Long Runs The Fox

The fox walked steadily up the centre of our lawn, nose to the ground. I grabbed my camera and took this picture through the bay window as it passed about fifteen feet away. The fox proceeded to the top of the garden and then came back down following the hedge. It was an adult fox, more brown than red, and the first fox I have ever seen in our garden. Although we live in the country, foxes are infrequently seen hereabouts. But the very next day, I saw a different fox, smaller and redder, coming towards me down the lane from our house. What should I make of this visitation?

The fox appears in mythology and folklore all over the world. It is an animal that is clever and resourceful, able to outwit the efforts of the more powerful to hamper or persecute it. For many cultures the fox is a magical creature, a spirit messenger. The fox can also take human form, most often as a woman. The fox is intelligent and passionate but rarely a malevolent spirit. The fox is most often a helper, offering its qualities of quick thinking and adaptability to those in need.

Meanwhile, I still twitch when the post arrives or jerk when the phone rings. But I have heard nothing from the hospital. My first thought was to phone them and chase up my admission for surgery. But then I thought that no news is also good news. I don’t have to ring and remind them. I have a ‘stay of execution’ in which I can enjoy more of the good weather of the summer and do a few more bike rides in the fresh country air. It also means that I am able to attend the end of year parties of my Writers Group and of the Sing for Life Choir.

I take it one day at a time and do my best not to think about the ordeal to come. However, anxious thoughts about the dangers of the surgery and the pain I will be in afterwards still come to me regularly. Sometimes I also imagine myself as crippled by the procedure and in permanent pain. I do my best to calm myself and dismiss these thoughts, but they still come to me unbidden, most often at night.

I am even starting to bargain with myself about the impending surgery. A little voice keeps saying to me – ‘well you are fine at the moment and can do most of the things you want to, so why do you need to have that terrible surgery at all? Haven’t you suffered enough already?’ I know there are a lot of good reasons why I should have the surgery but it seems so much easier to run away from it at the moment.

My hospital bag remains packed and sits on the bed in the spare room. I wonder if that fox was trying to tell me something?  After all, isn’t the fox an archetypal survivor?