Portobello
Inevitably I think of the sea. I think of the line of it, dark, against a pale blue sky and the sun-yellow band of the beach. It helps that the view is framed - by a window in a room above the promenade. Things tend to stick in the mind when they’re like that, given a shape and a structure; a place. The room was where I went to do yoga - trying to ease my lower back and the wrenching, burning, tightness. And so I think of pain too. I don’t remember when it started exactly - or actually when it really ended, when I felt healed. It must have been lingering but I woke up one morning on the huge but soft, and I realise now, unsupportive mattress, barely able to move. It would take months to be told it sounded like a herniated disc, years for it to be confirmed by a privately-arranged MRI, having still been in pain intermittently but unsure exactly what was wrong. I can picture the scan now and the white blob exploding from the base of my spine like a squashed balloon. T...
