Despite the pain and the morphine that dripped periodically into me, in the recovery room, after the last amputation, I felt a joy already surging through me. What I felt was a deep and fundamental sense of wholeness and completeness.
At that moment I was for the first time in years healthy. The disease that had rumbled inside my body and had so spectacularly erupted in February 2004 was no longer active.
I know it was not the drugs that gave me that feeling, because in the days and weeks and months that followed, that feeling is still with me.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Sunday, March 19, 2006
One Hundred Words About Praise
People’s praise is overwhelming. Wide smiles full of shock and surprise, sometimes mixed with pride, or sympathy or wonder and disbelief, terrifies me.
Praise is like a mirror in which I see myself through others eyes.
It is a false reflection.
Belief in it would destroy me.
Even writing about it maybe dangerous.
In those looks and words of praise, I see my tightrope walk each day and the bottomless chasms that open up on either side of me. I’m frightened of losing my balance and falling far to earth.
It’s the feeling of vertigo that recurs in my dreams.
Praise is like a mirror in which I see myself through others eyes.
It is a false reflection.
Belief in it would destroy me.
Even writing about it maybe dangerous.
In those looks and words of praise, I see my tightrope walk each day and the bottomless chasms that open up on either side of me. I’m frightened of losing my balance and falling far to earth.
It’s the feeling of vertigo that recurs in my dreams.
Friday, March 17, 2006
One Hundred Words And A Poem About Joy
Once when I was failing, I'd come outside and sit in the graveyard beneath a church. The deer park and the Hall shimmered in late summer heat. I watched the strong clotted green of ancient oaks, the drone of lorries carrying grain from the fields and watched House Martins gathering along high cables.
And from this, a deep glorious joy stirred and rose up through me. In these moments, every afternoon, I felt angels were beside me, feeding me. The earth was holy and as this joy pulsed through me I felt lifted up and made strong and holy.
House Martins
Late summer
and the harvest almost over.
Each late afternoon
I closed my books
and left a room
that reeked of defeat,
where each word I read
joined the liturgy of failure
I was reciting to myself.
So I came outside
to sit beyond the church
among the grave stones.
The sky poured light,
the dark lines of clotted oaks
framed distant stubble fields.
I watched house martins gathering,
perched on long lines of cables
then scattering like seeds
into the wind.
Then I closed my eyes
listening to their high pitched whistles,
sharp, metallic, tuning in and out,
tearing my books apart.
The house martins reeling,
arcing the sky
low sunlight catching
their quick wings.
And further off the heavy drone
of lorries for miles
down winding country roads
carrying grain to empty silos.
22 October 2002
David Loffman
And from this, a deep glorious joy stirred and rose up through me. In these moments, every afternoon, I felt angels were beside me, feeding me. The earth was holy and as this joy pulsed through me I felt lifted up and made strong and holy.
House Martins
Late summer
and the harvest almost over.
Each late afternoon
I closed my books
and left a room
that reeked of defeat,
where each word I read
joined the liturgy of failure
I was reciting to myself.
So I came outside
to sit beyond the church
among the grave stones.
The sky poured light,
the dark lines of clotted oaks
framed distant stubble fields.
I watched house martins gathering,
perched on long lines of cables
then scattering like seeds
into the wind.
Then I closed my eyes
listening to their high pitched whistles,
sharp, metallic, tuning in and out,
tearing my books apart.
The house martins reeling,
arcing the sky
low sunlight catching
their quick wings.
And further off the heavy drone
of lorries for miles
down winding country roads
carrying grain to empty silos.
22 October 2002
David Loffman
One Hundred Words About Joy
Joy is like a jewel. A precious stone I keep close by. It is so bright I have to keep it under cover. Sometimes it ‘s so strong I feel as though it shines through me. I have to hold it close to myself.
The summer I had my legs amputated I spent everyday in a wheelchair in a bamboo garden beside a tree, under the sun. I felt an overwhelming joy rise through me. I watched the bamboo shoots, high white clouds and ants scuttling along broken paving stones, with only the sun to hide this strong insistent joy.
The summer I had my legs amputated I spent everyday in a wheelchair in a bamboo garden beside a tree, under the sun. I felt an overwhelming joy rise through me. I watched the bamboo shoots, high white clouds and ants scuttling along broken paving stones, with only the sun to hide this strong insistent joy.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
One Hundred Words About Memory
We played music today I’ve not played since we moved in, in June – eight months ago. The children wanted to hear Laurie Anderson’s Big Science, then Eva Cassidy’s Field’s of Barley and something by Nora Jones’s.
The children balanced themselves on the sofa and danced to Anderson’s wolf howl, which startled them when I first played it to them, when they were two or three years old.
Then they quietened down. Iona curled up on my lap as we listened to Cassidy and Jones – memory filled the room. She knelt against my shoulder – remembering what we were and have lost.
The children balanced themselves on the sofa and danced to Anderson’s wolf howl, which startled them when I first played it to them, when they were two or three years old.
Then they quietened down. Iona curled up on my lap as we listened to Cassidy and Jones – memory filled the room. She knelt against my shoulder – remembering what we were and have lost.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
One Hundred Words
Sometimes I can hear the suffering in people’s lives. Sometimes their pain is so overwhelming it is difficult to hear anything else. It feels like storm clouds are gathering around us as friends and family struggle with enormous difficulties.
A family dog has been run over and may have to be put down. Reluctantly a friend took her son and slept away from her husband on Thursday night for the first time. While a friend was being violently sick and had to be taken to casualty, his wife was undergoing a caesarean operation they now wonderfully have a second son.
A family dog has been run over and may have to be put down. Reluctantly a friend took her son and slept away from her husband on Thursday night for the first time. While a friend was being violently sick and had to be taken to casualty, his wife was undergoing a caesarean operation they now wonderfully have a second son.