A brave woman on a lazy day
Posted on September 9, 2006
Filed Under Outside Ireland, Shout Out, books, characters, death, health, the future, women | Comments Off
Phew! I’m tired after my lazy day. Today is probably the first day in about two months that I’d had a Saturday to myself, in Dublin, with nothing to do. I suppose it’s a good thing as it allowed me to catch up on housework and the dreaded ironing. The weather outside is warm and sunny. I’ve opened all the windows to air the house and the last Summer scents are wafting into the house from the slight breeze outside. All-in-all, a very pleasant day and the company was very pleasant too, if I may say so 
Lazy Day
I’ve even dusted my bookshelves, which prompted me to update my librarything account. Librarything is an extremely geeky web 2.0 project but I think it’s a great idea. It’s a site where you record the books you own and give them tags. The whole site is searchable so you can find other users (& groups like Irish blogs) with similar tastes. And because it’s searchable, it’ll give you ideas for other books to read. For example, Janet Evanovich is an author I really like. Her Stephanie Plum books are about a not-very-good New York bail bondswoman and her hilarious adventures as she tries to catch her absconded criminals. Her books have great titles as well, but she’s probably not responsible for those. Sara Paretsky is another author whose books have a strong female detective lead in VI Warshawski. I found Paretsky by chance but who else is there? Hopefully, this site will tell me.
Housework is boring so I took lots of little breaks. Desperate to avoid hard work, I even channel-surfed the TV. I don’t watch much TV, as I’m not very good at sitting in front of the box and being a passive receiver of information. There’s nothing much to watch anyway. Initially I settled on an ITV motoring programme called Pulling Power. Subtle, boys, very subtle. It’s made on the cheap so they had a couple of footballers from Division Z reviewing five luxury cars. It was interesting and cringe worthy all at the same time. The spell was finally broken when the ads came on so I surfed along to Sky News.
Brave Woman
Sky News had a half-hour documentary about a woman called Jane Tomlinson. Jane Tomlinson, MBE, suffers from metastatic breast cancer and, in 2000, was told that she had six months to live. Rather than hide at home or in a hospice, she’s determined to make every moment count. She has undertaken several cycling challenges to raise money for various cancer charities. This Sky programme was about her most recent charity cycle from the West coast of America to the East coast. It was compelling viewing. I only caught the last 15 minutes but it was a beautifully made programme. Sky repeats everything so it’ll probably be on the TV tomorrow at some point. You should watch it if you get a chance.
The strength of the programme was twofold. The first was the cinematography. There was no attempt to glamourise Jane (e.g., isn’t she brave/doesn’t she look awful). The camera just filmed her but set her, this small statured woman, in wide frame shots against the enormous panorama that is the American landscape. The second strength was that, in an odd way, they didn’t focus too much on her. The journalist did most of the commentary and he kept it simple. Commentary like ‘we passed the 3,000 mile mark today‘. Or untethered dogs kept chasing the cyclists and Jane has a phobia about dogs. So, at one point, he said, ‘Jane decided to stop because she couldn’t overcome her phobia about dogs. But after awhile, she changed her mind and started cycling again‘. And because of this small talk, it subtly reinforced the significance of what Jane was achieving each day.
Her dedication to living the moment, to looking forward and not backwards, puts my daily, petty, worries into perspective.
