Now into August

Milton is blind and writes through his daughters. Kureishi is tetraplegic and writes through Isabella. The determination to walk, to get better, to survive, is there to be expressed. You are still that willing soul. There is anima, a future, a pleasure, however limited that can displace a small corner at least of the suffering. A book written by a blinking eyelid is still a task worth a fight.

Dementia destroys all of that. The future swindles into a catastrophe, a jumble of incohesion that dwindles into the past almost without taking note of the present. The secret is routine, both daily and weekly: exercise every other day, meditation every other day. 10 o’clock sit down at the computer and look at the screen. Lunch at 1 with a couple of days out at one or other trattoria so as to avoid the sometimes insurmountable problems of shopping and cooking. They also have good take-aways that cover another couple of lunches. Then at 1.20 off for the ten-minute drive to the residence and the afternoon with Lucia. Home at 6.30 for a beer and bit of BBC iplayer before bed. And there you have it.

There is loneliness and there is solitude. Here in Spain, there is only one word which covers both but they are distinct or at least I find that to be the case. Solitude I can cope with although it remains false. Sitting alone with a cup of coffee and a book is fine. Making lunch is fine even sitting in a trattoria is fine but loneliness creeps up behind this and destroys its superficial pleasures. The routine seems to help with the passing hours and it is almost quite pleasant to sit down to a beer in the evening a watch some rubbish on the TV.  There is always the ‘she is not there’ and this applies to all the false pleasures of solitude. And when the hammer-blow strikes it does so hard – as you lie down to sleep or turn to say something to a ghost or note the emptiness of the air about you. All of these when least expected. Thus loneliness is quite other and much more pernicious as its attack comes out of the blue when you are least able to deal with it: that gap in existence which cannot be filled and, almost because of this, grows into a threat and can easily lead to a panic attack which leaves you sitting in tears on the toilet. I find these are becoming increasingly frequent and the irony is that you almost better prepared for it the more present it becomes.

And over everything – a pall of guilt – knowing that she is excluded from every small pleasure that can be grasped; a piece of opera that she used to revel in, or news that would be good in any other circumstances, or a conversation  with its gestures and  intonations, even a kiss are all losses as profound as Narcissus’ pool that reflects merely a superficial reflection of what it cannot grasp.

Today the semi automaton that is now my wife hardly opens her eyes and sits in her wheelchair more than half asleep as I shovel the tea-time snack into her mouth which she chews and swallows on auto pilot. I think if I were to stick some shit onto the spoon she would eat it just the same. The sun shines. There is a gentle breeze. For, after all, as Leibnitz wrote, is this not ‘le meilleur des mondes possibles’?