Dear Friends,
Thank you for your encouraging response last week to the first episode of The Everyday Musings of Louisa Greene. It really put a skip in my step as I went about my week of medical procedures for my recently diagnosed breast cancer. Your best wishes and support really made a huge difference. I’m happy to report that the surgery went extremely well and after only one night in the hospital I was home again (minus leftie bestie) in my own bed. For more deets on the hospital story see below.
A warm welcome new subscribers and special thanks to those who recently upgraded to paid or founding members. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.
Louisa Greene was definitely in there with me taking notes and I recall she went through an early stage breast cancer scare herself many years back. I hope she has been keeping up to date on her yearly mammograms. I must remember to remind her.
Here is this week’s ep. I hope you enjoy it. I love getting your comments so don’t forget to leave them by whichever means. Or if you are inspired to share your own take on intimacy at whatever stage of life you are at, that would be wonderful too!
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Librarian Louisa Greene has lived a quiet life among the muted bookstacks of her working days. Now she is retired she wonders what her legacy might be and what to do with all the thoughts she never spoke into her quiet world. In this gently satirical flash fiction novella, the character LG, a single childless woman of a certain age, finds the courage to share with you the reader, all the things she thought, but never dared say. She hopes it might encourage you to do the same.
Louisa Greene doesn’t really miss physical intimacy with another being. Well that’s a lie. She just doesn’t miss all the stuff that goes with it — all the things you have to agree to, to get the things you think you want from another warm, living, breathing, human being.
Louisa Greene remembers all her long ago intimate moments fondly. Like
when a lover once reached across to brush the hair from her eyes
or linked arms as they walked down the street
or casually nudged her shoulder as they browsed best sellers in their favourite bookshop
Louisa Greene remembers all the intimate moments of her life and to her surprise it seems she can count them all on two hands. Surely she has missed some— surely she has censored, filtered, sorted, leaving only the most memorable. Surely in a long luscious life of six or is it seven and some decades, she has had more intimate moments than ten!
These days she gets them mostly from medical men, whose impressive qualifications and awards line the walls of their rooms. Though there’s usually only one room and it always mystifies her why the receptionist uses the plural ‘we’ when she answers the phone in her perky, don’t mess with me or you’ll go to the back of the queue, voice.
Louisa Greene doesn’t visit her medical men often, usually once a year, unless there has been an extra important reason to call her in…
He opens the door and greets her as if it was only yesterday they last spoke and after a bit of chat and throwing of her most intimate x-ray pics up on a light box, invites her to go behind the curtain and strip to the waist. There he begins a tender annual ritual— a slow, section by section rolling, pressing and stroking of her mammary organs, in a way no other human has done before, or will do again. When he is finished he rests his hand on her shoulder for the longest second as they chat away, then gives a little tap and a smile. All fine, says her breast man as he turns back to his desk.
That’s the problem with intimacy, she thinks as she bends down to gather up her clothes, it never lasts long enough, and you are always left wanting more.
Lucky for Louisa, in a good year, there are a number of other appointments to attend.
There’s
the full body treatment from the skin cancer doc as he moves his hands across all her bare surfaces, brazenly gazing his special light into her bra and panties, searching for the mole that got away.
the lung specialist, a new addition, who visited her every day when she was in the hospital after getting pneumonia during the last big flu epidemic and wants to see her again as often as possible.
her dentist of twenty seven years for whom Louisa has recently again been opening wide, so wide that she feels like she is practicing giving deep throat, only there’s a dental dam in the way.
There’s the eye man, the osteo, the acupuncturist, the pathology nurse, the masseuse, the podiatrist, the physio, not to mention the G.P.
Yes, intimacy for Louisa is a little complicated now she is of a certain age. Menopause was fine, she had sailed through with no problems and was relieved to be no longer ruled by her rabid monthly cycles. Libido was down, yes, but something else had happened. How she is not quite sure, but one evening when she was pleasuring herself (with her fantasy half man, half orang-utan, Uncle Furry helping out), she discovered she could reach orgasm not just once, but many times. She would have kept going all night but in the end her hand seized up with cramps and she had to stop. She was so thrilled that the next day she almost told her gentleman friend Frank, but then changed her mind, wondering what he might do with such a piece of information.
Gentleman friend? Frank?
That’s a story for next time…
(C) Jan Cornall 2024.
WRITERS JOURNEY NEWS
Next trip going out! Haiku Walking in Japan. Mar 27- April 1. Kunisaki Peninsular.
We’ve had wonderful meetings on Zoom the last two Sundays to meet all the members of our Haiku Walking adventure who begin setting off soon. Everyone is getting very excited and we have started checking Sakura Watch! I love that a whole nation becomes so obsessed with the first sightings of blossom.
Due to my health situation I’ll be delivering the workshop component remotely from Sydney but in around four weeks I will also travel to Japan to receive the next round of my cancer treatment, an immune enhancement procedure called AIET. I am currently fundraising to cover the costs of the treatment plus airfares and accom. If you feel so inclined, now is a great time to upgrade to paid or founding member or find more details about the fundraiser here.
DRAFT BUSTERS ONLINE current module finishes this week. For the next module (usually one month) we will meet just once a week for Feedback Fridays starting March 22 at 3 .30 pm AEST.
FREE ONLINE WORKSHOP this Sun March 17 at 4-5pm AEST. Let me know if you wish to join and I will send you the zoom deets.
MENTORING. I will be available for mentoring during this time. Have a look at my mentoring packages here.
HOSPITAL NEWS
Here is the ode I wrote on Facebook the night before surgery.
Dear Friends, tomorrow I must say goodbye to my leftie bestie. Yes, alas, the cancer of bygone days has returned and my left breast must be sacrificed for the greater good. Dear LB, I want you to know you were always my favourite. You have served me well, and given me and others (who may well be reading this) much pleasure over the years. You have suckled two babies who have gone on to suckle their own (well, not my son, but you know what I mean), so you could say that the five little grandchildren running around now, exist thanks to you. You have always been there —through thick and thin — through polyester, spandex, cotton, linen and rayon eras, you have endured tortuous underwires, too-tight sports bras and disappointing bamboo numbers that promise all and give nothing but discomfort in return. You have exposed yourself in cabaret shows and random drive-bys, on topless and nude beaches where perverts lurked to get a look. As my faithful companion you have flipped and flopped your way across the world, been admired in a hot stone bath in Bhutan, been spied on in an outdoor mandi in Bali and groped by Federales in Mexico City. And you’ve taken it all in your stride and never once complained. I’ll miss you LB, I’m sorry you have to go, but it’s you or the rest of us. Don’t worry, we’ll still have the memories… like that 1970s day on a beach near the Twelve Apostles (there were still 12 then!) when I ripped off my top and ran half naked into the glorious wild winds of the southern oceans, catching the thrill of it on your bare skin. Goodbye Leftie Bestie. Be strong, go well….
Meanwhile here are some highlights of my hospital stay at RPA Lifehouse in Sydney, which I have to say as hosptal stays go, was excellent.
- so many Irish nurses I felt like saying 'bejeezuz' and 'top of the day to ya' all day long.
- the luxury of a single room (yes, public, not private) with a fab ninth floor view over Sydney, especially noteworthy at sunrise.
- the weird massage air bed that kept me awake all night with its rolling and moaning motor that couldn't be turned off. (For circulation they said).
- my daughter Cyd helping me in pre-op to get my compression stockings and no-slide sockettes on, me thinking how many times I put her socks on and off when she was little.
- the interview with the pre-op nurse re my medical history when we tried to explain how wild the seventies and eighties were.
- post op visitors including my kids and grand kids who helped me eat the second dinner they brought when I asked if they had something less meaty. They brought lamb and lentils w mashed potato. We polished off both!
- the grandies amusing themselves by making rude finger waterbombs from surgical gloves.
- when I got stuck in the stair well after going up and down a few flights (getting my steps up post op) in my gown and no undies (but stockings and sockettes) and had to ask a doc to let me in so I could get the lift back to the 9th floor. Riding in a lift full of fully dressed people knowing I'm the only one with no undies on and wondering if they think I'm an escapee from a no-undie ward. Lucky my bum wasn't hanging out the back even though it felt like it was!
- being wheeled around after the op in a bed feeling like a queen in a palanquin, through all sorts of behind the scenes scenarios, packed with busy nurses in blue, me wanting to give the royal wave, and say 'what a great job you are all doing, thank you very much, it's so good to be alive, top of the day to yas all!!'
Glad to hear your hospital visit went well, wishing you more smooth days of healing ahead.
And as for Louisa’s intimacy with doctors?! Oh how I can relate! Love hearing her brazen, self-satisfied voice and look forward to more.
Well written and enjoyable, this Louisa Greene' musing... Keep it up, Jan ! 😀