Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Joy pain laughter and pot plants

Herrad woke with a howl this morning. She was in a lot of pain physically but from her eyes I could see she had been looking into that dark abyss that is future. We held our faces together and shared hundreds of gentle little kisses till she could stop crying. I got her some weed vapour and Spike and Marleen applied their regime of dog love. We managed to get back to enjoying the moment again and are now awaiting the visit of her physiotherapist. (Hey she arrived just on the completion of the word!)
Herrad is doing OK and so am I but we are both confronting new problems. Life becomes a process of managing worsening situations. She does not post all the pains and humiliations she suffers. It is not for me to tell: we are still strangely a very private couple. I will say that her courage is humbling to witness and I am privileged to share with her.
I am back to some type of mental normality after being up and down like a... very emotional over the last weeks.
With help from a lovely friend I got some pots and earth and plants on Saturday and now the balcony and Herrad's window box look as if they are part of a cottage garden (deep joy!). It is a pleasure to see see life and colour when you come out the lift. Other neighbours seem determined to drag our building into a slum and as I have no desire to make a confrontation with them I think my best course of action is to inflict beauty on them. They can scowl at me but I shall smile back. I regard everyone as potentially my equal and I hope that one day even my neighbours can love themselves enough to stop behaving like arseholes and join the rest of us in the pursuit of joy. I wont hold my breath.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't think Herrad's blog was a complete recitation of her existence, with all the pains & worry that must be present, but I do think she gets out much of the core, or enough. You 2 seem to embrace solutions wherever/whenever you can find them, but to some things there is no solution. ~Mary

Richie said...

Your right Mary. Much of our coping is understanding what can and can't be achieved. Accepting that at times it will be pretty crappy has to be an incentive to making it good as it can be how and when we can.
Herrad does tell her story very well so I try to be concious of that; whilst we share the story she is the central character and her voice is primary.
I do not want to compromise her self expression.

awb said...

There isn't enough beauty in the word, such as the love you and Herrad share. Thanks for sharing it with us,

Andy

Cathy said...

Herrad is blessed to have you. I am fortunate as well to have a wonderful man in my life. And although I never share my "embarassing moments" in my blog, we all have them. whether they are big moments or small moments we all have them. Even those who don't have MS. LOL

soulful sepulcher said...

I think you both share enough of yourselves on your blogs, which endear you both to all of us.

I also do not write all of my life details on my blog, some things are just not for the world to read and that's ok.

I do know, and understand though how long the day probably is for both of you, and that you find solace and comfort in the moments that are not filled with caring for crises and managing the MS. When my daughter was living at home, it ended up being all I did, was managing her, and appointments, medications, etc and it was very very tiring, and our world was not with many people in it for support then.

I think Herrad is grand and brave, and that you are a great partner for her.

Hope the evening is pleasant, and I am really enjoying the flower boxes along with you both!

Webster said...

Since you were also speaking of plants, I'll tweak the subject a little. Is it legal to grow marijuana in Amsterdam? And if so, how much? Also, how does THC vapour differ from smoking a joint?

Richie said...

The law is I can have five weed plants for personal use- this will be interpreted by most coppers to be five in flower a mother plant and a the next crop of five little clones.
The vapour is a subtle arrival and a big impact. From a recreational users perspective it is not until I leave my seat or listen to the drivel coming out my mouth do I realise quite how high I am. Herrad could tell you better but it took a while before she adjusted from the immediate hit of a joint: I think this is also tobacco addiction slowly leaving. Herrad went form smoking tobacco and weed to pure weed joints then the vaporiser. The weed joints gave her some of the placebo cigarette effect. When I experimented with the vapour I found that I could get absolutely stoned but not ever as whacked out as the same amount of pipes or joints. I get a head ache and want to go to bed if I do too much. I do not quite get what I would call a "body stoned" feeling off the vapour- THC is only one canaboid and it has the lighter "high" feeling- the others are produced as the THC breaks down and they give that sleepy lethargic feeling.
Skunk weed (a sativa variety) is high in THC and low in other canaboids so it gives a manic hit. Haze and other Indica varieties have more of the other canaboids and makes you happy and peaceful. Vaporising does not break down the THC so it is a bubbly intense happy hit.
For Herrad it seems to go right to the business and gives simple quick relief and is also much safer than a burning joint!
Vaporising is also cheap as chips 'cos you waist very little and can get every last bit out of the most crap weed- we use commercial waist weed destined for hash making- too much tar to smoke it but we just suck the juice out- we get it for nothing sometimes!

steve said...

I find plants to be so needy. "Water me!" "Feed me!" "Give me sunlight!" "My roots are all knotted up!" And for what? Sure they throw you a couple blooms when they feel like it.

Sculpture. Now that's where it is at. Doesn't change. Low maintenance. And when made out of mashed potatoes, delicious!

Glad to hear the seas are calming a bit. Not to pry, but I'd love to hear what your last bicker was about. BR and I got into one over the weekend. We were driving through Houston during a major thunderstorm at about 2am. He decided that the way I was driving made him nervous. After a bit of a heated back-and-forth, I determined that it was more the storm than my driving that was causing his anxiety. There were only two ways to calm him down: pull over and let the storm pass, or medicate. Since this was a massive storm that wasn't going to end any time soon, and it was already very late, he got his happy pill.

Webster said...

Richie, Back in the day when I smoked I started some seeds at the same time my Dad started his tomatoes. He planted them side by side on the south side of our house, watered them, fed them regularly and by September they were taller than his tomatoes!

Since they're illegal here, and my Dad had a few friends who were police, When I noticed that some Jr. High kids were pointing at them one day I realized it was harvest time.

It was some of the best I've ever had. Very potent! Just thought I'd share this little story from my "youth" with you and Herrad.

Richie said...

When I was a punk rocker squatter in the 1970s we tried to get a nice house but the neighbour went apeshit and threatened to kill us. I got further in and saw his problem- a greenhouse out back full of near mature weed plants.
We went back a week later and had the lot he he he!
My friend went and sat on his wall and smoked a big j in front of him- he went mad! Naughty boys.

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

I do feelfor you, it must be soul destroying to watch someone you love suffer. I lost my mum 11 yrs ago, three days later my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer and only lived 2 months ,I wish you both all the luck in the world
and hope you manage many "Good " days.

Yvonne.