9 The Colour Wheel
As she sat in the centre of the round pumphouse floor, she pivoted again to focus on what was directly in front of her as best she could, for it was still dark and the moonlight kept changing as clouds passed its face and its own cycle changed the angle of reflection and shadows. She was in agony, her pelvis bones struck straight through her bum to the concrete floor.
‘It hurts me so much’ the Little Red haired girl thought ‘I will tell Mummy how much it hurts. My body is not my friend’.
As an adult she thought about how her body always betrayed her and had contributed towards most of her career changes. It dawned on her that she was held hostage to it. How it had spoiled her Fairy dream career as a child. Her business choices and careers. All mainly due to her physical changes or health issues such as Fibromyalgia – no one knows what really causes it and there is no definitive test for it, just a collection of symptoms that made the diagnosis.
She could have kissed the doctor that finally diagnosed it, not because she was happy to have it, but because he hadn’t suggested she needed a Psychiatrist instead as others had previously. He believed her and understood the symptoms, he was knowledgeable about his specialised field of medicine. She was not imagining it. She was not crazy.
‘Is it all in my head? ‘she had asked herself time and time again ‘It can’t be, I feel the aches, the pains, the muscle twitches and excruciating cramps. The headaches that made getting out of bed impossible and her being physically sick in the bathroom’. She had cried when they had suggested a Psychiatrist.
“He’s just doing his job” her partner had said ” in referring you to the next expert.” She had looked at him in disbelief “Why are you saying that? Have you have not seen the agony and pain I have been in with your own eyes?” It was another betrayal, this time from the person she loved.
She sat and thought about it. It had been pure chance that someone had recommended the doctor that had finally seen and understood the symptoms for what they were. And she was grateful for whomever ‘up there’ that had orchestrated that chance. The knowledge of the illness gave her some power and control over her life.
She remembered the years before that, filled with the permanent tiredness of an underactive Thyroid before it was diagnosed. How she had to convince the doctor to even test her for it, and who only resorted to that test, she felt, because he was annoyed at her returning to the surgery week after week.
The partner who said it was “just because I was working too hard and that I ought to learn how to relax. To not be so tense and worried.” ‘What was it about her? Was she invisible or something? Was she so unbelievable?’
She remembered walking down the high street feeling like she was waist high in water. Getting nowhere fast, feeling overwhelming resistance against her body and her brain in some kind of Fog.
The child in her remembered when she was last waist high in water with a rubber ring around her waist. Wading and not getting anywhere. Resistance from the water increased because of it. Feeling tired and panicked because they had gone on ahead. “Wait for me” the Little Red Haired girl said.
“Come on slowcoach. You can’t even swim, look at you with your rubber ring”. And even though her feet were slipping away from her, she fought to get to the edge of the pool and out, into the sunshine.
“I want to get out of here” she whispered into the darkness as she felt the cold from the concrete floor setting into her bones. But the thought of that holiday, getting out of the water, drying off, and getting into the sun warmed her. Digging in the sand, the colours of the spade and bucket, the deck chairs billowing and flapping and clucking as if talking to each other. The bright blue sky, red shiny cherries on top of the cake, the gold sparkling sand and she started to feel the warm.
She thought about those colours, and all on the colour wheel in slices around her with her at the centre. She imagined a bright white light, as the colours merged into her, coming out the top of her head and through the pumphouse roof, up into the dark sky as if she were a prism. She felt at peace and loved. ‘Is this what meditation is like?’ ‘Is this how it makes you feel?’
She didn’t feel the cold and the pain anymore.
“But where does this come from, this feeling of peace and love?” she asked out loud. “I am alone.”
“Are you?” said Nana.
“Am I dreaming? Am I praying? What is this?”
“You are never alone” said another voice.
“Noswad is that you?”
There was no answer.
© 2024 Jennifer Harris. Free And Alive 555
