John McGuiness RIP

John, who wishes to be called, “ Skinny,” by the way, died on Wednesday. We, my husband I,, met him when he was living on the streets, but that was a long time ago. 

Skinny was fifty-a-lot, but would have passed for seventy. Living on the streets does that to you. 

I introduced Ray  to Skinny. I’m an evangelist, of sorts, and Ray rolls his eyes at God, so they were well suited. 

Decades ago, Skinny was a hardworking artisan with a family and a job.  Then he was hit by a truck, which took out his right hip, leaving a wound that would never heal. First step to living on the streets:

Bad Luck.

Skinny was not compensated fully for his disability because the truck driver fled the country.  Second step:

Injustice.

After a spell, the drugs given to control the pain, stopped working,. Third step: 

Intolerable pain.

Skinny took to buying opiates off drug dealers. Fourth step:

Addiction. 

This looks like a downward spiral, doesn’t it? It got pretty bad, but Skinny had guts. He got himself help. He helped himself. He managed the addiction, he got off the streets. 

Ray and Skinny developed a relationship and regularly took each other out for breakfast. A couple of times, I joined them. We all gained weight.

Two year ago Skinny was diagnosed with acute kidney failure, a year ago, lung cancer. 

Consequences.

Skinny’s attitude to dying was to ignore it. I think right up to the end, and beyond,  that worked pretty well for him. 

His mum was with him stroking his forehead as he died. I’m glad of that. When I’m back home we’ll have a wake. Just Ray, and her, and me. There was no funeral. 

But there was a ceremony. I took a stone and said Skinny’s name, and blessed it and him:

“John McGuiness, now that you know who you really are, be at peace.”

And I cast it into the water, where it will rest until the end of time. 

Amen.

Dancing Feet

My friend Darlene treated me to wonderful gift today: she drove me into Bellevue for a pedicure. 

My feet were washed, pumiced, massaged and lotioned, my nails given a short, back and sides, emery-boarded, polished and buffed. 

As feet go, they looked amazing, and felt fantastic. 

As I was being primped and pampered, I thought about the places where these very serviceable and extremely reliable feet had walked:

The green hills of the Cotswolds, under the skirts of which I was born: the Welsh and Scottish uplands, the Swiss Alps, the Carpathian Mountsina, African Velt, Hawaiian rainforest, and Sinai Desert.

They have trudged, heavily through rain, and deep snow, plunged into streams, paddled in oceans, slipped down the banks of rivers, and tip-toed in and out of children’s bedrooms. They’ve been there for me, and apart from a spell in orthopaedic boot following a snapped tendon in my right ankle, they’ve never let me down. 

Above all, they have danced! The Lancers at speech days with school friends, The Dashing White Sergeant with sixth formers at the local public school, out-paced boyfriends at discos, accopanisd family members at parties and weddings, including my own, swayed and turned with Xhosa women in South Africa and with pulsed into sand woth Bedouin in Egypt. 

They once featured in a poem, about that experience:

Here am I, in the Sinai desert, with my dance troupe, at dawn, performing to the music of oud and drums. It is my fifty-first birthday. As I recall the magic of this day, I am reminded of my strength and my resilience and am full of laughter. I hope this comes through in the writing

A Work of Heart

To write this poem, I planted my feet, Strong, bare feet, 

Firmly, in the sand.

I raised my arms, then,

 Dropped them, as I was taught, 

To my shoulders.

Aligning my palms to the strengthening sun, I waited,

Alert, for the words

To drift, or bounce or slide Down,

Down

With the music.

I lifted my head and 

Listened, listening, For the deluge.

Quietly at first...

Trilling over my fingertips 

Snaking down my arms 

Shivering across my shoulders 

Thrumming through my breast 

Shimmying with my hips

Turning Turning Turning

Clapping with my hands 

Stamping with my feet -

The poem came! And

I DANCED. 

Getting Mislaid …

Diary of an Elderly Englishwoman

October 3rd 2023

I’m airborne, en route to Seattle and a month with friends Darlene and Steve. 

One would never buy wine from a can, not THIS one, anyway, but it’s actually quite … um, Nice. I get as drunk as is sociable on long haul flights, because my intention is to sleep between lunch and .. lunch. It being served now, and around the same time, Pacific, at the other end of the flight. 

There are always adventures. My lounge provider at Terminal Three had switched companies, and finding Lounge No1 when every other lounge was discoverable by a letter, proved a challenge, but I overcame it. 

The lounge passes come as a job lot with the premier bank account Ray insists is good value, but only, I reckon, if you exercise every ounce of ingenuity to find the lost lounge and have a full English Breakfast and a complimentary gin and tonic. 

Yes, I’m getting squiffy on notionally free booze, which is the way to go. 👍🏼

I was the last on. I always dawdle, and noticing my boarding group was #9, I foresaw no problem. I was savouring that g&t. I wasn’t last in the boarding queue, but I was near the end. Handing over my boarding card, I discovered I had been randomly selected for the full security search. Taken out of line and moved to one side like a drug mule,  was a little disconcerting, but a quick examination of conscience flagged up just a lipstick that hadn’t gone with the liquids, and that doesn’t count.

I may have smiled too much and my joke about having won the lottery (“random selection”) didn’t get a laugh, but I recalled from the DHS warnings in the US that jokes are not welcome, so I forgave it. 

I did feel rather special. I’ve never been “randomly selected”, before, unless you count the time when a scammer was allegedly giving me an iPad, 

It was the full works with an electronic wand. The security lady was efficient and as friendly as allowed. Suddenly there was a kerfuffle at the desk, One, “Mary Francis,” had checked in at the desk but not arrived in the cabin, so there was a panic on … “I’m here!” I squeaked, like an excited puppy, relieved that,  for once, being mislaid was not actually my fault.