Reggie

Lost an old friend on Friday last. My step-daughter's father. A Prince among men. The kind of person who was everyone's friend; a spiritual man, a sensitive listener and one of the best joke-tellers I've ever known. Reginald Rutherford - God's speed, my friend. See you at the King's table before we know it

Worms

I used to type well over 100 words a minute. Now, my fingers have become noodles. They are worms, blindly roaming about the keypad. Not likely to be playing Chopin anytime soon, either.

Bread

So anyway - there's this new bread and pastry place nearby. Bread Time or Bread Place or something like that. Bread is a big deal here in Indonesia. It's considered a 'western' food, and so a great treat. It's a cozy place if one goes early enough in the morning - otherwise, it becomes way too crowded. But in any case, you can get yourself a little cake or whatever, a latte for Rp. 11000 (unheard of), and settle into a chair with a book, or just watch the people come and go. Lots of school kids show up in their identical uniforms, gabbing away in the usual gobbledygook, which is not, for any practical purpose, Indonesian, but their own shared invention - a mystery to the westerner, no matter how much he has read or studied. You pick up bits and pieces, each as mysterious as a newly spilled jigsaw puzzle. And of course everyone takes notice of the bule - quick glances, smiles, whispers.  Oh! That's it. It's called "Bread Life".

Yeah, Don't Bother

Well, some of you out there are going to be getting sick of these continual MS entries. But hey, it intrudes, it speaks, it insists. And, after all, the original inception of this blog had to do with MS anyway.

So, what's the pleasant news for today. My arms and legs are extremely weak. My fingers don't work - a disastrous circumstance for a writer. I'm practically hunting and pecking these days. Takes me four hours to do two hours of work.

One tends to think that after he has surrendered and gone to the doctor, he will simply get some medicine and that will be that. All well again.

Not so.

I don't really remember how long it took me to recover from my attack back in 2007. I do remember, however, now that I think of it, that I was still having difficulties in February 2010. Not encouraging. I remember my old friend, Vick, giving me his arm to help me up and down stairs. So, yeah.

No magic meds.

Just a long road.

Can't Wait

Actually looking forward to returning to the doctor on Friday. Just like old times. Lots of questions. Seeking answers. I guess I had forgotten how long it takes to recover from these relapses. I mean, I'm ready right now. But the truth is, I feel lousy. I feel very weak now in my arms and legs. Just limp. Coordination is fucked. Takes me hours to type what used to take minutes. Every other letter is wrong. Fingers poking about the keyboard like mindless worms. And in the meantime, I have work to do.

Well, the good news is, though, that I'm enjoying my wife's 'sunshine regime' in the chaise lounge in our backyard. Just like sticking yourself into an oven. Lie there as long as I can bear it, then jump into a cold shower. If I didn't have things I was supposed to be doing, it wouldn't be so bad.

What Illness Reveals

I have always thought that what is most miraculous in the healthy human organism is most distinctly revealed in the aberrations of illness.

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made," David said;
"your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be."

Quiet Time

When you are ill and laid up, you see the things that are always there, those things that you have not seen before with precision or even interest. They are the passing things, of no account. Clouds in their courses, the eye of the sun, now blinded, now piercing. You see the leaves on the small tree that was no more than a stick 6 months ago, now blooming, stretching prayerful palms to the nearest... heaven, breathing and breathed. A dragon fly sits on your knee, not knowing any better, and for once he is right. He seems to mean something. Everything, the smallest thing, seems to mean something. The mind of the breeze crosses arms on your chest, and then surrenders again to the incomparable sun, as much a component of your skin as of the heavens.