Do-over

I spend a lot of time in front of a computer.  After 8-10 hours a day at my desk in the office, I generally spend some quality one-on-one time with my new iMac in the evening.  It isn’t uncommon then that I find myself in bed at night mentally typing my thoughts, or visualizing myself cutting and pasting information into teensy excel cells while fighting insomnia.

Another side effect of too-much computer time is the disappointment that real life is not quite so easily manipulated as the electronic world.  I recall lying in bed one night recently realising that I was trying to actually mentally hit the UNDO key.  You know, the one with anticlockwise arrow (or, <EDIT> <UNDO> in long hand).  I can’t remember now exactly what I had been thinking about or mentally writing, but I found myself kinda disappointed that we don’t have an UNDO button in real life.

I have written before about the fact that (like most people) I have some regrets.  As well as recently contemplating the idea of a ‘me’ living (a more contented and fulfilling life) in a parallel universe I also find myself pondering on the concept of a DO-OVER.

I for one would like to hit that UNDO key and ‘do’ things differently.

Sadly a DO-OVER is not a feasible aspiration.  But never one to let reality get in the way of a daydream, I find myself pondering on what past mistakes or decisions I might change in my own life if I was given the chance.

Earlier this year I came across a Canadian show, Being Erica.  At the time it was part-way through its second season, but ABC2 has just started replaying Season 1 here in Australia.

The show’s premise is not even vaguely believable but I have to admit that doesn’t seem to matter at all.

The show introduces us to 32 year old Erica Strange whose life hasn’t turned out how she imagined it would be (and who CAN’T relate to that!).

Erica, however, puts this down to a series of bad decisions at pivotal points in her life and is able to identify each and every one of them.

At a particularly stressful time in her life she meets therapist ‘Dr Tom’ who promises that he can bring her happiness by allowing her to relive her regrets, giving her the opportunity to change the outcome.

In each episode, with the help of Dr Tom, Erica is catapulted back to the time in question.  Back to High School, to University or more recent times. Where she gets the opportunity to UNDO her actions and (ideally) make it all better.  The quintessential DO-OVER.

In my post about a parallel universe, I was horrified that – at least in TV and movie land – our twin selves living in these worlds aren’t happier and more talented versions of ourselves, rather they are ‘us’ in a different environment.

In Being Erica, the charismatic lead character (played by Erin Karpluk) believes that if she changes past (bad) decisions, her life will be perfect.  So, of course the question posed to viewers is whether changing past decisions, or making a different choice at a crossroads, actually changes the outcome of our lives in any significant way.

Indeed Erica’s experiences don’t always work out as she had expected.  She also finds herself wondering: If you could go back and do it all differently, would you still be you?

We haven’t yet seen the third season as yet here in Oz but I am sure we can expect that Erica will continue to work her way through her regrets.   Her life has improved dramatically since we met her in Season 1 – unemployed and unhappy.  Of course it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the navel-gazing (over past decisions and why they were taken) itself is what is changing her, rather than the choices themselves.  And, as it happens, so many of those ‘wrong’ decisions, may not have been wrong after all.

I’m starting to sense a theme in my TV viewing of late, but I’d like to think that I am not so very obsessed with lost opportunities and roads not taken, that it consumes me. But, I would like to stumble across a Dr Tom myself to help reshape my life.  Well… either that or a life coach!

'The Rain'

My mother recently sent me one of those ‘please pass on’ emails.  You know the kind…. imparting preachy life lessons, promoting breast cancer awareness and the like.  Although I read these when they pop into my inbox I rarely pass them on.  And I have to admit, even though some hit home, I forget about them as soon as I click on the little X in the top left or right hand corner to close the message.

Until recently.  Because the email forwarded by my mother was probably a bit more significant than most.

A year ago I wrote a post to celebrate the fact that it had been 9 years since my father had a heart transplant.  I pondered on the fact that we had him with us for so much longer than we might have; and how much more life he had experienced as someone else’s gift pumped blood throughout his veins.

But there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  And the gift of life, like everything else, comes with trade-offs.  Drugs that suppress dad’s immune system mean that, although he goes nowhere near the sun, he continually has skin cancers developing.  He is, in fact, currently undergoing radiotherapy for a deadly melanoma known for its attack on those with suppressed immune systems.

But the most challenging of side effects is not visible.

My father has vascular dementia.  Caused, I understand, either by an earlier heart attack or during his life-saving heart surgery ten years ago.

So far only his short term memory has been effected, or more specifically, his ability to transfer something from his short term into his long term memory.  I am sure there is a term for this but that doesn’t really matter… to us anyway.

It started slowly, as if he was just a bit absent-minded; where once he had been quick-witted.  But it is now at the point where he isn’t really able to retain any information.  Unlike Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, he doesn’t remember the day’s events, only to awake the next morning in some sort of Groundhog Day fog.  He remembers nothing recent.

A typical 10 minute conversation with him (for me, for example) will comprise him asking the day two or three times – at least.  Each response will be followed by ‘When did we arrive here at your place?’ and ‘When do we go back home?’  In fact I sometimes entertain myself by pre-empting the next question before he can ask it.  He will also enquire why he is here (rather than in his hometown).  This visit I am having to explain that although he had a merkel cell carcinoma removed from his face, it is so fast-spreading he is here for radiotherapy.  Just in case.  Obviously then he queries how long the treatment lasts (5 days a week for 5 weeks) at which point he becomes despondent (at being away from home for so long) and usually comments that perhaps he isn’t worth all of this trouble.

But he is.  Obviously.  I feel for my mother who has the patience of a saint though admits to occasional sarcastic responses to his never-ending questions. But her dedication is amazing.  My father recently spent a week in hospital and my mother camped out beside him for 12hrs a day in the event a doctor visited.  Dad needed my mother to answer the questions.  ‘Yes his bowels moved.’ ‘No, he hasn’t eaten lunch yet.’  A doctor giving instructions or advice to my father was also not an option.  It is at those times that I am overcome with guilt at being so far away and not able to provide more hands-on support.

Hard as it is for my mother, I cannot imagine what it is like for my father, who marvels at his long term memory but who cannot tell you what he did 5 minutes ago, or 5 hours ago.

It makes telephone conversations difficult.  We are limited to me questioning him about the weather, or about whatever he is doing at that exact moment.

A couple of months ago I picked up the phone to call my parents. I then realized it was Wednesday and my mother would be out (as she is every Wednesday night for an hour or so). Although I talk to my dad most evenings when I call home, it is usually just for a minute or two and he asks the same questions (about work etc) again and again.  This night I started to put the phone back on the hook before I thought about what I was doing.   I checked myself and realized I was being incredibly selfish.  Just because I would find the call harder work, and because he wouldn’t remember the conversation was no reason not to reach out and make contact.  He is thrilled by calls.  If mum isn’t home, he dutifully writes down who has called, though not recollecting anything from the conversation.

So I called.  I think there was football on TV, so I asked him about that.  We talked about the weather, my work, my brother and his family.  The usual.   I talked to my mother later that night as she called back when she saw dad’s note.

The little tale in the email my mother forwarded me was called ‘The Rain’.  It was (supposedly!) relayed by a nurse who encountered an elderly man who came into her hospital to have stitches removed.  It was early in the morning and he was impatiently looking at his watch.  She asked if he had another appointment.  He said he did and she enquired what it was, expecting another medical appointment.  He told her that his wife was in a nursing home and he went to give her breakfast every day at 9am.  He also said that she had Alzheimer’s and hadn’t recognized him for years.  The nurse asked why – if his wife didn’t know who he was, or indeed, when or if he visited – did he go everyday.  His reply was, ‘She may not know who I am, but I still know who she is.’

I saw a distant relative a little while ago.  We were talking about my father.  They commented that they were worried that his long-term memory would be next and how horrible it would be when / if he forgot who we were.  I knew they hadn’t seen my father for 6 months or more but innocently queried if they had ‘run into him’ recently.  No, they said, they actually preferred to remember him more as he was and didn’t really want to see him like they believe he is now.

Another friend recently commented on an elderly relative who had Alzheimer’s.  The relative was dying, but my friend said it wasn’t really upsetting as (the relative) had really died to them years ago.  I didn’t say anything but was horrified.  Would she, I wonder, want her family to stop visiting her if she forgot who they were, or would she hope that they still held her in enough esteem that they actually wanted to see her even if she was oblivious.

The old man in the email wasn’t expecting anything in return from his wife.  He didn’t expect her gratitude or adulation.  Perhaps he felt it was his duty or his obligation.  Perhaps he felt he signed on ‘for better or worse’.  It did, however, remind me that particularly in my father’s case – although I hate to admit it - it isn’t all about me.  Even if my father doesn’t remember the moments, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Escaping...

I have a fabulous idea for a TV show.  If I do say so myself.  The idea struck me as I was contemplating what it is that has me so infatuated with the BBC Show Escape to the Country.

Here in Oz it is being shown on one of the new free-to-air digital stations (7TWO).  Obviously not popular enough to make it to its flagship Channel 7, the network is showing it on one of its offshoots (currently on Friday and Sunday at 8.30pm). 

 I came across the show a couple of months ago.  Pitiful though it may sound, I never do anything on a Friday night.  In fact, Friday is the one day of the week that I am likely to be least interested in staying up late or over-imbibing in champagnes or red wines.  I am always mentally exhausted and loll in front of the television for a couple of hours before having an early night.  So for me anyway, the fact that Friday night television is pretty crappy has never been an issue.  The lack of alternatives is, in fact, what allowed me to stumble across the BBC gem.

Not one for lifestyle / makeover type shows I suspect I had flicked past it on a number of occasions before watching enough to get me hooked.

What entices me though, is unclear.  From my extensive research (Google yet again!) I note that the show has (had) a number of presenters and (in the UK) is in its 9^th season.  But here in Oz we are seeing episodes from a few years ago fronted by host Catherine Gee.

I suspect part of my fascination with the show is Catherine.  Or more honestly her voice.  As an Aussie, her well-rounded (but not quite plummy) vowels are surprisingly endearing.

And then of course there is the subject matter: homeowners in suburbia wanting to move to the country.  For some peace and quiet; or to grow a vegetable patch; or (as per last night’s episode) raise some alpacas. 

The format of the show is straight forward*.  We meet the country living wannabes and get a look at their current property (what it is worth and how they currently live); then Catherine sits down with them to get their ‘wish list’; both in terms of property inclusions and location.  Most of those featured are still working so need to live close enough to transport to get back to civilization, but still want a balance of rural living with some access to nearby amenities.

Catherine then searches out four properties and looks them over while the wannabes watch via laptop.  They then choose their favourite two to visit.  They then (of course) have the option of pursuing one that they like by putting in an offer etc.  Disappointingly this rarely happens.

For an Aussie, the quintessential English village is enticing.  And romantic.  I was disappointed that last night’s retired couple was after a ‘modern’ home… which translated into some quite unattractive 1970s ‘brick and tile’ house - a common sight in Australian suburbia, but something I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.

I was travelling home from the city this week and as the bus stalled in traffic I read the sign in front of an old Catholic Church.  It decreed that the church was the oldest in my State of Queensland.  It was 160 years old.

On Escape, most of the properties are actually built in the 1800s or even 1700s.  They ooze character, though their upkeep may also ooze digits from one’s bank account.  Here in Oz we have heritage style houses known as Queenslanders.  These timber houses are built for our climate with covered verandahs providing outdoor living space.  The countryside houses in the British show make these houses look positively futuristic. 

So, I am glued to the television screen as Catherine explores the houses with their original fireplaces and stone walls in villages featuring quaint pubs and few shops.  Having always dreamed of living in some tiny English village with an oddly-named pub, I am probably as enthusiastically naive as many of the show’s couples wanting to make the lifestyle change.

But, back to my idea…. For some time popular culture (here and around the world, I suspect) has raised the notion of families, couples and individuals ‘downsizing’.  Here in Oz we talk about a ‘seachange’ or a ‘treechange’ depending on whether it is beachside living or rural Australia that you are craving.  So my idea is for a similar show here, with a Catherine-equivalent scampering about small beachside towns or picturesque hinterlands to locate new lives for harried city-dwellers.  I reckon the show would also sell overseas.  While I live in a 3-level modern apartment gleaming with glass and stainless steel craving the ‘old’, I am sure there are Brits living in rustic England fantasizing about our beaches and clean lines.  So, voila – there it is.  My brainwave.  Perhaps I can sell it to a network and make enough money to go and Escape to the Country myself!

* The aforementioned extensive research also led me to discover that the format changes from series 6.