First contact

After I posted that I remembered a poem I wrote at the start of my Social Anthropology course ten years or so ago. At the university Abi and I were at you do a two part course, one more focussed on the general core of the subject (whatever that may be) and one on some aspect of it. Mine was on the cultural aspects of creativity...and one of the first things we had to do was write a poem.

On the way to the campus at the start of term I'd passed within quarter of a mile of my first tiny village primary school in an area I'd not been back to for many years, and the memories of my confusion (initial and ongoing) at meeting peers blended with the contemporary confusion at meeting my non-peer fellow students. We'd also just been shown the old black and white footage of 'First Contact' between researchers and researched in New Guinea in the 1930s and somehow all these things coalesced and I produced a piece loosely about the perception of difference called First Contact that I was pleased with and pleased my tutors too. What a shame I can't remember it now! Either that or you've had a lucky escape ha ha!

I made it to the library by catching a cab which I hate to do as it makes me feel so feeble, but hey that's what the DLA's for! I wore the tiered turquoise silk dress I bought when I went away a few weekends ago. I wonder if other terminally ill women (or men for that matter) wrestle with whether to buy new clothes. On one level yes...epecially if they make you feel better about yourself or are pretty enough to make you forget if you don't! But on another it's hardly an investment is it? Anyway I mulled over buying this for twenty four hours and realised I had to do it. It's beautiful and it comfortably covers the ravages of age and disease and at £25 it was less than some T shirts... besides I'm worth it as they say! So that's my second gratitude of the day...that I own this lovely dress.

And the third is that the lovely lady in Specsavers called me a 'breath of fresh air'. Our little local branch is always good for a sit down and a 'talk up' as well as the usual services!