Recovery and Discovery
And then….what?
I would sit at my piano, staring at once familiar sheets of music – now the notes now all blurred through tears. Another reality check, my eyesight had deteriorated over the years, and I struggled to find the distance where I could focus on the notes. Even without tears, they merged and floated, separated and danced off the page.
These were painful times, weeks, months… and I can still see the look in Ronald’s eyes as he glanced across at me from his desk. Where was the music? What had this folie been about? Really about? Fortunately, he returned only alternate weekends, and I was able to plough these depths in solitude.
But once again LIFE was taking control of things, and another thread was weaving itself into my life. The tender I had prepared and presented in the Netherlands on behalf of KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) was successful, and over the next two years I frequently went to Slovakia – to Bratislava with the gift of its little opera house. I replenished my operatic repertoire knowledge and the music of central and Eastern Europe seeped again into my cells. And Ronald and I were able to meet up more frequently.
But certainly, energy was blocked. The process of trying to avoid having a hysterectomy lasted two long years. I had a series of visits and consultations in Cape Town and Brussels and had explored all alternative avenues. But the fibroids kept growing, reflecting the blockage in my creative second chakra. So clear – now with hindsight – how the energy just got stuck, and my body developed a series of physical blocks in response.
I had returned to Kalk Bay to have the op in early 2003 – to be able to negotiate the removal of my womb in my mother tongue, rather than in French. I prepared very well, as far as one possibly can, for invasive surgery. It was to be a ‘sub-sub-total’ leaving the ovaries to atrophy at some later stage. I reduced my body weight and selected an astrologically appropriate date. The renovations – creating a separate roof-space apartment in my Kalk Bay house – were almost complete. This was where I planned to recuperate with generous views of False Bay. I had taken six weeks off from my professional life, and the operation was programmed for a time when my absence from Slovakia would not be a critical factor. And so it took place, smoothly….[1], and I was able to leave hospital early.
Ronald arrived the day after the operation, while I was still in hospital but brightly sitting up in bed. We installed me in Kalk Bay. It was the right place to be, and I had a glorious view from my bed. He had come for two weeks from Brussels to help establish systems for my recuperation, which we managed very well. Less than a week after surgery we went out to my favorite restaurant for lunch and then started furnishing the recently completed apartment.
First thing was the arrival of two oriental carpets, together with their Turkish dealer! He unfurled them with that flourish which is only experienced in Istanbul markets, when apple tea is served in small glasses in steady succession, while one nods and shakes one’s head, as one glorious creation is covered by the next layer – uncurled with that very particular sound. Whoosh Thud! And here I was upstairs in my Kalk Bay empty apartment, being treated to a Turkish cliché and one hour later feasting my gaze on two oriental jewels.
Ronald had a fine eye. The chosen carpets made the spaces. One upstairs and one downstairs in the room where my grandmother’s piano had finally found its place again. The tapestry hanging from the ceiling, my grandmother’s Paisley shawl from Kashmir, also in deep red tones was a perfect companion to the deep lush reds in the carpet. These two textures came alive at night when the warm yellow glow from her alabaster lamp touched them both and also lit up the surface of the rosewood piano, her piano. Beauty. Yes.
And a calm acceptance was settling in my being. My body and my soul. I was healing. I could really feel it. And Ronald, me and our relationship, so real, authentic, but difficult for those outside our world to fully comprehend, was also in the process of healing. We had shared the two years leading up to my operation quite intensely, meeting up frequently in the region (Brussels, Zagreb and Bratislava).
The two weeks were suddenly over. He was due to return to Brussels and I prepared to settle into my solitude for the deeper healing I was anticipating for myself. All was well. Except, there was a deep and growing sense of loss… the loss of my womb?
Reflecting on this experience now, and what this scene is about, I almost wrote ‘longing’ but that’s not true, it was more the sense of loss. And it was a sense of loss of potential, of opportunity… the finality of closing the chapter on reproduction –mine – even though at fifty-three these concepts were no longer valid.. I say it was not longing, and I don’t think we ever longed to have our own children. Certainly not Ronald, although I passed through a phase in my early 40s with the realisation that time was passing and I was unlikely to become a ‘biological mother’. But with the focus on such active ‘gender work’ there was not much time devoted to this possibly ‘unmet need’ in myself.
The longing might have had more to do with my relationship with Ronald.
***
In the solitude, my solitude, something started to shift. I was adapting to this new state in my body and my emotions began to unfold in new and surprising ways. I found myself suddenly in tears, for example, for no apparent reason except perhaps I had glanced at something which evoked memory of childhood promise. Even a photo of myself, as a nine-year old schoolgirl with shiny plaits and even shinier eyes, was enough to churn me up… I grappled with all of this, aware that at deep levels, there was a need to release. There was a need to allow these difficult feelings to surface.
I am not that clear about when the following happened, how long after Ronald’s return to Brussels. But the memory itself is very, very clear and I can feel the memory replaying if I close my eyes…
Pain had settled in deeply. Not physical pain, more spiritual. My soul was struggling, trying to connect with me, reach and support me in these times. I think ‘Little me’, egoic me, was finding it difficult – this ‘loss’ – of what? An aspect of my womanhood? My sexuality? An entire palette of feelings and emotions revealed itself to me. And then there was the longing.
And so, one night, when the sense of grief had overwhelmed me – the house in darkness apart from a few candles – I went downstairs to my grandmother’s piano, placed a candle and opened the lid.
My hands and fingers rested on the keyboard, eyes closed for quite some time, I imagine. A long time, I’m sure. It felt like going into a meditative space, and a calmness took hold anchored somewhere in my heart space… with an expansiveness and a deepening peace.
And then, gently… I became conscious of a far-off sound, some little note ringing out. Somewhere in the distance, not in my immediate reality. It was bell-like. Its resonance was under my fingertips. In fact I was aware that in the tiny space between my fingertips and the actual surface of the piano notes/keys – there was a charge. And suddenly, that charge was like an ignition… and my hands were moving unintended over the keys – waves rippled out. Music unlike anything I had ever heard or ever played[2] I felt I was being played. This was not ‘my will, – I was not thinking this music. I was an instrument, taken over by music – a power, an energy, beyond myself.
After this deeply moving experience, which lasted maybe half an hour or more, I found myself sitting quietly at the piano. Breathing slowly, deeply, eyes closed. It was as if I was slowly coming out of a trance state. I felt incredibly calm. And quietly ecstatic. There was energy vibrating through my entire body. I was a pulse.
I realised that this was no longer about my interpreting the music of Beethoven or Brahms, Chopin or De Bussey. No more mental involvement. This profound experience and how I would be from this moment forward, was about opening to the essence of Music itself. No thinking with the rational mind. It was purely about Being in the present moment. Getting the ego out of the way, gently, so that there was no judgement, no critique, no analysis. Just allowing music to find its way through this instrument: Me!
[1] Having prepared with a series of JSJ sessions pre- and immediately post-surgery, I was able to leave hospital early. On discharge, I was given a ‘credit’ for the reduced surgery time (one hour had been booked for ‘theatre’, and half an hour had been utlised), as well as a refund on ‘pain killers’ since none had been required!.
[2] Except in the dream!