THE TARDIS HAS LANDED - CELEBRATING MUM

My mum died a year ago today. 

She died at night around 11pm and I find myself thinking, because I am writing this in the morning, that I have a few hours left of her.

   

April 17^th already. It’s hard to believe. It seems like only yesterday I was in the hospital at her bedside in Bristol Royal Infirmary on what was to be the last day of her life; at other times, it feels like years ago, because I have never known the start to any year drag as much as this one has. I thought March would never end. January and February long ago seemed consigned to a Jurassic part of my brain. Christmas is nine months away and feels as if it should be tomorrow.

   

As if grief had not already distorted time enough, along comes Coronavirus, the Tardis of infections that has thrown minutes, weeks and hours into a universe none of us could have imagined. 

Yesterday, when New York Governor Cuomo announced that we are to be in lockdown until May 15^th (and that, too, will be up for review), I went into panic mode again. I know 100% it is the right thing to do and, being someone who was brought up to do what she is told by people in authority, I will religiously be adhering to the rules. It is not just that the Governor is in authority; he really knows what he is talking about. At this time, I bow with gratitude to people who know far more than I do.  

  

I am glad that Mum is not around to see this. Of course, I am desperately sad that she is gone, but her fear and anxiety would have added another dimension to a life already so stressed over every atom of her routine that wasn’t met. Unable to walk, following an accident 18 months before she died, she became dependent on others for everything. There was only so much I or friends could do; it required two people to lift her onto her commode. I don’t want to humiliate her by describing what other indignities she endured in her helplessness. She was angry if the carers arrived to give her meals too early; woe betide any of them who arrived when Emmerdale was on. It was desperately irritating, but in retrospect, understandable; she wanted to cling on to the small vestige of power she had left – even if it was just the TV remote.

   

This hasn’t been the easiest of years and I have several friends who have lost a parent in that time – I know three people who have lost their mothers in the past month. Grieving is exhausting. For the past few years, flying back and for to the UK from the US to see Mum, I seemed to live in a permanent state of jetlag. In isolation, I continue to feel wiped out, partly as a result of having been ill (most likely the flu virus rather than Covid-19), and only now is my arm starting to feel like normal after breaking my humerus last year.

   

A year ago, I did not think there would come a time when I would be able to focus on the happy memories. No matter how much anyone tells you that this time will come, the exhaustion of illness and grief is so overwhelming, there are days when just putting one foot in front of the other is an ordeal. It was heart-breaking to see Mum’s life reduced to sitting in a chair in the corner of the living room, having only the trip to the single hospital bed in the dining room to look forward to.

   

From a young child, Mum had always been a voracious reader, and in addition to TV she consumed novels, biographies (she adored Anne de Courcy), autobiographies, and the world’s news on her iPad. How she loved her iPad. The second a headline broke, she would e-mail me to see if I had heard the news; so quick was she off the mark when a celebrity died, I swear she knew they had gone even before they did. She was still working until she was 83 (though would never disclose her age to anyone) and I am grateful her mind remained alert and active, even while her body reached its last chapter.

   

When her eyesight started to deteriorate, not being able to read was devastating to her. With her hearing already in serious decline (although mysteriously, she was always able to hear us if we whispered something on the other side of the room), she was reliant on subtitles on the TV, and barely able to see those either, she was denied her another of her greatest pleasures. I used to feel irritated that having flown across the Atlantic to see her she would put me on pause while she watched Tipping Point, The Chase, Home and Away, Neighbours, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, et al; by the time she’d finished her shows, it was usually time for me to catch my flight back.

   

I was angry when she checked herself out of a perfectly good nursing home, against medical advice. That was the beginning of the end, but her stubbornness won out and she said she would rather die alone at home than stay there a day longer. It’s very hard to hear your parent sobbing and sobbing, begging for something you know is the wrong decision, and giving in because the heart is invariably mightier than the head.

   

The irritation, frustration and anger occasionally surface, but yes, as predicted, they have subsided. I smile when I think of a recent report when I visited hospital, describing me as ‘well-nourished’, knowing that this is down to Mum. Every day, we had a cooked meal: protein, two veg, dessert, and strictly no snacking between meals. To this day, eating between meals is complete anathema to me; drinking between meals, well, that’s another matter.

   

She did her best, often in trying times, and I think my brother Nigel and I have turned out okay. More than okay. We are hard-working, kind and generous people who owe so much to both parents, and despite difficulties dealing with Mum along the way (and there were many; I’m not going to sugar-coat it), I know how much she loved us and would have done anything for us.

   

We had very happy childhoods that, looking back, all too quickly came to an end. Today, I am grateful for the light, love and goodness she brought not only to our family but to many others’ lives through friendship and her work, where her capacity for helping those less fortunate than herself was formidable.

   

It was a long life, and if there is one thing the current situation has shown us is that any life is to be valued; forget not knowing what’s around the next corner – the threat of not even making it to the corner is our biggest worry.

   

I have no religious beliefs and find the idea of Mum ‘looking down’ on me laughable and based on infantile conceptions rooted in fear of mortality. Mum was a believer and it gave her strength; each to their own. I prefer to think of her still among us; everlasting life is exactly that – it’s what we pass on. 

And on this first anniversary, I commemorate not the loss of her, but her ongoing presence.

      

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST POISON

There are many things I fear living in the USA (apart from Trump, that is). 

In Manhattan, you can become a fatality of falling scaffolding or even a manhole explosion (strangely common). Like anywhere else, you can be mugged on the street or have your belongings stolen when you go to the rest room (that bastard in Mr Biggs still has my lovely cream duffel coat; every winter, I scour the streets looking for it. Woe betide you if you’re wearing it. And I’ll know it by the wine stain down the front).

   

The day to day anxieties, however, are as nothing compared to my phobias, the main ones being a fear of balloons (globophobia), clowns (coulrophobia) and masks (maskaphobia). It’s believed that the last two are related; they might also be related to a fear of humanoid figures (automatonophobia). In my case, they certainly are; anything with its face hidden or disguised in any form produces genuine panic symptoms – raised heartbeat, sweating, intense anxiety. I can barely speak to bearded men (let alone women, and there are some of them out there, too) and the idea of a masked ball fills me with terror. A masked ball with balloons would be enough to bring the paramedics running.

   

Imagine my distress, therefore, when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced this morning that as from Saturday, masks will be compulsory in New York. That’s it. I am doomed never to leave my apartment again; forget Coronavirus putting me in hospital, the Admissions form when I am in a coma will read “maskaphobia”.

   

The problem is that it’s impossible to get a mask. My order doesn’t arrive for another week, so until now I’ve been wearing an eye mask that came with a spa beauty kit – the only problem being, given its design, that I have to choose whether I cover my nose or mouth; never both. Apparently, scarves or any other covering will suffice, and if you disobey, the Mask Police will be at hand to tell you what’s what. I’m trying to ease my distress by watching TV, but inadvertently caught The Masked Singer last night, which set me back somewhat (just for the record though, Governor: happy to model masks for you privately).

   

For the most part, I keep panic at bay, but at times it’s not easy. I have become very accident-prone in my own home, dropping and spilling things as if my body is slowly losing touch with gravity. I also had a bad fall, which brought back memories of breaking my humerus last year in similar circumstances. This time, I was luckier; it was only my neck I nearly broke.

   

These new difficulties are doubtless to do with having to spend so much time indoors. In the UK, I lived in an enormous six-bedroom house with a huge garden and never bumped into anything; now, I am confined to a little over 600 square feet (a veritable mansion by most Manhattan standards) and every day the walls seem a little closer.

   

Two nights ago, trying to rearrange my fridge at 2am (don’t ask), I mishandled a pint of giblet stock I’d been saving for a rainy day (as you do) and it rained all over me and the kitchen floor. Last night, I spilt a very large glass of red wine, while trying to rearrange my pillow while watching Murder, She Wrote in bed (don’t judge; these are trying times).

   

This morning, two packs of six toilet rolls fell on my head. Yes, I know I should be grateful to be in such a position, given the shortage, and I hereby apologise to said rolls for my outburst. I’m probably the only person in the world cursing toilet paper at the moment.

   

Even before the pandemic, I was struggling, and the day a 3lb bag of loose rice that fell out of a cupboard, continues to cause issues. Like Christmas tree pine needles you are still discovering in July, I am finding tiny grains in kitchen orifices I previously never knew existed.

   

In the current climate and in this confined space, every inanimate object poses a threat, and my food cupboards are a domino effect of dangers. Today, carefully trying to manoeuvre a can of beansprouts next to the black bean section (I am organised, if nothing else), it slipped onto the baked beans (an orchestra unto themselves), which in turn fell onto the giant containers of cumin and basil, all of which came hurtling towards me like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Who knew there was so much danger in domesticity?

   

I’ve also started to dwell on ailments I hadn’t previously noticed. I have a bruise on my stomach that today I became convinced was the plague; every head pain is a tumour; my lady bits look like killer triffids when viewed in a 20x magnifying mirror (small wonder a lot of guys don’t want to go there).

   

Irrational fears are, I suspect, upon us all in these unsettling times. On any one day, Coronavirus is Frankenstein’s monster, the ten plagues of Egypt, the Apocalypse, all rolled into one; what’s not to be scared about?

   

But like all animals, we are survivors; we do what we have to do to ensure the continuation of the species. That will be different for everyone, just as this whole experience is. So, is there anything we can do, collectively, to conquer the fact that, at some level, we are all s**t scared?

   

The writer George R. R. Martin said: “Laughter is poison to fear”. He’s right. To me, laughter is the answer to pretty much everything in life, but more so now than ever. I’ve been laughing with friends and family on the phone and on social networking; today, I walked with a friend, six feet apart, both of us masked (I was okay, having taken a Valium beforehand), and we laughed just the same as if we had met in a pub.

   

Fear cannot change who we are. 

At the moment, the devil sits on both shoulders, seemingly unshakeable, and in my good moments I try to laugh both it and the fear away. Old episodes of The Big Bang Theory, Frasier, Gavin and Stacey. 

Yes. Laughter is the poison to drive away fear. 

And until something else comes along, it is our vaccine.  

       

  

  

  

HOW TO BE . . . ALONE IN AMERICA

Even before the lockdown, I never found New York to be “the city that never sleeps”. In fact, it’s always seemed a bit dozy to me. 

Having lived in Paris and Puerto Banus (just outside Marbella in Spain), I grew accustomed to staying out all night if I so chose. It was the same in London in the Nineties, but then, my generation seemed to grow old suddenly: they needed their beauty sleep and, where once they would be emerging from Gerry’s Club in Dean St at daylight, they were packing up at 2am (how old am I? Four?). In recent years, everyone had to be out at 3am anyway (even Mike, the owner, was getting older), but I have many happy memories of those late nights/early mornings.

   

In Los Angeles, where I lived when I first came to the States in 2009, the rules were (and still are) very strict. Closing time is 2am, and staff wait for your glass (still half full) like dogs ready to pounce on an available bone. In New York, the witching GTHOH (Get the Hell Outta Here) hour is 4am, though even in my lively area of Hell’s Kitchen, restaurants shut up shop at around midnight and very few bars stay open till 4am. You don’t want to stay anyway, because the smell of lemon-scented cleaning fluid overpowers any lingering aroma you might have left wafting up from your wine.

   

Now, with everything shut, an hour in any hostelry would seem like a glorious holiday; sharing a drink with a real live human would feel like all your Christmases had come at once. As for the idea of going to a restaurant and eating among other diners, your body might now not be able to withstand the excitement; if the Coronavirus didn’t get you, the shock of becoming reaccustomed to socialising could well do.

   

Even in these circumstances, though, it’s hard to feel lonely in New York City. I’ve experienced loneliness in many cities throughout the world – usually on Sundays, when I imagine everyone except me is sitting round a huge wooden table with hams piled high and laughing children running around in gingham outfits, chanting The Wheels on the Bus – but it’s rare here.

   

I am lucky in that I have a spectacular view over the Hudson, where every night the sunsets bring a new art gallery to my window. Despite the quiet of the streets when I go out for my self-isolating walk, the feeling is one of a city in suspended animation, silently reassuring me that it will breathe again, without assistance.

   

In the confines of my apartment, I read, cook, watch TV, listen to music, meditate and give thanks for the respite from car horns impatiently waiting to enter the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour. The non-stop thud of nearby construction no longer wakes me up and has me weeping with stress, come 5pm. I find activities and interests online I would never have discovered before. I’m refreshing my French and having yet another attempt at learning Spanish. I’ve even delved back into Italian, which comes much more naturally to me than Spanish, and I already feel fluent just by putting an 'a' on the end of every word I know and reading about the Mafia.

   

If I put an 'o' on the end of every word, I feel pretty fluent in Spanish, too, but I don’t feel as immersed in Spanish culture (not unless you count the gallons of Rioja in my cupboard) and I’ve always found a relative lack of interest in a country makes language learning more difficult. French, while being a more complex language, came quite easily to me when I moved to Paris in 2001; keeping up with it is a challenge, although I am hugely helped by Quora (which I have in French, English, Spanish and Italian), a site on which people pose questions that others answer or debate.

   

Because my work is essentially solitary, I’ve always been at ease in my own company and while being alone is not the same as feeling lonely, my situation makes these strange and frightening times easier to bear. When loneliness hits – panic moments when I wonder when I will ever communicate with a real live human again – I remind myself that everyone is in the same boat. It may feel like a sinking ship, but we’re all in it together.

   

There is a quote attributed to Scott Fitzgerald (some say wrongly so, but it’s still apt): “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

   

I suspect that is what many are feeling right now and there is a collective loneliness that has its roots in this very helplessness. Whether Fitzgerald said it or not, loneliness lies at the heart of The Great Gatsby – mainly, the loneliness that the pursuit of social status and money ultimately brings. Written in the 1920s, it’s a salutary lesson for our times and certainly worth reading or re-reading, not least for the ending: “So we beat on, boats against the current” but, to me, not “borne back ceaselessly into the past”, but towards a better future in which people have re-evaluated themselves, life, priorities; a world in which we will have learned, in being alone, that we truly never are. 

To quote the poet John Donne: “No man is an island,/Entire of itself,/Every man is a piece of the continent,/A part of the main”.

   

Donne was talking about Europe (and that’s a whole other debate), but knowing that we are not alone in this appalling crisis is what gets us through. Yes, there is, and will be more loneliness; some will cope better than others. There is fear, anxiety, dread, and all sorts emotions we cannot explain in a life that just wasn’t supposed to be like this.

   

While we are denied physical contact, other than with those we live with, it’s important to touch base on the phone and through social networking; reaching out to nature brings so many rewards (it’s very chatty when you give it time). These are precious moments to absorb the world around us – it really is our friend, even though it doesn’t seem that way at present.

   

Today, when I was out walking (briefly), I looked at a brownstone building and admired its colour. I am fascinated by architecture and how it reflects us at any given time. The words of Pink Floyd were singing in my head: “All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.” I found them strangely comforting.

   

Having said that, now I need a drink. Where’s that Gatsby drinking buddy when you need him?  

  

       

HOW TO BE . . . THE NEXT MRS CUOMO IN AMERICA

Are there any circumstances in which an engagement ring could be classed as an “essential” service?

It’s one of the many things that’s been worrying me during the pandemic lockdown as I plan my marriage to the New York State Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Yes, I know that I am very far down the line in a long queue, but a girl can dream.

   

Come on, be honest: how many of you, in the past month, have Googled ‘Is Andrew Cuomo single’? Or ‘Is Andrew Cuomo straight’? Or even ‘Does Andrew Cuomo like short Welsh women who have their own Green Card’? (Just me on that one, then). Every day, the ever-increasing fan club sits in front of TV screens to be soothed and comforted by the one person who appears to have a grip on what’s really going on.

   

The New York Governor (and I am so proud to be living in this state with my fiancé – no, he doesn’t know it yet; minor detail) has captured not only the state’s, but many of the country’s hearts. He is smart, knowledgeable, unfazed when we are all on the precipice of hysteria, empathetic, sympathetic, genuinely caring – he is, in short, everything a President should be. It’s just a shame that he’s not. But at least he’s there. For us.

   

These are frightening times. I am one of the lucky ones. I was very ill at the beginning of the year (there is now research suggesting the virus is older than it looks – unlike my fiancé; yes, I Googled ‘How old is Andrew Cuomo?’ too); I was ill again in March, despite not having had so much of a cold since May 1999 (brought on by stress from the guy I was dating – he is SUCH old news, now I have Andrew). 

But after three months of extreme fatigue, bordering on narcolepsy, I am fine. At present, I still have a job, and I work from home, which I have never found difficult. I am fine in my own company; I talk to friends on the phone and on various social networking sites; I have fun on my YouTube channel, Jaci’s Box (please subscribe); I read, I catch up on TV . . . I’m probably busier than I’ve ever been. How will I ever find time to plan the wedding? That’s the thing that’s really stressing me out.

   

My heart goes out to the sick and the bereaved. Two of my friends have just lost their mothers and were denied the chance to see them during their last days and hold their funerals; another friend who lost her father was allowed just six people at his funeral. As the anniversary of my mother’s death approaches on April 17^th, I cannot imagine how much more painful it would have been had my brother and I been denied those last days and the comfort of family and friends around us.

   

I feel for those who have lost their jobs in so many ways. I have actor friends who have lost not only their main job but their secondary ones serving in bars and restaurants. For those in the travel and hospitality industries, life has come to a standstill. So many jobless people have families to feed, disabled relatives to take care of . . . Conrad’s final sentence – “The horror! The horror!” – in Heart of Darkness (albeit for different reasons in the novel) never seemed more appropriate.

   

It’s the lack of an ending that is most disturbing. We are creatures of narrative; we enjoy a beginning, middle and an end, hence the popularity of fiction, whether it be in books or on the screen. We spend time second guessing the motivation of character and the outcome of plot; even though soap operas are ongoing, storylines are designed to build suspense and high drama before reaching their inevitable conclusions.

   

Every day brings news of more Coronavirus cases, more deaths, optimism followed by despair, currency boosts followed by downward turns; we have no ending in sight; the plot thickens – and thickens. Despite talk of lights at the end of the tunnel, there are days when those lights seem nothing more than those of another freight train coming towards us. We are blinded by the lack of light.

   

What do we do? 

We carry on. Because we are human. Because there is no alternative. The clichés roll off our tongues – “It is what it is”, “What will be will be”, “You never know what’s around the corner”.

   

And so, we must look to the light in the tunnel, not at the end of it; at present, that is all we know. We take refuge and joy in the arts – and if ever there was a time to count our blessings in the creativity of writers, musicians, painters, every artist in every field, this is it.

   

We must also give thanks for the light that shines more brightly than any other – that of our health care workers, putting their lives on the front line every day to save others. I could never do it; I do not know how anyone does. Many have lost their lives so that the sick can be healed; I know of no greater sacrifice.

   

We must be grateful in our dark tunnel for the light of Governor Cuomo, whose daily press conferences have become, to so many, like a meditative space that keeps panic at bay. His brother, Chris, who is an anchor at CNN, contracted the virus (he is on the mend) and the pair have also been entertaining us in their online exchanges. Chris also appeared in a moving interview on the entertainment channel TMZ, which has also been a beacon of sense: presenter Harvey Levin, who warned of the dangers very early on, is exceptional.

   

We really are all in this together, including the queue that has gathered around my fiancé – Hey! Six feet apart, people! Six miles if I had my way! – who has emerged a real hero for our times. Let’s just hope he’s stocked up on Clorox for our first dance at our wedding reception, as I still won’t be taking any risks.  

   

Yes, of course I’m thinking ahead. 

What about when the pandemic is over, and I’ll have the worry if Andrew decides to run for President (as his brother and many have suggested) and I end up as First Lady? I’ll have to put make-up on every day. I’m also not sure I want to be gathering up my husband’s brains from the back seat of a car when he’s assassinated. Will there be Clorox in the glove compartment?

   

Sometimes, I think I worry too much.