meanwhile, back at the ranch -

So now that Last Minute are out of the game, Son will be able to go to Edinburgh with jazz a cappella group and do his stuff there. Actually, he was determined to do this anyway, even if Last Minute had got through the next few rounds, but there would have been difficulties. I am worried about Daughter who fainted during rehearsals yesterday. She has taken on a demanding project, both directing and performing something she has written, and the dance element is very strenuous. She is ok now, but is clearly overdoing it and advice to take it easy and slow down just isn’t realistic. I say it anyway. The first performance is on Wednesday, after which things should ease up a little (yeah, right).

Here at Signs Cottage I am doing battle with my old friend M.E., engaged in mortal combat, clasped in its deadly embrace. I am trying to think of new, fresh ways to describe it. Passionate lover came to mind, but brought up the old Stalker image, and we have been there. Something from the Song of Solomon comes to me:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Yes, the strength and persistence of the fellow is overwhelming, he loves me ferociously, and grand passion, as we know, does have something of the religious about it. Even if the love is unrequited, one cannot help but stand back in awe, and there are moments when the inclination to submit is overwhelming. Submit in one’s soul, I mean, for one can’t help but give in at a physical level. I have more or less given up on the idea that one can think or Process one’s way out of this, but have to accept that occasionally this works well in the sense of giving the temporary illusion that things are “on track” and better, and these moments I do not despise. The problem with treading the path of Shrinkhood, the psyochoanalytic real deal, is that the aim is to come home to oneself – touch base. It has occurred to me that I must be mad to do this and really, between that and M.E. it does sometimes feel as though the rest of me might just go up in a puff of smoke. The pilgrim’s path was ever thus. I think I should have a medal for this, or at least a badge.