We’ve always known Isabella was there - steadfast, living not only each of your days but trying to live her own at the same time. As a caregiver I know how challenging this journey is. Your thoughtful essay is a beautiful acknowledgement and thank you. You see her. Sometimes that’s all we need.
I think that I could live quite happily next door to a house of God and make peace with the comings and goings of his innumerable guests.
Not this Wednesday, when it rained hard, but the Wednesday before, I was lying in a hammock. It was strung between the lower boughs of an apple tree, which is diseased but will see me out, and a small pear tree that yields stunted, unhealthy-looking fruit that the birds seem to enjoy. From now until the end of October I expect I will be gingerly plucking the pecked carcasses of mouldy pears from the garden lawn by their stems. The top end of the hammock is supported by a loop of chain that has been sewn inside a canvas sleeve. The bottom end is held up by a length of synthetic blue rope that creaks ominously as I ease myself in and hurriedly scramble towards a point of equilibrium before the hammock can invert and deposit me on the lawn. The rope will fail before the chain does. Hopefully I will have just enough prior warning to bail out.
It was early evening. I could hear the bells over at Saint Augustine's, which is just under a mile away to the east. The ringers practise there every Wednesday. St Augustine's is a sturdy, red-brick church, constructed during the 1930s. It occupies a large grass island that is circled by housing, much of which I suspect was built during the same period.
The bells were especially welcome, as they smothered the unwelcome sound of an alarm clock that was going off next door. I had been hearing its muffled four-note refrain all day, whenever I was close to the garden fence. It wasn't overly loud but it was insistent and it made it hard for me to focus on the book I had planned to read. Instead, I lay back, I closed my eyes and I listened to the bells.
My brother has spent his entire life in a sometimes frantic search for meaning that has visited hardship on himself and on those around him. Recently he has embraced Catholicism and it seems to have brought him peace at long last. I am not religious. However, I do enjoy those benign expressions of faith that overflow from places of worship. Church bells that would once have been as ubiquitous as birdsong now season the heavens more sparingly. While I do nothing to foster their survival, I do still like to hear them.
I wonder if there is insight to be gained from telling one's story, not from a personal perspective, or from the perspective of another closely-involved party, but rather from the detached perspective of a theoretical observer – the angels in the Wim Wenders films 'Wings Of Desire' and 'Faraway, So Close!' who silently observe the lives of mortal men and women as they unfold. What would they make of your triptych of scenes – the life before, the immediate aftermath of a life-changing event, and the new life after. There is beauty and humanity to be found in all three.
I used to attend an annual meeting for people who suffer from a rare autoimmune disease. They arrived with their spouses or their partners. I was a rarity since I always came alone. Before I got sick I was seeing someone on a casual basis. When it became obvious that I was no longer able to meet her needs, she stopped calling. Though that was the implied understanding behind our relationship, if you can describe it as such, the sudden unannounced ending of it was upsetting in a way I had not anticipated. I told myself that at least I wasn't dragging anybody else down with me. This was, in hindsight, a coping mechanism - a dim view of humanity and the strength of the bonds that we are capable of forming with each other.
Later, I worked at my local hospital. I commonly witnessed a grounded state of grace that seemed to exist between couples, one of whom was profoundly ill. They found joy or meaning in each other's company, or they bickered and discussed trivialities, but ultimately they looked after each other. I saw it time and time again. Enough for it to be a hallmark of humanity as opposed to a freak occurrence. Like the bedrock of faith that flourishes every Wednesday in sporadic peels of church bells, I do not want it for myself but I like to know that it exists.
Could call this The Beauty and The Grief. It really peels out, like the bells- a story of our humanity. Thanks for responding to Hanif's posting today so deeply. I feel called to respond, my heart responds, I want to echo back like a shout in the canyon, to both of you. Yes. I hear you.
It is incredible how close you were from where I live and where I lived for a long time with a partner who was 18 years older than me and had multiple sclerosis (I always knew him on a wheelchair but we had a great life , by the way, thinking of your beautiful "in the ruins you make a life"). I'm not sure if it's the same piazza we are talking about, but I think it is. There used to be a trattoria from which, he told me, he once came out, not yet on a wheelchair but barely walking, with crutches and some help. Suddenly, while he was admiring a beautiful black girl waiting at a bus stop, his trousers dropped, then and there, in the middle of piazzale Flaminio. It was a recurring anecdote of his and we always laughed a lot.
This moved me. I live in Rome. And have followed your (dis) adventures with curiosity and empathy. Have loved how you express the raw pain of it - the indignity the misfortune and the anguish, portrayed so honestly. This “love letter” to Isabella however is one of the best. Love that your creativity has, per forza, flowered despite the obstacles. Kia Kaha keep strong
I enjoy reading this over & over getting to know Isabella and loving her. Wanting to have more of her devotion to you and to a quality of life that is so rare in my world- gentle attention, kindness and honesty. Thank you for your beautiful descriptions, sometimes spare but complete! Giving me/us your audience, warm human loving companionship, on the page! Amazing gift!
This touched me so deeply. All the ways in which we care for one another. What a real relationship means. (having a spouse 13 years older, I'm preparing myself). Beautiful Isabella. i love how you move back and forth in time... very effective.
Beautiful. There is beauty found in the difficult, the challenging, the ugly. It is important to bring it out. To look at it. To admire it, and enjoy it. As you said, "in the ruins you make a life, one you had never anticipated." But you do it...you live.
We’ve always known Isabella was there - steadfast, living not only each of your days but trying to live her own at the same time. As a caregiver I know how challenging this journey is. Your thoughtful essay is a beautiful acknowledgement and thank you. You see her. Sometimes that’s all we need.
This is the equivalent of a love letter, beautiful 💞
I think that I could live quite happily next door to a house of God and make peace with the comings and goings of his innumerable guests.
Not this Wednesday, when it rained hard, but the Wednesday before, I was lying in a hammock. It was strung between the lower boughs of an apple tree, which is diseased but will see me out, and a small pear tree that yields stunted, unhealthy-looking fruit that the birds seem to enjoy. From now until the end of October I expect I will be gingerly plucking the pecked carcasses of mouldy pears from the garden lawn by their stems. The top end of the hammock is supported by a loop of chain that has been sewn inside a canvas sleeve. The bottom end is held up by a length of synthetic blue rope that creaks ominously as I ease myself in and hurriedly scramble towards a point of equilibrium before the hammock can invert and deposit me on the lawn. The rope will fail before the chain does. Hopefully I will have just enough prior warning to bail out.
It was early evening. I could hear the bells over at Saint Augustine's, which is just under a mile away to the east. The ringers practise there every Wednesday. St Augustine's is a sturdy, red-brick church, constructed during the 1930s. It occupies a large grass island that is circled by housing, much of which I suspect was built during the same period.
The bells were especially welcome, as they smothered the unwelcome sound of an alarm clock that was going off next door. I had been hearing its muffled four-note refrain all day, whenever I was close to the garden fence. It wasn't overly loud but it was insistent and it made it hard for me to focus on the book I had planned to read. Instead, I lay back, I closed my eyes and I listened to the bells.
My brother has spent his entire life in a sometimes frantic search for meaning that has visited hardship on himself and on those around him. Recently he has embraced Catholicism and it seems to have brought him peace at long last. I am not religious. However, I do enjoy those benign expressions of faith that overflow from places of worship. Church bells that would once have been as ubiquitous as birdsong now season the heavens more sparingly. While I do nothing to foster their survival, I do still like to hear them.
I wonder if there is insight to be gained from telling one's story, not from a personal perspective, or from the perspective of another closely-involved party, but rather from the detached perspective of a theoretical observer – the angels in the Wim Wenders films 'Wings Of Desire' and 'Faraway, So Close!' who silently observe the lives of mortal men and women as they unfold. What would they make of your triptych of scenes – the life before, the immediate aftermath of a life-changing event, and the new life after. There is beauty and humanity to be found in all three.
I used to attend an annual meeting for people who suffer from a rare autoimmune disease. They arrived with their spouses or their partners. I was a rarity since I always came alone. Before I got sick I was seeing someone on a casual basis. When it became obvious that I was no longer able to meet her needs, she stopped calling. Though that was the implied understanding behind our relationship, if you can describe it as such, the sudden unannounced ending of it was upsetting in a way I had not anticipated. I told myself that at least I wasn't dragging anybody else down with me. This was, in hindsight, a coping mechanism - a dim view of humanity and the strength of the bonds that we are capable of forming with each other.
Later, I worked at my local hospital. I commonly witnessed a grounded state of grace that seemed to exist between couples, one of whom was profoundly ill. They found joy or meaning in each other's company, or they bickered and discussed trivialities, but ultimately they looked after each other. I saw it time and time again. Enough for it to be a hallmark of humanity as opposed to a freak occurrence. Like the bedrock of faith that flourishes every Wednesday in sporadic peels of church bells, I do not want it for myself but I like to know that it exists.
Could call this The Beauty and The Grief. It really peels out, like the bells- a story of our humanity. Thanks for responding to Hanif's posting today so deeply. I feel called to respond, my heart responds, I want to echo back like a shout in the canyon, to both of you. Yes. I hear you.
Beautiful and elegiac portrait of love adapting to circumstances. Bravo.
It is incredible how close you were from where I live and where I lived for a long time with a partner who was 18 years older than me and had multiple sclerosis (I always knew him on a wheelchair but we had a great life , by the way, thinking of your beautiful "in the ruins you make a life"). I'm not sure if it's the same piazza we are talking about, but I think it is. There used to be a trattoria from which, he told me, he once came out, not yet on a wheelchair but barely walking, with crutches and some help. Suddenly, while he was admiring a beautiful black girl waiting at a bus stop, his trousers dropped, then and there, in the middle of piazzale Flaminio. It was a recurring anecdote of his and we always laughed a lot.
So much heart, so much tenderness in this.
As Carol says, you see her. And she sees you. What love, what demands that neither of you sought. Bravo, Brava.
This moved me. I live in Rome. And have followed your (dis) adventures with curiosity and empathy. Have loved how you express the raw pain of it - the indignity the misfortune and the anguish, portrayed so honestly. This “love letter” to Isabella however is one of the best. Love that your creativity has, per forza, flowered despite the obstacles. Kia Kaha keep strong
Very well written and touching. Isabella is AMAZING
I enjoy reading this over & over getting to know Isabella and loving her. Wanting to have more of her devotion to you and to a quality of life that is so rare in my world- gentle attention, kindness and honesty. Thank you for your beautiful descriptions, sometimes spare but complete! Giving me/us your audience, warm human loving companionship, on the page! Amazing gift!
This touched me so deeply. All the ways in which we care for one another. What a real relationship means. (having a spouse 13 years older, I'm preparing myself). Beautiful Isabella. i love how you move back and forth in time... very effective.
A very beautiful, moving piece. Isabella seems to be a kind and wonderful person. Greetings to you both from Budapest.
Beautiful. There is beauty found in the difficult, the challenging, the ugly. It is important to bring it out. To look at it. To admire it, and enjoy it. As you said, "in the ruins you make a life, one you had never anticipated." But you do it...you live.
Thank you for sharing this thoughtful piece and illuminating the love you and Isabella share, in all its formations and transformations.
Thank you Hanif. There is a tension in here that creates energy & surprise.
Gorgeous story. I look forward to more of these love letters to Isabella, especially.