The Colour Orange

Afraid, today I chased a woman into an underpass near Broadgreen Hospital. I didn't want to walk through alone. I also didn't want to alarm her  so I speed-walked , level six, to close the gap between us, my trolley-bag rattling behind me. I needed to make sure I could see her for the whole of the forty seconds I was in the tunnel. Joy of joys, as I got closer, I saw she was wearing a uniform, sister colours, same as the man sitting on a wall just outside the exit. Thank heaven for navy blue uniforms.



"Am I strong?" I asked myself. "Have I wound myself up, by keeping Facebook and the news open and on since Thursday or has the world actually changed? Has Liverpool?"
I'm going to Knowsley to wash hands later how will that feel?

I was at the hospital for an outpatients voice appointment (all fine - discharged). Nicola Sturgeon was on the TV screen in the waiting room putting a motion to the Scottish Parliament as a response to Brexit. Half the room strained to hear as the other half seemed to talk more loudly the more the rest of us leaned in.

I couldn't stop a few tears falling during the appointment, hospitals make me feel really vulnerable.

In the hospital corridor my eye was caught by the colour orange. It was a scarf and it was £2. The woman at the stall was busy introducing her mother to a man with a shaved head and a tracksuit. I recognised the mother and daughter. They had sold me a pair of blue earrings at the Arab Arts Festival family day last year. I put the scarf on and instantly felt better. I was smiling, my vision surrounded by a joyful haze. It felt like my talisman, my protector.

My mind went to the THM. She feels forsaken by all the world when she leaves her home to find kindness elsewhere. Yet, spirits, snakes and even trees bend themselves, descend to help and advise her. The lesson I take is that you will be helped even when the world around you gets wild.

The second lesson I take is don't stop until you reach a place where ALL dwell free. That statement implies an extraordinary balancing act between our competing preferences and needs. It seems obvious to say, but for all to dwell free we can't all do whatever we want, we must listen and tolerate. My impression of my culture is that we seem to think of freedom as a personal, individual right. This story challenges that. All are free at the house in the wild wood and that is where we heal. The referendum question was framed as such "what matters to you?" with no discussion or illumination of what our choice would do to others. Maybe we should have had a different question one that made people aware of the effects of their choice. We know now the result of our choosing, but how do we now make a UK where "All May Dwell Free?" This challenges us to not exclude those who hurt us forever. Yes, we need the solitude of the forest while we heal, but eventually we will have to accept the other again, as THM does with her husband-king. I hope we in Britain manage it too.