You’ve Got a Friend

The cats on the table next to me and the computer he is soaking wet. The rain is tip tapping on the skylight and the old git has gone to bed.
I’ve cleaned the kitchen so the cleaner can get on with other things and I’ve read most of the papers.
Last night I watched James Taylor and Carol King making a concert with musicians they’ve been working with since 1970. I can remember when James Taylor came into my life. Martin A called me up and told me to listen to this bloke whose not perfect but lovely.
I was 21 and Carol and James were the backdrop to my twenties. I still tap to Martin and I have the jmeas Taylor songbook, nicely thumbed. Listening to their songs and I felt a wave of nostalgia. That yearning for something that has gone. The melancholy of the past. Their friendship and their easy relationship to the band, years and years of song making, years and years of providing the soundtrack to millions of peoples lives.
The speed of life is so so clichéd but it was only yesterday that I was having my haircut by Vidal Sassoon and swaying along to ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. I forgot to be present in my own life. The travelling and excitement passed me by. I didn’t know that I would get old. I didn’t know that time would pass in the blinking of an eye. I didn’t think about pensions or savings or funeral plans or death. Who knew that James Taylor, with his long hair, would end up bald. Who knew that Carol King, at 82, would still be able to bend her knees and jiggle around in high heels. I can’t, although I have just started my yoga again and I can just about do a downward dog without barking.
Knowing that there is no going back is a bugger. My life now is dictated by dialysis. I choose to call it cleansing.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday I get up just after seven, pack my bag and drive to the dialysis unit. It’s not far and it helps that I can park for free.
I lower the dialysis bed with a handset. I haven’t got it right yet so it can take me five minutes before I get the right height and angle for me to slide onto. I place my laptop, mug, teabag, mobile and earbuds on the table, plug in my electric blanket and then weigh myself. They call it your dry weight, by assessing how heavy you are they know how much fluid to get rid of. So far I have dropped over a stone by getting rid of water retention.
Four hours lying on the bed being hooked up to the machine requires patience. I pace myself. The first hour I sleep if I can. The second hour I eat the toast and biscuits they bring round. I’m on a restricted liquid diet so it’s five slurps of tea and then that’s it.
The third hour is film time. I time it so I can finish the cleansing session at the same time as the film. So far I’ve got it bang on.
The last fifteen minutes is being unhooked from the pipes, folding my blanket, weighing myself again, then hobbling to the car.
I had the car cleaned at the weekend so months of grime has gone and I don’t recognise it in the carpark. I’m home by 1.30.
Brain fog is a real dilemma so reading is hard, as is getting my body temperature back to normal. The ‘oosbind makes me a big flaming fire and I sit as close as possible in my new bean bag.
Now I am trying to find out whether I will ever be able to have less dialysis but it’s an unknown. I crave my old normality but it’s not to be. My new normality requires planning, gratitude and Radio 4. When Radio 4 gets depressing I switch to Radio 3 and when that gets depressing I listen to silence. I haven’t discovered podcasts yet and I haven’t got the patience to listen to audio books yet. But I will.

The rain has stopped and the cats curled up on the settee. The old git got out of bed and is writing to his pal in Sweden. My hands are cold and I’ve got my bag ready for tomorrow. I watched telly tonight but it bored me. I want the spring now please. I want warmth and daffodils. I was given two amaryllis lilies by two different people for Christmas. They are on the kitchen window sill one is tall and white and the other stunted and red, the white lily will burst its bud soon and then Christmas will be over.
Listening to King and Taylor and was gently moving, it hurt actually all those memories rushing past. Youth and endless possibilities. And all of a sudden I’m planning my 76th birthday party and folding my clothes like a pensioner.
The bass player, Leland Bruce Sklar, has been playing with James Taylor for years. He started when he had a head of dark black hair and a black curly beard, today he is hairless with a long white beard. Measuring a life by songs feels like a glorious way to grow old.
The rains back and the winds blowing. I suppose I can measure my life by radio and television programs and by the number times I have been sacked, I’m told I can wear my dismissals likes badges of honour, irrelevant now.
All that matters is that I am alive and breathing.
James Taylor exercises and is now sober and Carol King has Alzheimers, doesn’t matter how successful you are age always comes a knocking, if you’re lucky.
I’m off to bed to join the old git.