I must be feeling better these days because my convalescent life is now much more like Cafe Society than sick bed.
For a week now I have been partying, socializing and, in spite of my newly acquired stammer, yes, talking.
I had to miss what has been for some years now one of the best parties of the year which is held every summer in Devon in a farm’s barn. This was usually an opportunity for my unbearable ego and incurable vanity to let itself loose.
Sadly this year, everyone agreed that it was a bridge too far at this stage in my recovery from my brain haemorrhage. My neurologist said that if there were any annual events this year which are too challenging then I should put them off until next year – she added happily that she now expected me to be alive next year.
Yay! I am now genuinely thinking what I might actually be doing in 2010.
I came across another hopeful symbol of the future too this weekend, I was with my brother who is also recovering from a serious illness and he too, far from drawing in his horizons is looking forward.
No more enthusiastic or joyful symbol is possible than his newly acquired Cocker Spaniel puppy. If we can adopt even a fraction of that small animal’s enthusiasm for life then we might just bounce into the future and, if not, then at least we can maintain that jeu d’esprit in the present.
Let’s all bounce along then and try to have a lot more fun – that’s my plan anyway. Even doctors tell us that joy, laughter and general enjoyment of life is a great healer. That little dog was an inspiration telling me, simple soul that I am, that maybe these qualities are actually our default settings things we abandon at our peril.
My next job, of course, is resisting having a new puppy myself.
Get one!
Get thee behind me, Mercredi! As Oscar Wilde said I can resist everything except temptation.
Chris has a really cute puppy – and maybe that is the right way to do it: know people with cute puppies (How rude does that sound?).
But you can have all the fun and none of the crap – do you really want to go through life with your pockets stuffed with old carrier bags 'in case of doggie emergencies'?groly
The answer Claudio is a definite NO!
I stayed with friends the other weekend who had a charming spaniel. I got up earlier than any of them one morning and I was sitting in the garden in the sun reading, when I got that smell.
I had forgotten how foul dog shit is! There it was the little packet right next to me and covered in flies.
I have had my share of that I think so I agree with you…I like other people's dogs