It has been nearly three weeks since I was last outside my four walls. Too long since I last entered a store or saw another human being, except for delivery people dropping off food or the building manager dropping off a wheelie bin for my rubbish twice a week. Why the maggots in the lead image?
Well, soon it will become clear.
Today, I managed to stumble, hobble, limp and with grim determination, make it to the community bin area to drop my bag of household waste. A bag chockers with discarded convenience meal packaging and never have I been so delighted to make it to the bin.
Yesterday, I had to email my building manager ( who has been marvellous I might add) and ask him to take away my rubbish bin as the maggots were all over it and all over my patio. I could not walk properly so, apart from spraying some mortein, there was little I could do. Fortunately, the bin was soon taken away and the patio hosed down. I thank him for that - it was very much appreciated.
Today, I woke up and my ability to walk had gone up a level. I felt that I could venture outside and actually attempt the walk to the communal bin area. I got ready.
Rubbish bag. Tick.
Shoes on. Tick
Walking stick. Tick.
Recite appropriate " you can do it " mantra. Tick.
I unlocked the door and ventured outside.
The sunlight hurt my eyes. I was staggered about that: I had, in such a short period of time, forgotten how bright the sunlight is and how nice the air smells. I pondered how the people feel in 2 weeks of lockdown in quarantine hotels without even a window to open or a patio to sit upon. And they were not even sick.
As I plodded towards the bin area, I encountered things that had never been an issue to me before: steps.
Without belabouring the issue, I had plenty of time to consider my plight and that of those who are, through age or infirmity, injury or deformity, unable to walk as I previously had and had taken so much for granted.
With my trusted walking stick in my right hand and my bag of rubbish in the other. I stood, looking at this most dreadful beast. Two steps. How the hell was I going to get up? There was no handrail, no wall, no chair to lean upon. I was on my own. I took a deep breath and raised my right foot and clutched my walking stick with whitened knuckles, terrified that I would fall over and lie there, injured all over again. Yet I stood. My next foot took its place and slowly, slowly, I managed the dreaded climb to the summit. I was back on an even keel. That left two sets of stairs to go.
A lazy lizard sat on one of the posts of the pergola where I sat. It looked at me, telepathically whispered " loser! " and scuttled off to boast about how it could move faster than the human it encountered at the bin a short time ago. A woman in a nearby unit looked out her window and saw me and then looked away. I realised that I looked pathetic, sitting there with my walking stick, catching my breath because I had walked about 80 yards at best.
But I could sit and take time to smell the flowers.
As I commenced my return journey, my mind flashed to those older folk that I have seen in the supermarket or at a store: their tortured steps as they traverse the market, the steps and the high shelves and so many people ignore them or do not even see them in the first place.
By the time I made it back to my home, I collapsed in my office chair, where I currently sit, and am currently pondering how I could have been so blind to the needs of others.
Steps are really rather daunting to those who have mobility issues. Whether those issues are permanent or temporary, a ramp is a far more agreeable way of navigating a rise in gradient.
I have learned that steps should be accompanied by handrails, just to give a bit of a " leg up " and boy oh boy, the odd chair to sit upon ( whether it be in an outdoor setting or a supermarket ) - what a Godsend.
It also struck me how important it is to have sunlight and fresh air. The ability to sit somewhere outside if mobility is restricted. How can so called " care homes " confine people to indoors for months and years on end without the ability to breathe in the joys of being outside in the fresh air and basking in sunlight?
Over the past weeks, I have been bedridden, house ridden and isolated. Yet I am getting better. Imagine if my recent weeks were my future? Like so many of our older folk today?
Because right now, the rubbish is piling up, the maggots are multiplying and the stairs are getting steeper by the day.
We cannot wait until we hit the floor, are crippled or cut off from reality before we fight back.
It is time to see the sunshine, smell the fresh air and lean on each other because we have a hell of a staircase to climb.
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