My Wimpole Street

Famed Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was frail and suffered from an incurable illness that lasted the length of her adult life.  As a result she was often found, alone in her sitting room above Wimpole Street, gazing out the windows, watching life go by and writing her thoughts down for all of us to read more than one hundred years later.  According to one biographer, before her marriage to Robert Browning, she sought to escape her loneliness by watching the passersby and speculating with her sisters, on the escapades that might be taking place on the street. 

In these days, I find myself in similar straights, without a partner and not in the best of health.  Unable to venture very far from home on my own. Like Elizabeth, I look for something to occupy my mind.  Unlike Elizabeth, I did not find much inspiration as it is almost impossible for me to turn off my life long  television habit.  I do read, quite a lot actually, still there is plenty of time in my life for contemplation and writing in journals, if I would just turn off the T.V.  Instead I find myself hiding from contemplation.  The day is coming when I will have to turn everything off and regain my ability to be and just that, nothing more.  

Don't Need Those Shots?

So, increasingly I am reading of well intentioned parents who are refusing to have their children inoculated for anything.  I read one interview in which the mother explained that she did not think diseases like Measles and Mumps posed the threat that the inoculation carried.  I read this through the glasses I need because I am legally blind due to a bout with the measles in 1951.  I remember this illness like you might remember a dream.  My mother was a registered nurse and taking every care, had me shut in a dark room for the length of the illness.  My fever was high enough that the itching rash was only a minor item compared to the lightheaded dreamy state that was the norm.  My throat was so sore I could not eat, anything, for almost five days. I listened to the radio when I was conscious but the sounds blurred in my ears and just floated away.  The measles brought conjunctivitis which , in spite of my mothers best efforts, permanently damaged my eyesight,  Even then I was lucky.  Two boys in my glass contracted the mumps and discovered, years later, that they were sterile and could not have children.   The year I had the measles, several other children were also sick and died.  As of today there is no treatment for measles or mumps

I understand why many parents are looking askance at inoculation.  I just wonder if they understand the strength and force of the enemy inoculation can stop.