Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Penfolds and Page not Found

(Written by me circa 2006)

The thing with Penfolds and MS is that you wake up the following morning, not with a hangover, but with a numb hand which takes half an hour to come back to life, whereupon it feels electric-shocky. This alerts the senses to and sets the tone for today's flavour of MS; the rest of the peripheral nervous system twitches and tingles away  in dischord, intent on intruding, gate-crashing on any kind of serenity within; so much so that you just have to get up at the ungodly hour of 5am for distraction.  

And such is the fickle nature of MS that I’d walked two miles the previous evening over sand dunes and stony, woodland paths engulfed, no seduced, by the fragrance of wild garlic which grows so profusely there at this time of year; I even had the audacity to forget that I suffer from a debilitating, progressive condition.



"You know you'll never get better," are the words ringing in my head; words uttered a while ago by a nurse who is about as tactful as a fatal brain haemorrhage, unlike the cunningly insidious nature of my own neurological condition.

After tossing and turning there during the pre-dawn hour, my loved one kicks me out of bed for having the damned cheek to feel very well, very bright and breezy physically,  but feeling foul mentally because I have a long  day ahead of me alone - but not only for that reason because he too knows I need the distraction

I get out of bed, make a cuppa with my left hand instead of my pre-dominant right, and no that's not a moan but simply a statement of fact - such is life with MS after a brief encounter with Penfolds. I boot up my laptop but don’t open my email client because  I feel like writing, which to many like myself is a long, laborious, loose tapping with one finger of my left hand.

The affair with Penfolds is by now but a memory, and the details of the previous evening dissipate whilst I have my third cuppa Tetleys. The men are yet to stir upstairs despite the humidity in the house after a night of torrential rain.

An idea had been mulling around my head because of the forthcoming solitude of my day. That idea was based on the words we often find on the Internet - 'Error 404 - Page Not Found'. However for some reason, I couldn't formulate what was in my head enough to commit thoughts to keyboard because I was afraid in case it had the same kind of angry tone as 'Come Undone' by Robbie Williams - familiar with it?

I didn't want to write anything along such a negative theme because that's not the way I was feeling in, so I finally gave up.
Next I click on my Outlook Icon- and  how lovely, I don't get Page Not Found, but I get the first email of the day and it is from none other than the dearest friend an MSer could wish for and then a link to a website forum  where that very person had sneaked in overnight on a conversation between myself and a very lovely person who seeks solace in that forum. 

A paragraph springs to mind from a travelogue I once wrote:-
"So there I was quietly stumbling along in the casual way I do, when out of the skies which are cyberspace fell another fellow stumbler – whoosh! right into my life, but more like a snowflake floating-falling from a brilliant  blue sky rather than the typically heavy thud of an MSer."

I cannot ever write ‘Page Not Found’


Monday, September 12, 2011

In remembrance - 9/11

Day 254/365: in remembrance - 9/11 by Eiona.R.
Day 254/365: in remembrance - 9/11, a photo by Eiona.R. on Flickr. [COPYRIGHT PROTECTED IMAGE]
9/11 – The Orphans.
A peck on her cheek as he left for the station,
Not knowing the fate that awaited a nation,
A kiss gently blown to a babe not yet born;
A familiar scenario each USA dawn.


A stab through her heart when she heard of the horror
On CBS News, as she felt the world cower;
For death came so swiftly right out of that sky,
To husbands and fathers, in the blink of an eye.

Today a child watches the world weep once again
As Westerners mourn for the day named 9/11.
Are pecks on the cheek and a kiss gently blown,
Sole legacies left by fathers unknown?

Can each orphan resolve the grief of a nation?
Will they be the ones to lead Man to salvation?
For the powers - that - be took their freedom away
By denying all access to what happened that day.


Will the orphans of truth seek their own retribution
For atrocities cast against their own nation?
For Truth must be there, but knowledge is spurious;
Man, mourn the fact - the Fat Cat killed the curious.

© Eiona Roberts - Published by Jasmine Books 2006