The Slow Days
Another week has passed in a slow blur, each day melting imperceptibly into the next, making it difficult to distinguish what happened and when. It is the feeling you get when someone tells you it’s Christmas in two weeks, and last time you checked it was only mid-March and 2023 had only just begun, and you didn’t even have to worry about tax-time for another few months. Time simply slips away when you’re not looking, lost between the cracks in your attention. That’s the kind of week it’s been.
Alessandra’s sickness has been a lingering thing, dragging her down all week long. It is a pressure in her head, behind her eyes, feeding on an endless stream of tissue paper and nasal spray, refusing to budge. I have been doing what I can to help, but it has been hard on her.
I continue to spend my mornings writing, and it has been a joy to see my novel twisting and turning and transforming into a living, breathing thing. Every morning, I feel a fear at the back of my mind that I do not know what comes next - that I shouldn’t bother even sitting down to try - yet every morning I open up the document and am relieved to find that the story tells me what to write about that day.
In the afternoons, there have been many walks - in the light rain or the chill of the early night; with Alessandra or without her. Each time, I make my way to a pillar of rough-hewn orange stone, erected to one side of the riverfront walkway. There is a metal pipe protruding from its top, channeling fresh mineral water from a deep spring under the earth. Each time, I take a drink, tasting the strange metallic, mineral tang of the cold water, which is almost fizzy in my mouth. Each time, I imagine that the water is liquid inspiration, and the imagining adds a touch of magic to the daily ritual.
Liquid gold
Many evenings have involved runs to the grocery or corner stores for necessities - including one memorable time, in which Mateo asked the cashier if he would buy him one of the little toy cars by the counter…and he did!
Apart from these routines, this week has brought Christmas into the home. On the fifth of December, children across Germany leave a shoe outside the front door, to be filled with chocolates by Saint Nikolaus. We did the same, and we awoke to find our shoes stuffed with candy. Apparently he doesn’t just do chocolate, either - I got a fancy new mug added into the bargain, as well as a card game to play on the road. Thoroughly infused with the festive spirit, Alessandra also bought a squat fir tree from the many Christmas trees bound up and ready for purchase outside Ikea, and we all set about weaving it with twinkling lights and red felt hearts; with conical Santas and Christmas angels. I’m looking at it now, as it suffuses the living room with a warm glow. It’s not just the house that’s been transformed in shades of red and green, either - we have almost finished setting up Siegfried, and a contrasting combination of sage green and pops of burnt orange has come to define the interior.
Funny little Santa
Yesterday, Alessandra finally managed to book in my medical scan for January at Frankfurt University. The relief was quickly supplanted with a sick feeling, as she conveyed the quoted cost of the scan: $3,600, up front. Though this put a dent in our morale (and will certainly put a dent in our savings), we will do what we need to do so that we can enjoy this adventure to the fullest.
As I pick through the week, there are a few things I can take from it:
Persistent illness can dampen the spirits of even the most committed optimist;
The voice trying to convince you that you can’t do something and shouldn’t even bother trying is dissolved by the act of showing up. It is designed to conserve your energy and protect you from failure, but it leaves in its place a mild hum of failure that sits on your shoulders day after day, week after week. These passive failures accumulate insidiously, dragging you down over time. Wherever possible, aim to show up;
Personal rituals and local traditions keep the magic in us alive;
Research, research, research. We were told by my oncologist in Western Australia that a PET scan should cost the same overseas as it did in W.A: $500 or so. A Google search would have shown us the truth, and we’d at least have been better prepared!
Put yourself out there and ask for what you want, and who knows? You might just get your own little toy car.
