String of Hearts

For the past few years I've had a real knack for finding heart-shaped things while roaming in the great outdoors.  It's mostly stones.  I found the one above my first day on Penzance Beach and it fits in the palm of my hand.  The orange with flecks of red is comforting to me--it's almost as if this stone sends out gentle heat rays that travel through the mini chakras in my palms to the rest of my body.  Whether the heat is real or imagined, I like this stone and the two others that have followed it.

Two nights ago while waiting for my dinner at The Turk's Head I ordered a Turk's Head Ale--a rich, golden brown, 1/2 inch of light creamy foam on the top, and only a slight bitterness that went away after the first few sips.  By the end of my fish & chips and "home mushed" peas, the foam slid down the glass forming the familiar shape.

  
While walking the coastal path to St. Michael's Mount this heart called out to me.  The shape is more subtle, but it's there.  It even looks like there is a face peering out.

And then there is this one from St. Michael's Mount itself:  the "Giant's Heart".  It is laid within the cobbles that tourists walk over during their climb to the castle and is a reference to the story of Jack the Giant Killer.  

Visitors to the island get the chance to hear the story retold every twenty minutes on how a boy named Jack slew the giant Cormoran by waking him with a horn--angry and stunned with the sun in his eyes, the giant fell off the summit and down into a pit that Jack had dug.  I did not join others on the green to listen to the story as I was more intent on exploring the castle and taking in the gorgeous views of the sea, but I did begin to think about all these hearts.

What do they mean?  Is my discovery of them a result of "zen eye" or are they a sign of some kind?  Maybe they are both.  When I returned to my room yesterday afternoon from the journey to St. Michael's Mount and Marazion (the tiny hamlet that claims the Mount), I signed on to Facebook to post pictures of my adventure and was reminded about the physical vulnerability of my own ticker.  

The Blue Ribbon Project, which works to raise awareness about  arthritis, had posted an acknowledgement of passing for two young women--both in their early twenties--who had died from heart failure as a complication of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  I am nearly 40 and don't have RA, but ankylosing spondylitis (AS) falls into the autoimmune category along with RA.  Primarily an arthritis of the spine, AS affects just about everything else in the body--from hips to knees and all the rest of the joints; to tendons, ligaments, and internal organs.  Yes, the heart being one of them.  In AS there can be scarring of the aorta and scarring of the electrical conduction system.  I was put on the watch list early on in my diagnosis because my heart is not only an incredibly rapid beater (often 120 bpm, sitting), it routinely skips beats, referred to as PVCs or premature ventricular contractions.  And the fatigue I experience on a daily basis can be absolutely crushing.  This may be a result of the inefficient heartbeat, the ungodly amount of inflammation that is circulating in my body, or the chronic pain.  

Some days I still think that my doctor must have gotten the diagnosis wrong.  And then I see or hear stories that detail the ravages of autoimmune illness which break me out of my reverie, or I am utterly leveled by the pain and fatigue.  During these times I feel ill to the very marrow of my bones and I get scared.  I lie awake worrying that I will never be vital again; that the chance for meaningful, purpose-driven work has passed me by.  The disease by itself is bad enough, but then you add in the medications used to combat it.  After two years of failed trials, I now seem to be responding to a regimen, but the medications have their own attendant risks.  The methotrexate I take once a week is a chemotherapy drug at higher doses--it suppresses my immune system and is supposed to help the remicade I get infused with every 5-8 weeks work its magic.  I can't ignore the immediate side effects of these medications, either.  I feel like death for 2-3 days after.  The fact that remicade can cause all sorts of cancers and actually kill a person during the infusion somehow floats just outside my consciousness.  I don't want to think about it.  And I want my heart to go on beating for quite a long while.  

I have work to do.

I've realized while pondering this string of hearts I've found in Penzance that my interest in heart-tending goes back at least ten years, ever since my grandfather died.  I watched his heart beat on the screen for hours after the ventilator was pulled.  Hours.  Beating at an incredible clip.  And then I watched it stop.  His passing was a moment of warmth and calm.  I received a reminder these past couple of days that whatever may or may not happen with my own heart, that strength of his lives on in mine.  I genetically inherited that will to live.

Equally as important, I learned through watching him the value of touching another's heart with the strong, yet gentle and quiet presence of one's own.  With characteristically few words involved, it's sort of like a Reiki session when one places hands on the shoulders or just above the shoulders of the recipient--the energy just goes where it's needed.  Only in this case the energy transfer is heart to heart.  

It isn't paid work, this heart-tending.  It's human work.  It involves a bit of intuition.  Authenticity.  And a deep caring and desire to do good in the world.  It's not flashy.  Instant.  Expensive.  Or easy.  But it does involve hearing, feeling and seeing.  And it just might mean the world to the person who receives.  

I can only hope that I continue to find hearts wherever I go.

I give thanks to the goddess for my continued ability to hear, feel, and see.......

Earl of Sandwich @ Terminal E

Already my flight has been delayed twice.  Three and a half hours more of people watching is fine by me, though....WRITING MATERIAL GALORE!  Nary a Hare Krishna, though.  How DID that get started?  Is that just true in those Airplane movies?  Or  might I someday actually see some of those figures in orange waving their flowers in an airport?  This is just one of the things I wonder about when plane waiting. 

I passed on the wine tasting at "Vino Volo" in favor of a caramel ribbon crunch Frappucino at Starbucks, but perhaps the wine might have made that god-awful underheated slice of olive, mushroom, and spinach pizza palatable.   The really important piece of this whole journey so far, however, is that I managed to score the last table next to a power outlet so I can fuel my MacBook.

From my seat I can see that it is 3280 miles to London.  3836 miles to Milan.  3749 miles to Zurich.  And the Earl of Sandwich is "The World's Greatest Hot Sandwich".  I'd like to strike down that proclamation on the visual evidence alone.  Why are tuna melts in the cooler?  It's not as if they are going to be reheated on the grill.  The whole lot of 'em are each neatly wrapped and stickered in cellophane.  Should I feel the need for a vanilla or strawberry yogurt parfait in the next couple hours, I will have to check the price on those false sandwiches.  

Now:

The Lufthansa guy is yelling in German over the loudspeaker.

The folks behind me are talking about Salzburg.

The woman in front of me commented "That was the easiest check-in I've had since 9/11"
    >should I be worried????<

A British Airways plane is on the tarmac outside the window.

There's also an Alitalia plane that is taxiing out to the runway.  That's another trip on my list....Rome, Naples, Capri, Cinque Terra, Amalfi Coast, Florence; Venice before it disappears into the sea. 

I'm on my second round of table companionship.  A nice young man with a Burger King bag and an iPhone; dressed in a pink and white check shirt and gray hoodie.  Black-rimmed glasses.

My Frappucino is gone.  If it weren't for the unbelievable amount of calories and fat I'd go and get another one.  But I'm thinking some water and maybe a bit of fruit would be more prudent.  I've got a lot of ground to cover when I land in London.  In walking AND in scones.  I'm hoping to tackle the ladies swimming pond at Hampstead Heath tomorrow or Wednesday.  I suppose it doesn't matter if it's raining or not.  Or even how cold it is.  The swimming is year round, after all.  Mind over matter.

Interlude: Fashionably Conscious and Germ Phobic

I feel the need to take a brief break from all the recollecting in order to say just how nice it was of British Air to send me an email about all the things I can do online to manage my booking before even arriving at the airport.  They've reminded me about the generous baggage allowance (1 carry-on + 1 checked bag not weighing more than 50 lbs.).  And I can pay for "up to 10 extra bags per person".  WOW.  Who would need that much luggage?  Even as I write this I am remembering two women I waited in line behind once on the way to Barcelona.  In addition to their 3 bags a piece (I'm assuming their husband's jockey shorts, shaving bits and bobs, and general belongings were somewhere among the three), they also had a shared suitcase.  A BIG suitcase.  Filled with nothing but make-up and various cosmetics.  I didn't understand that then, and still don't.  But I guess paying for that extra allowance is  important to some.  I'm quite happy to work within the basic parameters, however, and even if I wasn't, the AS prevents any attempts at extravagance. 

On last year's trip to the UK I went naked.  All that held my joints together and kept me barely mobile was prednisone and methotrexate, which amounted to nothing more than tic tacs in my case.  I was in pain for all thirteen days, and unable to do all that I had planned.  This time I will have the benefit of having had 4 Remicade infusions, the fourth being this Friday...just three days before I hop on the plane.  The Remicade/methotrexate combination makes my body such a nice host for any and all opportunistic infections, and I admit I am just a bit nervous about being cooped up in a plane for 6 hours.  People coughing.  Sweet little tots with runny noses.  The spectre of MERS.  I asked my rheumy about this latest respiratory pathogen and how I should handle things, and she advised bringing along a few face masks.  LOVELY.  Err...not really.

What IS lovely?  The fact that after two years of medication trials and failures, my body seems to be getting happy again.  Not perfectly.  But after the third infusion, I experienced the first real, usable energy in YEARS.  Pain levels went down to a four and they've generally hovered around five and six.  Sometimes seven.  

I am going to see folks on my travels that are biking.  Running.  Being vigorous in general.  And I miss that.  And I will want to join them.  And I will be mad when I can't.  But I  am committed to reaching that point again.  I must remind myself, however, that I am just at the very beginning of feeling good again.  My ribs and sternum are still hot with inflammation, as are nearly all my tendons and ligaments.  After a few hours activity, sometimes less, my SI joints and spine announce their displeasure.  If I get too cocky my right knee gives out.  

Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS).  "Anka What!?"  Autoimmune arthritis.  Chronic illness.  Systemic.  Affecting the entire body.  Not your gram and gramp's creaky joints.  It can come with a misbehaving heart, too.  Arrhythmias and insufficiency.  I wake each day with these things and will manage them throughout my life.  They got in the way of the last trip.  Now that I understand something about pacing and realistic expectations, and have finally had a positive medication response, I am looking forward to wandering with my camera and marveling at the London sights, sounds, and architecture.  Walking the Cornish shore and maybe climbing some rocks. 

I've generally been pretty lucky about not getting sick even though the meds have sent my immune system on a permanent vacation, but since I'm leaving nothing to chance I will be taking the good Dr.'s suggestion.  If only the damn things weren't so white.  And plain.  Dull.  I did a Google search and was surprised to find quite an array of face masks for the "fashionably conscious" and germ phobic.  Tentacles, anyone?  How about a set of shark teeth?  Mouth grenade?  I think the easy-access sushi zippered version is a joke, but.....I like it!  Can't help but wonder how the reactions would differ if I strapped one of these funsters to my face rather than the standard surgical issue.  Could not find such conversation pieces in my shopping trip for the last-minute essentials, however.

 

But my suitcase is packed.  Carry-on backpack is now filled with the essentials:  

• Nikon with two lenses.  
• Journal.  
• Visitor Oyster card (thanks to friend Maundy, I won't have to wait in the long line at the airport....).  
• Passport and all booking information.  
• Spiral-bound London A-Z guide.  
• Tissues for dry air itchies and/or movie sniffles.
• Teaberry chewing gum to pop the ears on take-off and landing.  
• Raw almonds.  
• Organic snack cracker mix.  
• Protein bars.  
• Water bottle waiting to be filled.  
• Nearly 40 GBP from last trip. 
• Meds
• Arnica gel to soothe my AS-ravaged achilles and any other hurtin' parts that need it
• A snack-sized box of Junior Mints, small package of Twizzlers, and a handful of Atomic Fireballs
• Burt's Bees clary sage handcream
• Lavender saffron chapstick
• A two-piece camper's plastic wine goblet that twists together.... How nice for the impromptu picnics in London parks and on Cornwall beaches...it's been to Barcelona and Greece, too!

Ready.  Ready to go.

Remembering, Part 2: Maybe Avalon

Yeats wrote "The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."  As I headed out on a post-breakfast walk the morning after our late arrival at Crapnell B & B, my senses had never been more sharp, nor more alert to the magic surrounding me.  The narrow road might have been approaching a castle, only it was too wild for that...part broken pavement and part dirt; tall dense hedges grew on both sides.  Occasionally I met a tree.  And they all felt alive to me with their twisted, dancing branches; their humanoid trunks rising from the earth like giants, guarding the secrets beyond the hedges.  No, this road led to the heart of Fae.  

 

I smiled listening to the pebble-y stones crunch beneath my Hunter's.  One puddle pooled on the side of my magical road proved too irresistible so I jumped.  And splashed.  I maybe giggled once or twice.  Every step a discovery....

The tiny but brilliant purple flower with beads of dew.  

The pale yellow, almost white flowers with a sunny core ringed in red.

The heart in the hedge.

The dryad trying to break free from the tree, its bud-hand ready to bloom.

Out of breath from exertion and perhaps too much wonder in so little space a time, I turned around to take stock of just how far I had come.  The hill the road climbed and clung to didn't seem all that impressive really as I was climbing along with it.   But there It was.  I had no idea I was sleeping so close!  I marveled when it was re-created at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, but this...this was the REAL THING.  

Glastonbury Tor.  

Ritual.  Pilgrimage.  Home to fae folk.  Pulsing with the quest of King Arthur and his Knights to find the Holy Grail.  Its terraced slopes perhaps an ancient labyrinth.  And maybe....the ancient isle of Avalon, the wonder of all thin places....where living and dead, seen and unseen....meet.  

Magic.

Remembering, Part 1: Cars Without Mirrors

An atlas for two pounds.  A flower from one roadside pee spot.

In some little village off the M5 she took off 2 car door mirrors.  It couldn't have been easy driving on the wrong side of the road.  I'm not sure I would have done any better, but as the passenger on that left side, my knuckles grew snow white with the first impact.  I cried out in hysterical laughter at the second.  Did she just hit that car!?

 "What?" she cried.  Didn't she feel that!?  A little further down the road came the second.  It was not a very wide road, and cars were parked on both sides.

"Marcy!" I yelled.  "You just took off that car's mirror!"

"What?"

"You just HIT that car!!! TWO CARS!!”

"Oh.  Well.  My god look at how all these cars are parked!  The road isn't wide enough to begin with, and I mean...these cars are just begging to get hit."

Begging to get hit.  Begging to get hit!  That statement was every bit as rich as her claim to the rental car agency that she could drive a manual transmission.  "No problem", she said.  "I've driven manuals other friends have had."  Much as I loved Marcy she had a way of overestimating some of her abilities.  So each time she lifted her foot off the brake of the shiny black luxury Ford sedan, we got one inch closer to the garage’s concrete wall.  Declining the rental car insurance was probably not such a smart idea.
 

"I can't figure out this damn shifter.  It just won't move."

    
I retrieved the agent who helped us with the car paperwork, and he showed my friend that one must lift up and then slide the shifter to desired gear, all while maneuvering the pedals. Since I don't have a clue on how to drive a manual transmission auto this was educational for me, even if it didn’t make me helpful in the endeavour.  After the lesson we moseyed on.  Really moseyed.  The Ford kept stalling.  Three times before we even reached the gate to the outside world.  Once the gate lifted and we began the ascent to the street, smoke billowed out from under the hood, and we stopped moving even though Marcy continued to press the gas pedal.  Metal grinding.  An awful sound.  Smoke entered the car from the heating ducts.  Out the back window I saw three men running towards us, waving their hands in the air.

"Stop! Stop!"

"Shut the car off!"

"Miss, please shut the car off." Said guy number three, after lifting the hood.  "It's likely the engine is going to catch on fire.  We need to you to get out of the car and remove your belongings."

Two and half hours later,  after my napping on top of our bags in the garage and after Marcy had signed another stack of paperwork, we drove off in another black shiny Ford sedan.  Only this one was an automatic.  I plugged in the GPS which had been loaded and programmed with England maps.  It was a little after noon time.  Surely we would arrive at our B & B in the tiny town of Dinder, on the west side of the country by dinnertime.  But after two hours of driving past fields of brilliant yellow and emerald green, and more stone walls and sheep than I had ever seen, I noticed that the routes and street names on the GPS were NOT matching up to those we passed.  Marcy pulled in to a small convenience store gas station so I could verify our location, and gave me instructions on what to bring her for snack and drink. 

“Excuse me, I’m hoping you can help me.  I’m trying to get to Dinder, near Bath....I’ve got a GPS, but I’m just not sure it’s working right.”

“Dinder.  Dinder.  Well, I don’t know as if I’ve ever heard of Dinder, Miss, but if you’re trying to get anywhere near Bath you’re right clear on the other side of the country.”

Silence.  Muffled laughter and a stifled smile peeking out from underneath this man’s greying, receding hair.  And pity.  What pity.  I just wanted to cry. 

He came back with an atlas which I bought for 2 pounds, and then showed me exactly where I was relative to where I should be.   Instead of being on the west near Bath, and a hop, skip, and jump from Wales....we were actually almost on top of Cambridge.  Which meant that we had at least four hours of driving before we would reach our destination. 

I returned to the car stiff with the kind of fury that only a person who has just wasted two hours of travel time on account of a worthless techno gadget can be, and handed Marcy her crisps and bottled water.   Four hours of me white knuckling the atlas and the car door handle as Marcy veered into the left lane of traffic narrowly escaping collisions with oncoming vehicles or hitting the road curb.  Four hours of roadside pee spots when the roundabouts turned us wrong.  (Roundabouts, FYI, deserve a story of their own....) 

How could I do four hours of this?  I pondered a lot about the fact that England has raised curbs on both sides of the road, even on major highways.  My heart missed beats every time we hit one or sailed over one.  Perhaps it was meant to have the same effect on drivers like Marcy.  But I can tell you, she was just oblivious. 

How is it that a person can’t FEEL when they have hit a car!?

In all, three cars were hit on the drive.  Three mirrors lost, rolling out in the middle of the road.  Three people who, next morning went out to their autos and probably said “what the FUCK!”  I’m guessing there had to be scratched paint and dents of various sizes, too. 

At 9PM, we finally passed through Shepton-Mallet, and ended up in another small town whose name I can’t remember--right outside a fish and chips take-a-way.  After candy bars and crunchy hula hoops, that fresh fried fish and chips with vinegar was like manna from heaven.  We were also lucky enough to run into an older gentleman who happened to be friends with the owner of the B & B we were staying at.  Marcy used his cell phone to call the B & B, and let them know that our traveling had been fraught with difficulties but we would soon be on our way.  

Greasy.

After a long drive up a dirt road with tall hedges on both sides, we arrived at Crapnell Farm.  And I was only too relieved to get out of that car for the night.  It was taking up two spots in the driveway rather than one.  And because it was dark I could only feel the dents on my side of the car.  

And oh so good!