Off the bookshelf

This one has been sat patiently in the please-read-me queue on the bookshelf for some time now. I am very happy that it's time has finally come. Have you read it before? If so, then why didn't you tell me? If not, then what are you waiting for?

For every woman who has ever been a bit ambivalent about getting married, or feared who she might become if she became a wife, this book serves as a cautionary tale. It's now 35 years after it was written, and still the idea of wifedom and marriage can come close to driving us mad.

But don't listen to what I have to say. Let the book speak for itself.

'I worry about her a lot, you know,' Joe continued. 'I think it's a lot harder for her than for most other women; I think it's harder for any woman who's been to university. She gets the idea she has a mind, her professors pay attention to what she has to say, they treat her like a thinking human being; when she gets married, her core gets invaded...'

'Her what?' Marian asked.

'Her core. The centre of her personality, the thing she's built up; her image of herself, if you like.'

'Oh. Yes,' said Marian.

'Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition, her feminine role demands passivity from her...'

Marian had a fleeting vision of a large globular pastry, decorated with whipped cream and maraschino cherries, floating suspended in the air above Joe's head.

'So she allows her core to get taken over by the husband. And when the kids come, she wakes up one morning and discovers she doesn't have anything left inside, she's hollow, she doesn't know who she is anymore; her core has been destroyed.' He shook his head gently and sipped at his drink. 'I can see it happening with my own female students. But it would be futile to warn them.'

Other people say it better

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                                   i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e. e. cummings


Just  because. A little poetry is good for the soul. Mine is feeling better already.

Just another APW* rip-off post

(*A Practical wedding, but you knew that already, right?)

So, I thought about it...

I've never been ambivalent about marriage. I didn't always see my future self as married, but that was because I feared that my expectations of what a happy marriage should be like were probably unrealistically high thanks to my parents' ridiculously loving marriage and an unhealthy early obsession with Jane Austen. Hence, I considered my chances of finding someone with whom I could fulfil that ideal were slim to none. I always believed that should the mythical creature be found, I'd marry him in a flash, but as a cautiously sensible girl, I had a lovely single alterna-dream-life mapped out in my head, and I was actively working on fulfilling it.

Then, delightfully, my husband surprised me with how wonderfully simple a good relationship could be. And when I realised that our potential marriage stood a mega-awesome chance of living up to my ideals, I was all over it. (I was ambivalent about the process of getting married, but that's a topic for discussion elsewhere.) I don't really know why I never questioned the point of getting married. I imagine the most significant factor was the model of the strong loving marriage, which I grew up admiring and hoping to emulate, as well as the certainty of taking that step, becoming married as opposed to... I don't know. Personally, I didn't have a positive model for any viable alternative. So, for better or for worse, for me marriage equalled 'real' committment. Add in the legal benefits, the hard-to-shake-off values of the really quite conservative society in which I was raised, and twelve whole years of all-girls' Catholic Convent brainwashing, and you have an over-educated independent woman, who still believes that the thing to do with your life-partner (if at all possible) is to marry them.

And how has it changed our relationship, or our lives? The truth is that it hasn't really changed our relationship in any core way at all, as far as I can tell. We giggle and call each other 'husband' and 'wife' in mock-serious tones a lot, and have started planning seriously for a joint future, but nothing significant in the actual dynamic of the relationship has altered. However, it has enormously changed the way I view the relationship, and myself.

Due to my specific circumstances, and my mindset prior to getting serious with my husband (only being 'temporarily' in the UK) it seems that I always had a tiny get-out-of-jail-free card of escaping onwards if things didn't work out in the back of my mind. It would seem that until I agreed to marry, I was not wholly, deeply, unconditionally committed. Make of that what you will. He was, I think, but I didn't feel I could entirely believe that, because of my own view of what marriage meant. Also, there were lots of other complicating practicalities, but basically committing to the legal aspect of marriage brought about a whole paradigm shift for me in making me view this thing I had gotten into as a permanent fixture of my life. I had hoped it would be before, but only on getting married did it become a certainty. That is huge. Wonderfully, wonderfully huge.

Also, I think that before marriage, I worried that I was essentially sacrificing my rad, single, independent alterna-dream-life (which did not primarily involve remaining in the UK), for what? Great sex? Great conversation? But something that could be shrugged off by either party at any time at a moment's notice? Going through the expense and drama of renewing visas to remain in a country that wasn't even necessarily my first choice destination of places to be long-term, seemed a bit silly to do for a 'boyfriend', no matter for bloody wonderful he might be, and really seemed to be the antithesis of what a smart independent woman would choose to do. So getting married has made it psychologically OK for me to make the choice to remain here. Not for him, for myself, but for something more tangible than, well, the airy-fairy concept of love I suppose. (As well as a teensy bit more straightforward from a bureacratic point of view.) It's also made me able to really see this place as a potential home, and come to embrace it a lot more fully, than when I just viewed it as a temporary port of call.

And there you have it. This certainty, and sureness, and solidity - physically, psychologically and legally - is what marriage has meant for me so far. And I guess that is why I was never ambivalent about it in the first place.

Speaking of showing love for the printed word...

 ... how about sharing that love in a book swap? The lovely-seeming lady at {poprocks} is hosting. RSVP by Jan 20th. See you there?

 If that doesn't float your boat, maybe you'll join me at my swanky new Slow Readers Book Club? (It looks kind of bloody fantastic. It has a forum. She is running it.)

Ah yes, never let it be said that I don't put my money where my mouth is...

(Image by Lori Nix photography)

Final Countdown*

I may have mentioned this before.
But once again the time draws near. Preparations are stepped up a gear. I must ready myself for my new year.
Because Carnival is here once more.


*27 days and counting...
Thank you, dear British Airways (gee, when was the last time I said that?) for providing the reminder that I needed.
If you miss me round these parts, it's cause I'm too busy 'eating healthily' and 'improving my cardiovascular fitness' (i.e. dieting and exercising my ass off. Literally).

So sorry

I've been thinking about this for days, and I still don't know what to say, apart from I'm so sorry. This eloquent post says some of what I've been thinking, better than I could articulate it. These practical people have suggestions of how to help, and so feel less incompetent, and maybe slightly less guilty at how ordinarily our lives go on, undisturbed by the enormous tragedy happening elsewhere.

The really sad thing? This song was released in 1988. Where do you think Haiti will be in 20 years' time?

Smiling through my tears

Today my night shifts ended. At the moment, these take the form of a series of days and nights in which sixteen hours are spent in a state of continual preparedness for work, if not actually working, with all-too-brief breaks for fitful rest inbetween. The lack of sleep, and light, and ordinary human interaction always serves to bring what seems to be my ever-present undercurrent of melancholy that much closer to the surface.

Tired and relieved, I drove home through a landscape that had melted overnight, the magically transforming fairydust all but disappeared; everything returned to bare, desolate lifelessness. It rained, for the first time in weeks, the sad droplets lashing against the windscreen matching my own sombre heart beat by rhythmic beat.

Then, Book of the Week came on the radio, this week's book being 'Must You Go?', in which Antonia Fraser recounts her life with Harold Pinter. The themes of death, loss, and heartache resonated with my mood, but there was something so beautiful at its core, that despite it all I felt comforted. I smiled through my tears when I heard these words right at the very end.

I shall miss you so much when I'm dead.
The loveliest of smiles, the softness of your body in our bed.
My everlasting bride, remember that when I am dead,
you are forever alive, in my heart, and in my head.

Beautiful words, in print form, read aloud by the one for whom they were written.

Which leads me to thank you all so much for your words of encouragement about my tentative first step towards seeing my own words published. And yes, as one of you kindly reminded me, this blog is a way of doing that, and one whose reach is not to be underestimated.

However, there is something to be said about the printed word. About its beauty, and its power. About the pure unadulterated anticipatory pleasure of opening its pages for the very first time, or the familiar comfort of returning to well-loved, well-thumbed ones. About the feel of the paper, the texture of the spine, the physical weight of the words in your palm, or on your lap. About that unmistakeable smell, whether of bookstore-new-fresh, or library-old-must, that makes you bury your face between the pages, close your eyes, and breathe deeply. About the need for stillness, the requirement to stop everything else, and wholly devote your attention to the object in hand; one hand needed to hold it open, the other to turn the page, take notes, sip tea. All of these things add up to a sensory, sensual experience that words on a screen can never approximate.

I feel strongly about the printed word, about the need to preserve the book in its original form. It saddens me to see reports of ebooks overtaking real ones in sales, because it seems to me that so much of the pleasure of reading lies in the physical act itself. I may be biased - my mother is a librarian, so I grew up spending much of my spare time hidden away between bookstacks, surrounded on all sides by the printed word. Books were precious objects in our household, much yearned for, and once received, very much loved.

So, my melancholy was lifted in the most delightful way when I reached home this morning, to see that this very worthy project has just been launched by these amazing ladies. Go support it. Take the pledge. I did.

And this weekend I plan to spend much time curled on my sofa, a book in one hand, handkerchief in the other, smiling through my tears.

Baby steps

I think I once let slip that as a child I dreamed of being a writer. Now this is the most terribly embarrassing cliche to admit to as a blogger, but sometimes I still have those dreams. Without doing a darn thing about them other than witter on in this, rather forgiving and uncritical (just the way I like it), space.

But I had vowed (resolved, if you must) that this year, if it was meant to be, I would somehow manage to take that first small step toward making the dream a reality. Not toward being a writer writer, I have no such delusional aspirations, but just toward having a continuous selection of my words appear in print. Somewhere.

Yesterday, I sent off my first submission. It was just a few brief paragraphs meant to act as 'filler' for more worthy words, but I haven't been so scared since my very first day thrown into the maelstrom of work, three-and-a-half light years ago.

Baby steps. But they sure do seem like precipices when you've only just learned how to crawl.

(Photo by Contemporary Wedding of one of our most junior wedding-blessing guests.)

The perfect equation

Husband

+

Sofa

+

Kitten

+

Cuddles

+

Bad movie

+

Good wine

+

Belly laughs

=

Contentment

Q.E.D.

I declare a conflict of interest

et me just spit it out without too much preamble, and in the hope that your kind and forgiving selves won't hold it against me. At least, not forever.

I'm a doctor. In fact, I'm a doctor who is currently training to be a psychiatrist.

There. That wasn't so hard, was it?*

I haven't been completely opaque about my profession, and I know that some of you who trouble to read these sometimes incoherent ramblings more closely than others may have already figured it out. Nor do I bother to shout it from the blogtops. I have my reasons, and yes, you bet I'll list them for you.

For one thing, I believe in absolute patient privacy. I try not to talk about work with my own husband even, and he's a doctor too. (The 'normal' kind you'll be glad to know. We're not a pair of married head-shrinkers, although I have met some of those, and generally it ain't pretty.) If I've been to see a doctor, and it was awkward and intensely personal, and maybe more than a little weird, I wouldn't like it very much if they then used that encounter as material to generate amusing anecdotes at my expense. (Although, it might be OK if it generated profound, moving and illuminating observations on the meaning of life and the human condition, but I seem to be short on the talent required to produce those, so I leave the patient tales well out of it.) Also, you can, and indeed you must, develop a rather macabre sense of humour when pain, sorrow, suffering, madness and death are the bread-and-butter of your daily work**, and I have found that sharing this can deeply disturb the uninitiated. (That humour I do share with my husband. It is how we survive.)

I also firmly and absolutely believe in my own privacy. I am rubbish at maintaining anonymity. I want to share things about myself and my life, and the more I do that, the more identifiable I become. It may be an odd balance of power in the doctor-patient relationship - me knowing all about them in intimate detail, them knowing nothing about me - but that is how it safely works. If a patient ever found this place and came to know all my innermost thoughts, neuroses and turmoils...? Well, that's a chance I take in keeping this blog, but I bet it would make for one hell of an awkward encounter.***

Last, but by no means least, I fear the wrath of my professional regulatory body. They do nasty things to doctors who bring the profession into disrepute, even in their personal lives, which is why I try to keep it all a bit... sanitised. I like my work, and I'd very much like to be able to keep on doing it for the forseeable future.

But work issues have been bugging me lately. Bugging me to the point of distraction. And so I feel compelled to raise something that I feel ultimately affects us all, even if indirectly. (Here in the UK at least.) That something is the misery of the NHS, and in particular the misery of its junior doctors.**** This miserable junior doctor in actual fact.

I choose medicine, believe it or not, so that I could help people. Do something tangibly good with my life. Never feel guilty about a single penny earned, or spent, because it had literally been paid for by blood, sweat and tears. (Mine, as much as anyone else's.) To me this attitude does not fit comfortably with sharp business acumen. I am embarrassingly apathetic politically, but when it comes to healthcare I strongly believe that equal access to a high standard of it is a basic human right, and should, for the most part, be unaffected by one's individual ability to pay. Once healthcare is privatised, doctors become self-employed businesspeople, and no matter how altruistic you may have been to begin with, the need to feed, clothe and shelter yourself and your family introduces an enormous conflict of interest. How can you be certain that you are acting in your patients' best interests, if in the act of treating them you are also directly taking care of your own? For me, it just doesn't add up. (Please note, I am in no way trying to comment on the healthcare debate raging across the pond. It is my personal dilemma of which I write.*****)

Which is where the NHS-induced misery comes in. This is not the appropriate forum for a tirade about how shitty the conditions of my employment are, and how unsupported and under-resourced one of the most highly stressed and vulnerable groups of professionals are, and how frankly unsafe this can make things for the rest of us. But increasingly, I have had to think that long-term, maybe the NHS is not for me. Maybe I will be forced to cut and run to sunnier climes, maybe I will have to go private, for the sake of my own health and sanity. I'm not the only one - others like me are leaving in droves - but still I hate myself for even thinking of it. Especially for thinking of private practice. How could I live with that conflict between providing for others' needs while making sure I can meet my own? But then, how can I remain in the NHS, as jaded, cynical and disillusioned as I have already become? I don't know the answers to those questions, but I'm beginning to think that therein lies the secret to my future career happiness.

So there you have it. A bit more (possibly ill-advised) self-disclosure. A bit of a rant, a weight off my chest. And the only thing I can really ask you to take away from this post? Please be kind to your doctors when next you see them, as silly as that may sound. Believe me when I say that it's harder for them than you may think.


*Was it?
**Although mainly, it's tedium. With some moments of unbelievable joy and awesome inspiration at the immensity of the human spirit as well.
***And I won't even mention my fear of being stalked. Nope, not mentioning it...
****Read on dear friends, I am miserable because I feel the NHS isn't working as it should, not because I don't think that it is A Very Good Thing. It is.
*****Although, yes, privatised healthcare is a rubbish idea. Shoot me for having a political opinion. 
AND Have you seen Nurse Jackie? It may be the best medical TV show I've seen yet. And that female British doctor with the fabulously ridiculous shoes? I want to be her.

Daily Drop Cap by Jessica Hische