Mensis horribilis (Roses Blue)

Before the operation: Sean's knee-cap in two

It was about a month ago then that things started to go badly wrong. If I can still correctly order the events: first, I was hospitalized for three days with some severe (but still undiagnosed) stomach-bug; Then I lost my wallet: for the second time in three years it was left on the roof of the car when I drove off. Then, on the morning of my conference-trip to Vietnam, Julian fell at school and cut open his eyebrow, which required 5 stitches. So far, so bad, until last Tuesday, when Sean fell on?/off?/by? his skateboard, and broke his knee-cap into two irregular pieces. He had surgery on Wednesday: in the best case, he'll be back to normal...in six months. Not counting a minor car crash on Saturday and a sprained ankle from running, either one of which events might have seemed significant in other months, but which now pales by comparison.

Repaired!

It surely could be worse, but it still seems that this is a desperately unlucky time for us, a trial rather than an learning experience. All I have really learned is that children bring more pain and worry than is just or deserved.

Some people close to us seem to believe that a family visit to the shrine, and payment for blessings would not go amiss: for citizens of a normally irreligious culture, Japanese people can be surprisingly superstitious lot. But since the people I grew up with take a pretty dim view of Indulgences—indeed, it is this view that has partially defined them, since 1517—I'll stick with Joni Mitchell, and hope that somehow our demons can be exorcised, our curses lifted without forking out cash.

Comments

Turbulence (Thanks for all the fish, and more)

[Note: this piece is not about about my family, nor does it involve literary or musical criticism. I’m not anticipating any attractive illustrations or other lures, and no musical accompaniment either. So if that’s what you came for, look away now. There will be more such articles in the future, I hope, but this is not one of them. You have been been warned.] Tokushima Naruto Whirlpool (Shikoku Excursion) Events of the last few days have left me, both literally and figuratively, in a painfully disordered state of mind. In plain English, I’m stressed, and my head aches. Actually, it twinges, rather than aches, but the precise description matters little; at all events, the pain ‘comes and goes’, as they say. (Where pain goes to, when it goes, is a puzzle in itself. I have this anthropomorphised image of Pain, like some peripatetic poison dwarf, doing the rounds of the neighbourhood: “Hi, Nigel didn’t want me this hour, so I’ve decided to drop in on you for a while. Don’t worry thoug...

What's love got to do with it?

Click here to play the first track [Youtube] When I was young/My father said Son, I have something to say And what he told me I'll never forget Until my dying day... ( Cliff Richard, Bachelor Boy, 1963) Since just after Justin's birth, I have tried to be positive and optimistic about our future, and particularly about the challenges presented by his condition. Sometimes, as will have been clear from other posts, this positivity is aided by an ostrich-like refusal to contemplate future eventualities, but mostly, it's because I feel we've been really lucky: he had no postnatal medical complications; he's loved and accepted by his brothers, he's growing well; there's even a hint of a smile on his face... There are some days, though, when optimism seems like an overwhelming challenge, days when I almost lose the will to move forward, and when I look around for a large tub of sand (something, like litter bins, that is in desperately short supply in u...

Cambridge Blues ('Foundationed deep')

"I" Staircase, Trinity Hall, Cambridge This weekend past, I returned to Cambridge with Ayumi, Julian and Justin for the first time in seven years. The occasion was a college reunion dinner, marking approximately 40 years of life since matriculation (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 entrance years): about half of us (~50) from each annual cohort turned up to compare notes, reminisce, squeeze our sagging frames into formal evening wear, and report biographical highlights. It is worth noting that this was a self-selecting group: those with sufficient time, opportunity, income (it wasn't a cheap weekend break), self-regard and retained affection for their alma mater to trundle up; as bushy tailed and 'Hail fellow, well met', as age and misanthropy might allow. Sic transit gloria iuvenum. I didn't have a great time, nor yet was it a disastrous waste. This is hardly surprising, since the curse of middle age is profound ambivalence about almost every extra-familial event or ...

Devenish

Search This Blog