeps on coming back over and over in my mind. They think I am still young. When you are young, it doesn’t hurt so much. Because you haven’t had hurt upon hurt piled upon you. When they say that stuff to you, it brings all of the memories from before back. It is quadruple the blow. I hope they won’t have to experience it when they are my age.

If I ever upset anyone, it is unintentionally. I would never do it on purpose, especially to a woman.

I have been talking with someone that wants to do a PhD in my subject in English literature somewhere. She has an interesting project and I have been sending her a few short messages about suggestions I have and some links about stuff that I have been reading that might be relevant.. Today she sent me a little thank you note about it. She is a very friendly young woman. I would have appreciated the message more some other day, but life is what it is.

At least Helen is never mean to me. She has been angry at me. Very angry. Once. But she is not mean. But Helen is older. She knows what it is like.

Two friends are unwell. My friend couldn’t talk to me on the phone today because she was feeling so poorly. Another friend has had some really bad health news. I couldn’t catch up with her either. Suffering is everywhere around you in this world. I have only just got better myself. But nobody cares that I suffered and how I had to get through it by myself. That is this world. I had to keep it to myself and away from all of my friends and family until I got better and told two of my friends what happened. Because all they would say is I told you so – don’t mess around with the women in this country because you are different to them and why were you so stupid to do that stuff with these women here after what happened that other time.

Why? Because I want my kids. Because Helen wouldn’t say yes. She was the only one in my life that I wanted. At the time, there was no one else that I wanted. Everyone else is just a substitute for Helen and they all came later. If she said yes, I wouldn’t have even looked at any of these other women that are causing me these problems. I’m not blaming Helen. It is just a fact.

Peace

06.02.2024

The ending keeps on changing. The situation keeps on changing. You have to adapt to the situation and what is called for.

When you lose a contest or a war, when you are defeated in your refusal to accept terms, you have to accept the peace that follows. And you have to make the peace offering. You have to say sorry for what you did in the past. You have to move forwards and establish renewed ties. Accept defeat and what is going to go with it with grace and don’t be a sore loser.

When you can’t sleep at night because of what you have seen and heard, which you don’t even understand, you have to change the situation. Don’t forget the favours they have done for you. You still owe them. I want my sleep back.

It has been an eventful day. But what had to be done has been done. It was the only right thing to do. I made myself do it.

And now I have to rebuild a friendship. There is time to recharge and refresh before it has to be done. I – or we – have done it before. Even though it is not easy. But I know it can be done. Why not? Forget everything and move on. Focus on the present.

A Phoenix Tells the Tale of Her Rebirth: A Patient’s Notes by Madeleine Channer

“A Patient’s Notes” is the soaring voice of the phoenix as it returns from fire and death to regain its former life, power and glory. Like the phoenix, its author burned in cancer and essentially died to give birth to this short, former nurse’s autobiography. The moments that flashed before the nearly departed’s life are here arranged and presented to form a story of healing, hope and enduring legacy. As the title suggests, the book is concerned with illness and its effects on life and its meanings, for all of us who are patients of this suffering world.

Continuing the theme of healing, the sales of this book written in the genre of the Christian medical memoir provide funds to the Diospi Suyana Hospital in Peru. The name of the hospital means to “Trust in God” in the Quechua language. It is because of this noble mission that I have decided to write this book review, rather than the fact that Madeleine Channer is perhaps one of my best and most intimate friends.

Madeleine has dedicated the book to her beloved father, Lesley Francis Cole, who did not manage to escape the tearing talons of cancer that she managed to evade. In terms of structure, the narrative is initiated by the primary scene of the original patient, the father with terminal cancer and his demise. From this tragic, traumatising moment, Madeline then shows how she builds a life dedicated to healing sickness. Finally, triumphantly, Madeleine’s own struggle with cancer is overcome with the help of those around her and the modern advances in medicine. A cruel contrast therefore motivates the work: the luckily present are compared to those unfortunates of history that did not live in the healing world of today. Those unfortunates who had to say goodbye to us for want of the proper care and knowledge. However, the contrast is also an inspiration: the war that Madeline has fought throughout her entire life against disease and cancer on behalf of patients like her father has resulted in victory.

What makes the book relevant to the historical moment and cultural trends is that Madeline had her recovery in lockdown, just as the world recovered from Covid and its effects. We share the relief and sense of wholeness from the broken years of the pandemic, the exulting sense of survival against the odds. Again, the celebration of the healing profession that the book espouses is a sentiment that has overwhelmed the world and England in particular, with its National Health Service. What adds something extra to this concoction is that the author is one of the upstanding citizens from the old generation, someone who has seen and lived through it all. So we hear things through the voice of those that have built the society and the community of care around us.

The constant theme of the book is adversity and its overcoming. Madeleine writes that hers was a precarious childhood where she was subject to emotional destabilisation and a corresponding lack of self esteem. The solution that the young Madeleine found to this state was the power of prayer, with its promise of change and renewal. She saw Christ as a model to aspire to, particularly as Christ the healer and the master of living. Several other heroes who were Christian saviours of the sick are also mentioned as inspirations: Florence Nightingale, Father Damien, Dr. Albert Schweitzer. The book is therefore a good example of what it means to have an enduring role model and how this can change the course of one’s life, as one tries to live up to the demands of becoming the figure that we idolise. The role model provides organisation and structure for living amidst the chaos of being and ultimately leads Madeleine to become a Christian saviour of those suffering in her own right, one of our most valuable members of society. Christ (and her father’s terminal illness) leads Madeleine to nurse Quechua Indian patients above 10,000 feet in the Andes.

Madeleine writes:

“How do we want to be remembered? What do we leave behind us? The kindness and diligent care provided by those involved in the great work of healing will echo for good, beyond time and into eternity”.

It is because Madeleine was one who nursed the sick and poor the we respect and love her all the more, and she will always be in our thoughts and memories. She has caught that good echo of healing with this well written, engaging and stimulating book, which moreover, brings in donations for the sick and poor of this world through its sales. Even if one is not in the faith community, the book is interesting in itself as it sheds light on the trials of one that sought to do good in the world despite all the set backs that life can throw at us. I was very happy to read and review o the book, and not just because Madeleine is my very good, very supportive, very perfect friend. Rather, it is because the book is the voice of the phoenix that has been brought back to her full beauty, after joining in that restless, oceanic sleep which haunts our being and time.