Something blue

My entry into 2024 has been fraught with small difficulties and a setback, I want to describe what happened and not turn it into a story of what my life is like and how it will all pan out.

I’ve had to deal with technical hitches like the Bluetooth disappearing from my laptop, which meant I couldn’t use the external keyboard, mouse, or big screen for a few days until Daniel my lovely computer man came to fix it. As he opened the laptop, the Bluetooth leaped forward to greet him, like a no longer shy octopus. I discovered in these untethered days that I rely on my mouse, and do not like to use the trackpad. My hands are clumsy there and constantly zoom or highlight things I don’t want to highlight and do all manner of unintended things.

My twenty-year-old car also needed attention, the battery was flat and had to be recharged overnight. That was relatively simple. And then the cooling system was leaking. Dave, the garage man, said these words, more coherently “the manifold and a pipe and corrosion, and dismantle, send off to an engineer for a part to be made.” It all sounds expensive. No car this week, till Thursday.

The strangest thing was my encounter with a blue bottle on my birthday. I met my friend, also called Colleen, at St James. It was high tide, the sea was wild and the tidal pool overflowing and covered with foam. I saw a blue bottle on the beach but didn’t think too much about it. And dived into the water, which was about 19 or 20 degrees, very warm for our coast. In just a few minutes I felt a sharp stinging pain on my left arm, just above the wrist. I realised I’d been stung by a blue bottle. At first, I didn’t realise that the long thin string was still wrapped around my arm. There were tiny red dots in a pattern that looked like it could be a cool tattoo. After a few moments, I saw the string and started to peel it off, in a haze of excruciating stinging pain as I waded out of the water towards the shower. Then my face started to sting, I must have touched my face before getting all the stinging stuff off my fingers. The advice came thick and fast, vinegar, hot water, the juice of suur vygie leaves. No one on the beach mentioned pee. Thankfully.

Today is the first day my blue bottle bracelet isn’t hot, itchy, or sore. There is a residual something though, under my arm, the soft flesh there is sensitive. I’m allergic to bee stings, I think the poison moved up my arm in the way I have seen bee stings do. And the inside of my arm was red and wildly itchy. I woke myself up scratching my arm.

I went to see a doctor on Thursday, as the sting looked infected, my arm was swollen and red, and insanely itchy. Five days of antibiotics, cortisone and antihistamines and I’m much better. Will there be a scar?

I’ve consciously made an effort not to turn this into a story, being one who has a propensity for magical thinking and story-making. What happened is, I got stung by a blue bottle on my 62nd birthday. It doesn’t mean this year is going to be a certain way. I got a painful gift from the sea. I love swimming in the sea on my birthday, floating in the salty water, arms open, receptive to life and what it brings. This year something else happened. I’m going to go back to the sea maybe on Friday.

How has your year started?