Thursday 11 October 2007

Emerging into the Early Autumn Light


Somewhere, an invisible wheel has turned full circle. We are on firmer ground now, but in a different place.

This has been a week of blessed weather, with the trees shimmering green and gold in the early October light. An anticyclone has been hugging these islands, but is now drifting slowly away to Scandinavian shores.

Is it too fanciful to think that the forces that control our emotions are in some way similar to those that govern the weather? Sometimes, a palpable tension can build up in our relationships that needs a storm to burst upon it to clear and reinvigorate the air. That was how it was last week with Mum. A crisis built up over her refusal to consider having help from Social Services on the days I go out to work - combined with her truculence over the fact that I sometimes need to leave her at home alone. I have truly felt trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Thank goodness for family. Mike and Sue are willing to drive all this way to cover for me three days each week and Mum is making visibly more of an effort to display a little independence. I know the situation is more complicated than these few words suggest, but I don’t feel I can go into it any more at the moment.