The five years since I last set foot on a beach
Katie Anderson-Morrison's Heartbreak Seven
I oscillated between so many different quotes to pull out for the title of this newsletter. To focus on the joy and happiness that Katie Anderson-Morrison finds - no, constructs - in her life - there’s a great deal to be said for finding joy where you are? Surely a mantra for any of us to live by - surely the crux of soothing a broken heart?
Or, to focus on the heartbreak itself - the agonies and intricacies of how Katie navigates - with courage and grace - life with a chronic illness? It’s in the daily acceptance that the rest of my family will go to the beach…and I won’t be able to join them.
Dwelling too long on the metaphors of the beach is going to make me feel like I’m back in my GCSE English exams - and yet. The sand (the time). The horizon - the light dancing on it, the dark. The waves, the waves. The never-the-same, the always-there. In the end, it felt I would be doing her an injustice to centre anything other than the heartbreak of a chronic disease which so often, so many times, has kept Katie from the sandcastles and the salt.
I found the scene Katie paints here extraordinarily moving, and I hope that before long we’ll be able to read more of her words in novel form. Until then, head over to her Substack, Shimmering Fractals.
Yesterday, I spent an hour on the beach. I know: this doesn't sound like a heartbreak. And it wasn't, it was a windswept, sandy sort of joy, watching with my husband as our children jumped in the icy waves and our puppy ran about on the sand.Â
No, the visit to the beach was the easy contentment that comes on the crest of the wave. The heartbreak is in the before and the after (and, my goodness, in the logistics).Â
It's in the five years since I last set foot on a beach.Â
It's in the fact that the visit was only possible because we found a beach where you can drive cars – and thus mobility scooters – right down onto the sand.
It's in the daily acceptance that the rest of my family will go to the beach (or the park, or the castle, or the museum, or the party, or the school event) and I won't be able to join them.
It's in the bittersweet reminder that the big wide world is still there, still spinning on without me.
It's in the sense that I have to make myself smaller and stiller in order not to use any unnecessary energy.
It's in my knowledge of how lucky I am to be able to manage even such a brief outing when so many people with my disease could only dream of doing so.
And, perhaps most of all, the heartbreak is in the twenty-four hours since that one hour, when my body has shut down, trapping me like a prisoner in my own heavy limbs, punishing me for those snatched moments of almost-normality.Â
So that, I suppose, is the real nub of it. The everyday heartache of having a disease with no cure, no treatment, no medical support and no real explanation. A disease where the harder you try, the iller you get, and – conversely – the more misinformed people will believe that clearly you just don't want to get better.Â
(For the avoidance of doubt: funnily enough, there is no part of me that wishes to continue living a life dominated by disease. If I could cure myself with positive thinking, I assure you I would have done so long ago.)Â
The heartbreak is always there. The grief for all the places I might've visited, all the things I might've done, all the people I might have been. The loss of the freedom to step outside my own front door and let the wind take me where it will. Yes, the heartbreak is always there, and on some days it crushes me.Â
But we only get one life and this is the one I have to work with. And so, though there is an undeniable seam of grief running though it all, it's also true that I have built a life within my means that's full of happiness. After all, there's a great deal to be said for finding joy where you are.Â
1.    Something to read
It would not be an exaggeration for me to tell you that books are one of the great loves of my life. I have always been a voracious reader, but books have become even more precious to me the more ill I've become.Â
And so, for me, reading any sort of book is a balm, though of course there's something particularly comforting about an old favourite. If pressed, I'd say the two most comforting books of all are I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and Still Life by Sarah Winman.Â
2.    Something to listen to
My first instinct here was Taylor Swift. And then I wondered if that was too obvious and I should think of something else. But, here's the thing: I love Taylor Swift. So, my pick is All Too Well (and yes, it does have to be the ten minute version).
3.    Something to watch
It may sound counter-productive, but I find that when you're staring down an unavoidable heartache it sometimes helps to have somewhere to direct it. In other words, watching the kind of TV that has you sobbing into your sofa cushions can be wonderfully cathartic. The weepiest programmes I've watched in the last few years are: This Is Us, Netflix's adaptation of One Day, From Scratch and Firefly Lane.Â
4.    Something to eat
I think there's a great deal to be said for the kind of food that you can build an event or ritual around. There are a thousand small ways to make the every day special, and possibly about 50% of these involve food. If we're being specific, I'd suggest that 50% of that 50% is likely cake-related. Ultimately, I think what I'm saying is that cake is very often the answer, but that to truly get the most from the experience I like to lean into the ceremony of it. So, eat cake in the garden, or on your best crockery, or with a loved one, or whilst wrapped in your cosiest blanket.Â
5.    Something to drink
Tea. Always tea. Surely, it has to be tea? It's hot, it's comforting and it incorporates the element of ceremony. Drink it from your favourite mug, or with a cup from a teapot to turn it into a special event. My favourite tea is green and lemon, but I'll also take an Earl Grey, or anything with fruit, rose petals or chai.Â
6.    Somewhere to go
Ah, well, this is a loaded question for the chronically ill! If we were talking about somewhere to go in a fantasy world where my body was not against me, then I might answer the beach at Robin Hood's Bay, or the ruins of Fountains Abbey, or perhaps even the equally ruined Dunstanburgh Castle.Â
But if we're talking this world – with this body – then realistically I'll be content with any kind of flash of green. On a very good day this might actually involve leaving my house. On an average day, it might be a trip into my garden. On a bad day, I might be able to make it to my writing room to sit by the window and look out into the treescape.Â
7.    A bonus seventh - balm for a broken heart
Laughter, always, preferably with someone who'll only love you more if/ when you snort.
Photos provided by Katie Anderson-Morrison and by Jennifer Pallian on Unsplash.