Goodbye Jack

Much has happened and I have been very unwell.

I think, perhaps, I've been having one of my all-time nervous breakdowns. But in Paris, which is a vibe. This has been going on for a while but has been particularly acute over the last few weeks. I have been unable to work, to write, to read or do much of anything except spend my days in a state of extreme vigilance which is just so exhausting.

While this has unfolded – partly triggered by changes to my meds I mentioned previously but otherwise accelerated by an ancient psychological malaise with which I am intimately, and at this age embarrassingly, familiar – I have had rounds of news that have only adjusted the angle of the pain, making it sharper still.

Yesterday morning my time, two days after my lowest point (so far!) Mum asked me to call her. Jack, our blue heeler, had died at the age of 15.

It was about 9am and I was on the phone in the street in Montmartre outside the cafe I visit every morning and I just started crying. Jack was the best boy, of course, and a wise and grumbly bear who loved us dearly and who was loved ever so much in return. He had two good years after the horror of his paralysis tick bite that almost took him out in such frightening agony and for that I am most grateful.

I am bereft and do not have the acuity to write anything better than that, I'm afraid.

With many apologies for my absence here, I'll be back soon.