Categorie archieven voor Sickness and old age

Melanie & Her Daughters, Leilah and Jeordie – Oh Ma

THE GENERATION SONG (Oh Ma)
Words by Terry Hall and music by Arlo Guthrie

Mom’s just a throwback to the sixties generation
All that stuff like peace and love
Just giving me aggravation
Ain’t got no use for transcendental meditation

Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag
Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag

Ma said dad he might have been a Virgo
Or a head shop owner, or two freaks from San Francisco
Or a washed out surfer, with his body golden tanned
Or the lead singer in a psychedelic band

Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag
Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag

Feeding me granola and other flaky stuff
You told me meat was hostile, but I just can’t get enough
Being vegetarian just ain’t quite my scene
There’s just so much that you can do with a soy bean

Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag
Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag

Now mom keeps telling me about her days at Woodstock
Half a million space-balls, all of them with their feet stuck
Freaking out on acid, and what Bob Dylan said
I think she’s trying to turn me into Joan Baez

Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag
Oh Ma, your universal love is such a drag

(When Melanie performs this song she ends it with a medley of:
‘Whiter Shade of Pale’
‘Like a Rolling Stone’
&
‘Stairway To Heaven’)

Dinsdag – 13-12-11

Strakblauwe lucht. Vanmorgen was het anders en regende en stormde het. Ik voel me nog steeds niet goed. Zit nog dicht en heb dat rare gevoel in mijn hoofd. Ook voel ik me nog niet 100% hersteld van dat ongeluk dat ik in maart had.

Gister vertelde ik aan iemand het treurige verhaal van mijn ongeluk en hoe mijn partner ervandooor ging met gehaaste spoed. Mijn partner van bijna vijf jaar wist niet hoe snel ze ervandoor moest gaan. Fysiek was ze nog een tijdje aanwezig, maar emotioneel was ze weg. Ze ging bijna sneller dan het licht, maar ze ging ook een stuk langzamer dan mijn liefde voor haar. Die zat er nog. Nu niet meer.

De vrouw aan wie ik het verhaal vertelde leefde erg met me mee, dat deed me goed. Ze vertelde dat een hele oude vrouw zei dat je een verhaal zeven maal zeven keer moest vertellen om er door heen te komen. Nu zoek ik dus negenenveertig mensen aan wie ik het verhaal kan vertellen over die auto die mij schepte en hoe de vrouw waarvan ik hield mij verliet.

Veel uitgebreider dan dit kan ik het je vertellen. Als je er open voor staat kan ik je alle smerige details vertellen, al het verraad in geuren en kleuren. Dan ben ik het kwijt en kan ik verder.

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Sleepless Nights

I am blessed with a good mood. Mostly I am cheerful but but but: now after four weeks of lousy sleep it has hit me and it has bitten me: A BAD MOOD.
I am in such a bad mood I hardly recognize myself. My reactions are sharp, every complaint made by someone else irritates me tremendously, everything that doesn’t go smooth seems a reason for
me to become angry.

People have given me advice to be asleep but nothing seems to work, I wake up every hour, or every two hours. Very often to pee, never knew I had so much fluid in me. I am getting desperate, I don’t want to be a mean person, I want to be cheerful and happy. I am not unhappy, just in a miserable mood.

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How important is health?

Most of the time I feel totally healthy, I have no complaints what so ever, no pain, no problems, I am feeling good. At moments like that, I am never aware of the delicate balance of health and sickness but once I get ill I remember.

To be grateful for health is not a feeling that I have all the time. Actually I hardly ever feel grateful for my health as it seems to be so obvious but it isn’t at all.

One of my dear friends is suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, another friend has fybromyalgy, and yet another friend broke her shoulder and is always in pain.

I am really squeamish about pain. Last monday I wanted to die for the pain in my legs I thought was unbearable. I am thinking about my friends, who are in pain all the time.
They are heroes.

I am of to the footdoctor now. I will get arch support.

And I am thankful for my health. I truly am grateful.

>When I came back from Korea I was in tremendous pain. My legs hurt so much it felt like lead was poured into my veins. After two sleepless nights the doctor prescribed some painkillers so I could sleep at night, which I was grateful for but the pain didn’t go. On the contrary, it got worse and worse. On Sunday my girlfriend Rati decided we should go see a doctor, she brought a booklet with her and asked all sorts of questions: what was wrong with me? I sat there, silently but I didn’t really feel silly, I was happy she asked those questions.
It turned out I was not 28 anymore.
I had tried to fool me and had been running around like I was 28, especially in Korea where I didn’t sleep more than 4 hours a night but my age had caught up with me.
I was suffering from oedema and the doctor prescribed me pills to pee just like my dad had when he was my age.
Old age is creeping up on me. What fun!
It is one of the four sufferings according to Buddhism:
Birth, sickness, old age and death.
But we will live again.
In a way it doesn’t matter what state we are in, as long as I keep on chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
I will be happy
even though it was very hard to sit.
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

>What’s up with Britta?

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It is the middle of the night, well not exactly, but I have been awake for a while now. It’s Britta again. About an hour ago she woke me, she wanted to go off the bed, (yes, she sleeps with me) I have to help her as she is blind. On the floor she bumped into everything so I guided her to where she wanted to go. Bathroom she went in, wrong, kitchen and then through the cat door she went into the garden. Barked and walked in circles. I thought that maybe she had to go pee so I guided her to the grass but that was not what she wanted, she wanted to eat the bamboo. So I let her eat. I was in my pyama’s and it was pretty cold, so after a while, I took her back in.

After twenty minutes the scene repeated, Now I wore something, she ate and I carried her in again.

It is hard to live with an old dog, whose days are counted. Fill in old mother, old father, old sister or brother. It is hard to realize you will lose them one day to never seen again.

Death never changes.