the year that was

[kaberett]

It's two years, more or less to the hour, since I had my first migraine in adulthood; since the end of May this year I've had somewhere less than two weeks free of migraine symptoms.

It was, nonetheless, a good year for me.

Looking at my notes from the end of 2021, I was pleased and surprised that I was regularly making it all the way through a Pilates sequence, once a week, most weeks. In May I bought more Pilates books; by June I was managing two sessions a week fairly reliably, one from my previous books and one the "introductory"/"essentials" programme from my new books; today I've done my third session this week, and I'm making progress toward the standard Beginners' programme. I somehow had no idea I'd only been doing the more advanced stuff for only six months -- but I am delighted to report that I keep finding more joy in it, and more curiosity about what my body can do, and to my bewilderment I am hurting less.

This year I also managed to cycle up The Hill in my local environs without stopping for a rest half way up. I've been very gradually increasing the amount I walk in my day-to-day life, and my body has mostly tolerated it. (I still push too hard and have to take rests, sometimes.)

And some of the migraine preventives I was tried on made me very ill, and none of them prevented migraine, and the fallout from my first appointment at a specialist headache clinic back in April rumbles on, and: I'm still, actually, alright. Despite it.

I have been finding things I can do in spite of my terribly tedious genetic neurological disorder, and I'm adjusting to life with permanent photosensitivity. (Sometimes I forget just how many changes we've made to my home, this year, in the interests of maximising what I can do, and then I spend time in a place where the lights aren't all turned down low and background noise isn't reduced as much as possible and I discover that I am, in fact, still very much in the middle of a migraine attack.)

One thing: sciatrix procured a collection of ridiculous Nordic Ware cookie stamps on my behalf, and I've used them (for the Ottolenghi glazed gingerbread tiles that provoked their acquisition, and for Teebäckerei). My tiny magic resulted in a rice cooker, which has been delighting me. We have added a pile of new recipes to our regular rotation -- an Ottolenghi broad bean kuku; a Food52 cauliflower butter masala; amaretti, and (also using the cyanide) the apple and almond traybake; paella we can make easily with things that are stable in storage, for a pile of vegetables; I acquired a DOLSOT and we made SO MUCH BIBIMBAP. I played with various sourdough breads, including focaccia and pita and naan and a potato and rosmary and nigella loaf, and also with aloo paratha, which I did not make with sourdough. I've been tweaking recipes, too: I finally managed to recreate the Ottolenghi confit tandoori chickpeas to my satisfaction, and similarly finished adjusting my jollof rice recipe; salt and pepper tofu also much improved. And: I got my grandmother's recipe for Faschingskrapfen, and they were easily and by miles the best I've ever made.

I've played the horn (or at least buzzed my lips) every day. I've done Duolingo (almost) every day. I've surprised myself with how much fun I've had refining processes at Admin: The LRP, and I can't quite believe I've only been doing that for less than a year. In addition to the LRP field, I visited both Cornwall and Cambridge several times; the various Zoological Society of London zoos likewise; we watched some uncooperative badgers at Wakehurst; we visited a remarkable amount of greenery.

I read fewer books that I'd have liked -- 34, some of which were rereads -- but I also managed to scrape together the brain to read several things I'd been wanting to for a range of values of "a long time" (I think the winner is the book on mindfulness-based cognitive therapy that I first started reading circa 2012; I enjoyed Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb immensely.) I have derived a lot of joy from my ongoing Fancy Stationery special interest. I have, I think, played more games than usual; all of them, I think, were a shared activity with A.

Who has now been part of my life for over eight years. I've managed to tend, haphazardly, to some other relationships, as well: I am incredibly grateful to have written to and visited and reconnected with my piano teacher, who has been enormously important to me. I have finally replied -- last night -- to a number of e-mails that got mired in the thesis swamp.

The thing that has been rattling persistently around my head, the last few days, is Derek Walcott's Love After Love:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

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[vass]

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[kaberett]

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