Waving, but not Drowning

When I visited my GP the other day with a chest infection needing antibiotics, she commented on how unusual it was for me to get ill. She knows a bit about the stress I'm under from family issues and said that my need to go on coping makes me vulnerable to physical ill-health. She described me as a little boat, tossed on the waves, with no way of knowing where the next squall will come from, but staying afloat.

I liked this metaphor and have been developing it in my own mind over the past two days. I have a life-jacket, some supplies, a torch and flares. I have a compass, and can batten down the hatches when I need to sleep. My doctor is one of the lighthouses whose beams keep me on course. A close friend who lives nearby is my anchor, keeping me still and steady for a time - I spent Monday at her house, being fed, listened to and comforted. She had her own bad news to tell, so we rocked at anchor together. When my partner got home from work, he was the support boat, able to tether himself alongside for a time, provide new supplies and much needed human company through the night. Yesterday I saw clients as usual - they didn't seem to notice the sea around them, or my orange life-jacket, but sat in their usual seats, and, for that therapeutic hour with each of them, I was back in my study at home.

Today, I have cancelled a meeting and can stay in my study, knowing I have to get back on the boat tomorrow, but can forget about having to steer a course (sometimes with a rudder which is not responsive to my efforts) and perform routine tasks to prepare me for the next part of the voyage. I have carried on knitting (like the seaman's knots, it is a useful manual task) and am wearing the asymmetric top completed last night. Made from a dyed, unravelled old cotton sweater, with some ribbon yarn as edgings, it feels comfortingly familiar but new. I have quite a bit of writing to do - a piece for the Prompt about the Supervisors' Day in London, for which I can use some of what I wrote in a previous post, a case history to complete the nurses training course materials, some invoices (tedious but necessary) and a proposal for my next piece of NHS work.

Since I began thinking about this image, the words 'though tempest-tossed' have kept repeating in my mind. I'm not religious but felt there must be a biblical source. I've just found it, in Isaiah (King James version)

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.

The precious stones sound good, but I really like the image of the 'fair colours'. I'm reminded of the pleasure I take in the cotton, cashmere, linen and silk yarns I choose and use in my knitting, maybe it provides the grounding, the stones I need to feel beneath my feet when I step ashore - colours, like madder, brazilwood, lipstick tree, rosso, Turkish plum, gooseberry, sunflower, tangerine, delphinium.......

I'm realising that this post is more personal than some, although it does reflect some of the tensions around being a dramatherapist, and not just having a life as well, but being at times profoundly affected by that life. The metaphor I've used may be an obvious one, but I've found it helpful, as often happens when we find a way to help our clients through things which need to be addressed indirectly when the reality is just too painful. It means a lot to me when someone who has read my blog finds it resonates with their own feelings. I enjoy receiving emails, to which I do respond personally. So do post a comment or send me your thoughts at theatreandtherapy@googlemail.com