Mornings were still at the edge of the cliff

[sovay]

The good news is, I didn't jettison Wiscon and then promptly perk up. I have spent the last several days feeling—and continue to feel—appalling. That's also the bad news. I want a refund on my entire body. I think the most intelligent thing I have done since Wednesday is summarize my rewatch of Pirates of the Caribbean in an e-mail to Eric. Translated some Pliny. Experienced a belated epiphany concerning Eastern Promises (2007—it's a perfectly classic film noir, we're just seeing the traditional relationship of femme fatale and mark from an unfamiliar angle). Had a really, really unhelpful doctor's visit. And this afternoon identified an old photograph of my mother's as All Souls College, Oxford:



It was taken in 1968, the year she backpacked around Europe. I think she has to have been up in the tower at St. Mary's; she considers this plausible, since as a reader of Gaudy Night, she would have had a sentimental attachment to the roofs of Oxford. (One of the slides in the same box is a shot of Christ Church Meadow, which she remembers taking because of Alice in Wonderland.) My father has started scanning the photos from this trip into the computer for safekeeping, but of course none of them have annotations except for a small notebook my mother carried around with her, and she did not necessarily write down the kind of information that is useful forty years after the fact. I may be doing this for the rest of the week.

I think that's about it for excitement. At least I don't have bronchitis again.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Fwiw, even when you are at low ebb it seems you are full of life and discernment and care. May your full good health soon return.

[sovay]

May your full good health soon return.

Thank you. I hope things are all right with you, too.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm feeling a bit at low ebb myself, struggling with a resurgence of sleep apnea and depression and heat-induced lethargy; each seems to exacerbate the others. I seem to be forever in a state of simultaneously knowing perfectly well what I must do and of having not a clue how to go about doing it. My mom took a fall, cracked her pelvis and badly pulled muscles in a shoulder, this in the process of moving into a care facility at which to finish out her days; it never occurred to my dad, who's now living alone, to call and tell me this. Haunted by Shakespeare and the intimacies of old music and the ghosts of bodhicitta, by the uncappable gushers of oil and human ignorance, by vastation's endurance. But then too there was an hour's river breeze as if out of dream at noontide, and a late return visit from the geese with their five goslings, and then just as I tell of them here the tap tap tap of a flying beetle against this computer screen and my chest, harbingers of requickening, of life's insistence; the distinct blessing of an enquiring friend. Perhaps it's really so, or can be, that all manner of things....

[sovay]

My mom took a fall, cracked her pelvis and badly pulled muscles in a shoulder, this in the process of moving into a care facility at which to finish out her days; it never occurred to my dad, who's now living alone, to call and tell me this.

I am so sorry. Then I hope you (pl.) are as all right as you can be.

But then too there was an hour's river breeze as if out of dream at noontide, and a late return visit from the geese with their five goslings, and then just as I tell of them here the tap tap tap of a flying beetle against this computer screen and my chest, harbingers of requickening, of life's insistence; the distinct blessing of an enquiring friend. Perhaps it's really so, or can be, that all manner of things....

Goslings are not to be discounted.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I hope you (pl.) are as all right as you can be.

Thanks. The good news now is that her cancer, a month after the end of five months of chemo, appears to have vanished completely; my dad tells me her doctor is so astonished he's thinking of writing up her case for a medical journal.

Goslings are not to be discounted.

Goslings are most definitely amongst life's greatest advocates.

[sovay]

The good news now is that her cancer, a month after the end of five months of chemo, appears to have vanished completely; my dad tells me her doctor is so astonished he's thinking of writing up her case for a medical journal.

I am very glad to hear this. That is a much better way to get into a medical journal than the usual.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

Sorting through old travel photography is, at least, a good distraction from feeling woeful, I hope.

[sovay]

Sorting through old travel photography is, at least, a good distraction from feeling woeful, I hope.

It's not quite as good as being somewhere else, but it's better.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Remind me never to parachute into the quad of All Souls - it's far too full of spiky things! Almost as if they built anticipating an airborne assault by the heavenly host...

Sorry you're still feeling crap. Which Pliny, as a matter of interest?

[sovay]

Almost as if they built anticipating an airborne assault by the heavenly host...

. . . can I request a poem?

Which Pliny, as a matter of interest?

Epistulae 6.16 and 20—the eruption of Vesuvius.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Ah, so the Elder gets a walk on part, of sorts...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

. . . can I request a poem?

I fear it may descend into farce, with St Michael dangling helplessly on his hooked cassock.

[sovay]

I fear it may descend into farce, with St Michael dangling helplessly on his hooked cassock.

Great!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Every time I listen to "Trouble is a Friend"--which is often, since I just burned it to a CD I've entitled Noisy May--I think of you.

That's a beautiful photo.

[sovay]

Every time I listen to "Trouble is a Friend"--which is often, since I just burned it to a CD I've entitled Noisy May--I think of you.

Heh. Thank you. I got it from handful_ofdust.

That's a beautiful photo.

I'll tell my mother.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

LJ music sharing braids all sorts of ways--I see that handful_ofdust is listening to "The Golden Vanity" these days :-)

[sovay]

I hope that I will get to see you some other year, and that rest helps soon.

Thank you. I hope to see you, too!

[hans-the-bold.livejournal.com]

So sorry to hear about Wiscon; they are much the poorer with your absence.

Though it is not really compensation, you are invited to Hanscon, complete with curry, conversation, episodes of Lost in Space (oh, the pain!), Futurama (bite my shiny metal a$$!), Greg The Bunny (Blah), The Tick (complete with a slice of righteous combat pie!), etc., and a nice comfy mattress on my bare floor. Date to be determined at your convenience...

I'm also holding you in the light.

[sovay]

Hanscon, complete with curry, conversation, episodes of Lost in Space (oh, the pain!), Futurama (bite my shiny metal a$$!), Greg The Bunny (Blah), The Tick (complete with a slice of righteous combat pie!), etc., and a nice comfy mattress on my bare floor. Date to be determined at your convenience...

Sounds like a blast. I'll be there.

I'm also holding you in the light.

Thank you.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I think she has to have been up in the tower at St. Mary's

Urglesquish. Now I'm going to be wondering all afternoon if she was there or on the roof of the Rad. Cam. I think maybe the latter (for even more Gaudy Night associations), but I may be wrong, or it may even be somewhere else entirely.
"...the twin towers of All Souls, unreal as a house of cards..."

Anyway, feel better! and sorry to hear the doctor was unhelpful. I hate that.

[sovay]

Now I'm going to be wondering all afternoon if she was there or on the roof of the Rad. Cam. I think maybe the latter (for even more Gaudy Night associations), but I may be wrong, or it may even be somewhere else entirely.

I'll take suggestions. I have never been to Oxford myself; I went with St. Mary's because the next photo in the set—



—was clearly the same south-facing view shown here, but obviously she could have moved around between the two pictures. The Radcliffe Camera would be more appropriate to Sayers. I just wasn't sure if it would give that particular angle and elevation.

(I did realize just now that the photograph is mirror-reversed. So was the other skyline view, before I flipped it. I want a refund on my brain, too.)

Anyway, feel better! and sorry to hear the doctor was unhelpful. I hate that.

Thank you. Me too.

[hans-the-bold.livejournal.com]

I have a picture of myself at Oxford making an obscene gesture outside their debate club, but I don't think that will help with geography...

It's a good thing I'm not running for political office.

[sovay]

I have a picture of myself at Oxford making an obscene gesture outside their debate club, but I don't think that will help with geography...

Maybe not, but I really want to see it . . .

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your mother's photo. I'm glad you're getting some interesting things done, although I'm sorry as anything that you're feeling so rotten.

I hope you're feeling better very soon.

[sovay]

I hope you're feeling better very soon.

Thank you.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Been away for the weekend, and sad to return to see you still not well. I hope this does not continue for you.

I wish there was something... say...

I'll post more pirate story!

[sovay]

I hope this does not continue for you.

Thank you. I hope, however, you had a good weekend!

I'll post more pirate story!

Yay!