Pema Chodron , This Week

Last Sunday we head for Silverlink. It is the usual story . My sister is staying for the weekend and part of the deal is that living on a farm she doesnt get many shopping opportunities .

Harvey needs new trainers . This comes up about every four weeks ( Teenage girls and boys are so different ; girls "need" shoes frequently but its a different kind of need . Harvey really does need them , but he certainly doesnt " want " them , and he definitely does not want to go shopping for them with his mother and his auntie whom he regards as the flip sides of two particularly boring coins when it comes to this particular monthly excursion .

Today may not be quite so bad though as at least he has his mate with him .

The trip goes amazingly well and I am soon in Borders looking for a new Patrick Gale novel .

Thwarted( where are all the Patrick Gale books , where ? ) , on a whim I purchase two Pema Chodron books , ignoring my resolution to use the library at all times ( I have been sticking to this , honest ) thus keeping my visa card firmly in my bag .In a nutshell , the visa card is in the machine before I can say "need " and "book".

And this is after all Pema Chodron , so helpful to me in former times ( how I adore that phrase , which I first learned from my German penfriend Zita who used it in almost all of her letters to me circa 1970 to 1975 , when it seemed to drop from use , thus I took it up instead ) .

I first read " When things fall apart " when things were indeed falling apart for me , and I read it and read it and re-read it and haven't really stopped reading it . Then I moved onto " Start where you are " and ... I digress . Who cares about all this ?

I'm talking about this week nownot five or so years ago , or I should be . Dulwich Divorcee has got me thinking about my past after I found her blissful blog last night . I recommend it to everyone . ( see my comments if you need a link )

So , this week .

I started reading Pema Chodron's 2004 offering " The wisdom of no escape " on Monday and it made such perfect sense that , given that at the time I was headache free I was able to start to believe that indeed , this is exactly how it should be .

Suffering from a modicum of Topamax induced aphasia as I do ( notwithstanding my tendency also to digress ) I cannot outline in a simple blog post the basic tenets of Buddhism but there is something exquisitely true about Chodron's writings .

This life that we have , is the perfect basis for our reflections . We need not wait for the right relationship , more money , better health , the best possible situation to come along .

We can start right now , as someone living with pain , in suffering , with bad health , in a crappy place in whatever respect and just use that as the springboard for doing what we need to do to make sense of it all , to practice what we need to practice , if youre getting my drift . ( And I accept that you may not be . I'm not even sure I am . )

Tuesday I had an almost complete day without any headache or migraine . Keeping the diaries as I am now for the research this is quite a rare occurrence . Wonderful .... I skipped into the office feeling like I was floating and wondering if I ever felt this good in the past. Did I appreciate my life before ? Was I really ever completely aware of how wonderful and light and just how free the head feels when there is no thumping going on in there , when the eyes are seeing straight , when the banging is absent , when there is no sickness blurring everything and .... well you get the picture . Was I ? Did I ? I doubt it . I was probably far too busy moaning about something else , or wishing I could something different .

Tuesday also I had a message from home telling me a small package had arrived from me and an envelope from the National Lottery . How intriguing !

Clearly the first was the Piggy toenail clippers I had ordered online and the second ; had I not quite by chance read in the Times that the winning numbers had not been claimed I might have had half a day imagining I had won a tenner !

Either way I was far more excited about Piggy toenail clipping .

But as it all came crashing back down around me with a boiling in my head by Wednesday night it becomes harder and harder to accept anything at all .

I ask myself how do people who live with constant unrelenting pain do it ? If the pain is in your head , so you cannot think , how do you keep going ?

I keep going because it isn't every single day . Because with a variety of medications I can still live a life and work and have a laugh and read my endless books and dream my dreams .

Footnote : It was the Piggy toenail clippers . And lovely they are too .

I didn't win the lottery .

And my car packed up big style on the way home on Wednesday .

But today my head is better and I had a sausage sandwich in the wine bar with Alice taking up residence in the doorway , by way of celebration . The trick is to make the most of the good days ?