A GLIMPSE OF ETERNAL SNOWS

On a cold November evening, eleven years ago, Mum and I entered what used to be the Olde Post Office down the road (now our friend Sue's cosy, charming cottage), to attend a reading by Dr Jane Wilson-Howarth. The Book Club had invited Jane, GP and travel writer, to share her memoir, A Glimpse of Eternal Snows: A Journey of Love and Loss in the Himalayas, and when the reading and Q&A were over and we were chin wagging over snacks, I asked Jane if there was an audiobook version Dad could read. 

A decade later, Jane writes in her blog: 

It was an idea I’d been incubating for yonks, ever since Shaista Tayabali (@lupusinflight) suggested it when I spoke to her reading group. Initially I was too busy and distracted to get down to it, but eventually I began, having no idea how long it would take. My experience of reading out loud in writing groups meant I knew that I could narrate 1000 words easily in ten minutes, so although my memoir is quite a tome at 374 pages and a little under 130,000 words, it was doable. It couldn’t take much more than 22 hours, so recording it wouldn’t take much longer than a week or so.

Spoiler. It takes longer!!

Recording consumed all of March, April (when we evacuated to the UK), May and some of June and July. I had already decided to add various bird calls to begin and end each chapter. Some are Nepali birds, some are English, depending upon where the action takes place.

The whole project took longer than I expected but it has been a labour of love. A Glimpse of Eternal Snows is a book that is written from my heart so I’m sure listeners will enjoy it, as long as no-one is too appalled by my attempts at Celtic accents. Here's the link to Audible audiobook. 

I wrote about Jane on my own blog as soon as I got home, in a post titled The Good Doctor, wishing she were my doctor but glad, soon enough, that she became my friend, and recommended me to the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire presenters as an interesting guest! I helped edit Jane's memoir for the American edition, which gave me a chance to fully immerse myself in Jane's life in Nepal, where she and her husband decided to take their two sons, including baby David, whose medical frailty had been dealt with in the least compassionate manner by doctors from my own Cambridge hospital. Nepali life gave David three years of burbling happiness...

The one sympathetic hospital doctor in Cambridge had advised us to treat David normally and we took this as a licence to take him on his first trek; at the age of four months, we packed up David’s heart medicines and tubes and headed up over precipitous drops and wobbly rope bridges to explore drippy forests and medieval hill-forts. The mountains were spectacular and healing. Strangely David’s heart disease protected him from the effects of high altitude. Our arrival in each mountain village was heralded by choruses of, ‘Children have come!’ We’d be surrounded and David taken from his carrying basket to be handed around for all to cuddle. He glowed in all this attention. He smiled and burbled appreciatively at all his admirers. Nepalis helped us see David’s qualities and talent for laughter...

June will be here tomorrow and Dad will sit out in the sun, eating mangoes and listening to Nepali birdsong and enjoying a glimpse of those eternal snows I read about eleven years ago... thank you, Jane!

LETTER TO...

Dearest...
The sun is setting and it is quite beautiful.
Elsewhere the setting sun is more beautiful. I know this because someone elsewhere has a more powerful camera, and is on holiday in a more tropical place. Or more historical. A pyramid perhaps, or a cave of swimmers.

I was supposed to be somewhere this morning, but a migraine ate my eye. I was dreaming when the doorbell rang, but I cannot remember. I have always lived furiously in my dreams. Once, I kept a dream diary, but then I wondered why.

It was my mother. She brought tulips. She arranged them and made me a cup of tea.

There was snow yesterday, but only a threadbare carpet, nothing to excite my nephew and nieces with. The doorbell rings again. It's the supermarket delivery man. 'Where's your snowman?' he asks. 'Where's the snow?' I counter. A little post-migraine banter. He calls me swee'hear', though he's never met me before. I like it when strangers on the phone call me 'love' or 'darlin'... It comforts me. I like it when my mother calls me Dilly Girl. It derives from Darling Girl, but only she knows how the derivation came about.

I fengshui-ed my flat last night and am sitting on my newly arranged sofa looking at the patch of visible light and branch-webbed sky. Why am I?
The pheasants reply. And I am satisfied.

Dearest, where are you? And will we ever meet? I am melancholic and content. Is this a perfect life?

Love...

GLI ESPERTI DEI FIORI

It was pouring rain yesterday when I left for surgery. The pink roses were bowed in head and spirit. "Buck up!" I urged, "we've a long day ahead." It wasn't a long procedure, although might have been nicer if the Blue Eyed Surgeon had indulged me in a wee song. No such luck. I wearily warbled "It's a long way to Tipperary..." to encourage the Irish in him to join in, but he grimly persisted in needling, draining, anaesthetising...  This was me all day yesterday...

I howled a lot, silently and sometimes, loudly, dramatically, but mostly I felt as an animal would, unable to scratch or lick the wound clean of pain. My kindhearted neighbour Victoria stopped by with a cold eye mask and on Twitter, the Girls were endlessly comforting and funny. As I approached sleep, I dreaded waking to more burning. But it does feel easier today, and this afternoon I answered a knock at the door to behold...

Thank you Kathy from Twitter, thank you for my cup of tea-roses. They are perched just beside my bed and with the sun pouring in, today is so much better than yesterday. Gli esperti dei fiori - you are the flower expert. Indeed you all are, expert at arranging flowers and cards and love to be sent to a place and a person who is deeply appreciative of every heartfelt, healing gesture.

The Fullest Moon

I am here
Watching you from afar
Trailing in the dust
of my memories
Awaiting your command.

I was bound to you
Time before Time
And will be true
for Eternity.

Judge not my actions harshly,
I am but a simple handmaiden.

Will He deem me fit
to be your bride?
Do you notice I am missing
from your side?

The earth you crush
beneath your feet
is nearer to you than me
but the dust of your presence
rains on my heart
And love is not forsaken.

- Shaista

Soul Quakes

There it is
At high noon in wintry cool
I am behind the curtain, breathing ever so slightly
Watching the wind rip the grass
and sunlight dance through my hair
making chestnut waves in a black rainbow

How do you accept that there is the hot sun
and yet you are freezing?
How do you learn that to smile is to live
and to doubt is to die?
How we burn and lie and cringe
Crying that we are suffering
as we feed our hungry demons

And between soul quakes and tremors
the beloved waits patiently
aching and starving


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I don't know when this was written. The page lies open on Shaista's desk at home. Untouched since she went into hospital 5 weeks ago. Things continue to get harder for her. They've finally given up on trying to inject anything into her arms and have moved on to other even more painful places. The pain and discomfort continue - invasive causes mixed in with internal ones. Talking is getting harder and so is focusing on things being read out. And so we all wait.

Thanks for all the comments and messages. As ever, keep them coming and we'll pass them on. Much appreciated. Rizwan.

In My Two Hands

(A poem by Thich Nhat Hanh)

I hold my face
in my two hands
No I am not crying
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep my loneliness warm
to cradle my hunger
shelter my heart
from the rain and the thunder
Two hands protecting
Two hands nourishing
Two hands preventing
my soul from flying
in anger.

I hold my face
in my two hands
My hands cupped
to catch what might fall
from within me
Deeper than crying
no, I am not crying
I am in my two hands.


------------------------

Thay wrote this poem when bombs were falling on his beloved Vietnam, and he had to take care of his anger in solitude. I love this poem. It is set to music and sung beautifully by the nuns.

My soul is not leaving me in anger, but my body is in trouble. The first round of I.V. immunoglobulins has not worked, and another round is planned for next week.

In the meantime I am spiking high fevers every night and spend my days working slowly and mindfully to cool my body. Ice water, paracetamol, breathing, smiling.


Yesterday I asked my mother to bring some pictures from my bedroom wall at home. So now when I turn my head to the right, my teachers, my healers, are close beside me. Prophet Zarathushtra, Jesus, Sai Baba, Thich Nhat Hanh. On either side of the wall are windows, blinds drawn for my photophobic eyes, but all day long, some light finds me.


Back to my ice water cloths. Bless you all for reading me and writing to me. The depth and kindness of your comments soothes, comforts, and cheers my parents and my brothers too.


Sometimes, when I ask myself, "Is this real? Is this really happening?", I think of my creative blog, the connections beyond myself and I stay purposeful.

Shadow in the Stone

Red tulips splash
across a pastel blue sky,
I see with my father's eyes
and hope the memory stays alive
to water me
in sorrow's time.

Walking, with my hand outstretched
to feel the stone, the marble set
of furniture
that has travelled seas,
to touch my palm,
to be with me.

I saw my shadow nights ago
peep out at me so suddenly,
I jumped, then laughed
"It's only me!"
My darker side,
but only me.


-----------------------------------

Shaista wrote this poem last year, and I'd posted it on my own blog back then because I really liked it. It takes us back to another place when the future was bright for all five of us. Anyway things took a turn for the worse over the past couple of days due to a horrific mistake by the doctors looking after Shaista, and she has not been able to give directions around things to post, so I'm putting this one up for her. I hope you like it. Please keep writing in. Every message left here is a happy distraction in a time of a lot of pain and trauma. Thanks. Rizwan

Beyond the Blinds

I drew the blinds today on the window near my bed.

They are building a concrete block 20 feet opposite my room. The bricks are yellow. Down on the far right there is a large patch of blue. Is it the builders' wall? Is it sky? My eyes can't tell. 

But I am pretending it is the sea, reflecting waves at me. I am imagining it is the bright blue of Malibu ocean where Jennifer Anniston runs with her dog Norman. 

It is Portugal, it is the Maldives. 

It is the place of dreams I catch glimpses of in magazines.

----------------------

(dictated from hospital via phone)

Something Beautiful

I fall into a cup of tea

with all my heart;

The sun comes out

To join me.

Blue flowers on bone china

all the way from Bengal;

Something beautiful travels far

to be present on my palm.

On my arm a glinting thing,

a golden watch, a hanging charm;

A golden bangle worn and fine,

from my great great grandmother's skin

to mine.

(July 19th, 2008)

-----------------

Dear Blog Readers, I wrote this last year in one of my favourite spots. In the upstairs conservatory at home. I'm still in hospital after 12 bottles of life saving human immuno-globulins and very painful surgery, so my brother is typing this up for me. You have shared so many beautiful comments and thoughts, I wanted to share something beautiful with you too.

-----------------

(Please keep your positive thoughts and messages coming and I will continue to pass them on. They all make a difference. Email here or comment below. Many thanks. Rizwan)

March Update

Dear Blog Readers

Just a brief note to say that Shaista has been admitted to hospital again, and may not be able to post for a while. She asked me to leave this message on her behalf.

Please say hello and leave your messages. They all help. I will read them to her when I can.

Many thanks and I hope life is treating you gently wherever you are.

Rizwan

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Email Shaista or comment below (scroll to the bottom of the comments and choose the Name/URL option)

Ps. If you want to subscribe via email just click here

Lupus in Flight

Lupus in flight
on a hot and burning night
Would I were the cool breeze
the intangible dream
gliding in and out of sight.

I am a dream weaver
and hope trader
for better times
and wiser minds.

This body cannot be all I mean
This life cannot be all she seems
And moonlight gleams so far away
And snow falls on some other's way.

The trains are constant
as time is not
And tomorrow's tidings remain unknown
But birds will sing and love will grow.

nov 1998

Wolf Bite

Poison
burning in my toes
exploding on my face
red blows
Still am I accosted
by the unexpected
bite of the Wolf.

nov 1998

Trabeculectomy I & II, War in Iraq

There is a war beginning
and bombs exploding
just beyond the fragile nests
of our lives
and pain is exploding
in sharp bursts and gusts
and I am free to feel fear
but I will not.

dec 1998

Steroids

the flush creeps on
a year later
hot discomfort
inside my veins
the flush confused me once
disguised as fear
I recognise it now
I understand it well today
the sunshine
of my blood.


Life in my little room
curtains drawn on harsh light
and behind it the birds sing.
Every day my hair falls
and piles beside me on the bed
Every other day my toes inflame
and confine me to bed again;
Still the birds sing.


I still wait and watch for your arrival
even though I know you will not come
Cars pass and the light fades
and still you do not call.

sept 1998

Love trap

Glorious sunlight
escapes into a trapped world
and frees the soul
Glinting between the green
and masking the grey
Smiling and dancing its way
past worry and pain
into the heart
where it nestles
warm
and deep as love.

sept 1998