I'd rather go deaf

A patchy week due to migraine, another osteopathy session and a visit to the hairdresser. I’m flagging severely but want to carry on till Christmas if I can and take a break then. I’m in a nebulous section of the novel at the moment and don’t want to leave it until I’m in a better place.

‘I’m going slightly deaf,’ I explained to the osteopath as he worked on my shoulder behind my head. ‘I have to see people’s faces and lipread in order to be sure what they’re saying.’

    ‘Funny you should say that,’ he said. ‘I was talking to another client and she asked me which would be worse – to go blind or to go deaf.’

    ‘Oh, to go blind,’ I said instantly.

    ‘Well we both decided that deafness would be worse because you wouldn’t be able to socialise.’

    ‘But I don’t want to socialise,’ I exclaimed, horrified.

   

Sometimes I worry about myself. I don’t have a social life and I don’t do anything for the community. Writing takes up all my time and all my energy and, as you can see from the last few posts, even finding time for basic maintenance (dentist, hairdresser, osteopath) is a struggle. I worry that people think I’m selfish (perhaps I am) and I worry what will happen if I get infirm and need help or if Frog dies before me.

It was so inspiring however to see a documentary on television recently about Judith Kerr, the writer and illustrator of children’s books*, who is now widowed and in her eighties but works all day and every day on her books except for the hour a day when she goes out walking. She is healthy and cheerful. I’d like to be like that when/if I get to that age.

* If you haven’t read her book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, do give it a try. It’s the first volume of her fascinating autobiography. Her father was a writer and critic of the Nazis and the family fled Germany just before Hitler came to power.