Mini Miracles as the World Burns

 My health dictates my activism these days and while i remain in my home, safe and sound, for most of the time, I write, share, support those I can and keep the conversation alive while our government sits tight-lipped and tripped-up in its colonial past and Israeli ties. I bear witness these days while others march where I once marched. My heart is torn and I keep abreast of all I can while remaining passionate yet firmly grounded (i sometimes mean stuck but not today  - today is a good day). I hate that I can’t do as much as I used to. Posts, payments, petitions, pent-up rage. That’s all I have these days. No one likes admitting that kind of change.

Since my hip replacement, my days have been full of little miracles. To the untrained eye, they may not seem like much, but six weeks ago it was supported sitting up among pillows in bed for an hour. It’s coming up to a year since the hip op and a lot of the two years before that were spent in bed. So progress may be slow but it’s going forward which is the main thing. 

These days, a positive might be simply that I say something or write a note or next step or new idea for my latest novel and surprise myself and my visitor that something legible has risen from the fog. Sometimes, I remember something recent or even from time and find myself smiling that my memory has had a moment! My body and brain surprise me constantly. Existing is the miracle, truly, in this day and age.

I have been working with a writing mentor to give my writing space some structure - this has helped in so many ways. We work within a small group, working with all our (mine are recently stumbled upon) neurodiverse ways to build individually while supporting each other and developing our writing styles together. It is genuinely one of my better decisions as not only am i getting writing done each week, I'm waking up with the writing bug in my brain, itching and itching until I scratch.

Four weeks ago I got up in the morning and managed to get downstairs twice - on both occasions I cooked tea and put washing on, read my latest bookchoice (which always inspires, terrifies or something in between- currently Home Front by Kirsten Hannah) and found myself building a new scene in my novel. It's currently Scene 20. I've outlined it and researched it ever since. I had a good few days! Because of my newly-energised me emerging that week, I also put up pictures, went out twice on shoe-finding and student-food-shopping missions and that evening realised I'd overdone it, just as everyone said I was. I was helped to my stairlift and then to bed.

I rethought my Visible account - a heart-rate measuring pacing support system and realised wherever I can find structure, just like with my writing, I need to embrace these strategies. I'd had real success using Visible before, yet as soon as I seemed to be pacing again, I stopped. As is my way.. Then of course, the pacing stopped and my Boom and Bust life returned.

I've been in bed ever since. Visible works with an armband that tracks heartrate and measures movement to some degree, giving a visual representation of your daily exertion. Timeline and heart rate with colour coding to show your exertion. 

Pale blue = Rest

Dark blue = Activity

Red = Exertion

My energy is burned through four times faster when my heart rate is in Exertion Mode which then tells me to do something from my repertoire that keeps me at Activity Mode or Rest Mode. It is a juggle and I never want to stop when I reach Exertion Mode but I'm now just thinking of it as taking a break, having a pause, lying down and listening to music or an audio book does it. I have 16 points to keep within each day and i have a tendency to flare up into Exertion Mode, not realise and go way over my points sometimes even hitting double or more. 42 was a recent score. That then knocks me for six for an unknown period which tends to keep me in bed.

This morning, after a good sleep, my morning check-in (1-4 points) scored me a 2 which means my body is out of balance and I may need to plan a quieter day today. I feel quite good, not too dizzy and my balance is okay so i go downstairs for coffee (first time in five weeks) then upstairs I shower and dress. Getting up and downstairs on my stairlift more than once a day is another mini-miracle.

My heart rate is 70bpm which for me is Activity Mode so I can keep going. This is good. I start writing this week's blog (which I haven't done for a while!) and all is good. I'm even sat in my study as I want to try some fully sitting up writing today - the giddy life I lead! As I write, my heart rate goes down to 60 bpm which is Rest Mode so I'm keeping everything on an even keel at the moment. 

I am learning to listen to my body. I have managed to keep stretching, moving while sitting up at my desk which has been the longest I've managed in a very long time. An hour. But my back needs a rest so I'll go and lie down and listen to music, take notes as they arise and plan lunch for 12.00pm. 

While the world burns and the news pretends four dead in a european church deserves coverage while those dead from bombs, bullets and starvation in Gaza don't, I return to the posts from Palestinian journalist Bisan and breathe a sign of relief as she starts her latest post with 'It's me Bisan, reporting from Gaza. I'm still alive.' and pain catches in my throat.

We are merely accidents of birth. My latest life is safe in the most crucial of ways, yet challenging in others. While I celebrate a coffee downstairs on my settee surrounded by my cats who are most surprised to find me there, Bisan celebrates another day existing within a genocide of 78 years by zionist Israelis who believe they are superior and therefore can kill indiscriminately anyone in their way - regardless of race, career, age or religion. True cruelty. True madness. When Hitler did the same we called it World War 2 and world armies brought him down. But this time the madness comes from someone who seems to hold all the cards: Netanyahu has Trump and Starmer tightly by - i'll let you fill in the whereabouts be it the throat or elsewhere - so the world turns away. Money and power seems to open doors and excuse international war crimes.

I watch the flotilla of over sixty boats as it makes a humanitarian mission towards Gaza bringing food, baby formula and medical supplies, now with navy vessels from Greece and Italy looking on. Israel threatens and bombs with drones and the like but no one is hurt. It's a miracle. Yet a baby born breathes its first and last breath without its mother's milk, too starved to save her child. If there is a heart still unbroken anywhere on this earth I would love to know how.

Our Prime Minister seems to think Israel can behave this way. His Human Rights Lawyer days must have had their use by date. Such a disappointment.

Regardless of who we are, we should all do as much as we can. For some that will be more, for some that will be less. Time is running out for the world to wake up to the atrocities in Palestine and Sudan, the Congo and so many other places. And meanwhile, we must hold our governments and our super-rich accountable. We all know their hands are covered in blood.