A monday morning in September. Surprisingly the sun shines. In some parts of the country the children are on the way to school. I remember, from my own distant parenting days, that often the first day of the autumn term would herald the first day of autumn with the requisite chillyish morning reminding us of months of cold ahead.
The only reason I'm writing this is because after nine months of berating myself for not writing (and generally for not doing anything at all) I did last week make an effort to begin to put something together. Now, barely 500 words later, I have dribbled to a halt and thus have become diverted into writing about not writing rather than actually writing.
2013 has been another inglorious year for me although the ingloriousness lacks last year's dramas and activities - A year, so far, full of nothing.
(Of course, nothing is not always bad. The kids and grandkids are all alright and that is a very relieving lack of incident. I'd always choose a boring day over a tragic one so i'm not unaware of the good fortune of a day without grief. A couple of weeks a 34 year old friend of the boys, called David, had chest pains and took himself off to A&E. Two hours later he was in the stroke unit hooked up to numerous tubes. By some strange co-incidence an acquaintance of his was visiting another patient in the unit when he saw David being treated. In fact he wasn't sure who he had seen and when he got home he put a message on facebook, has anyone seen David, could he be in the stroke unit? My son saw the message and took himself to the hospital. and said he was David's brother. It was already too late for David to communicate so my son sat with him until he died a few hours later.)
So each moment that my loved ones are able to walk and breathe without undue pain is day of unsung gratitude.
The son in question is quite a man. Last week I watched his new performance. We now sit in theatre rows to watch him talk and rap about his life, real and imaginary. It is a tour-de-force, albeit in need of tidying up, structuring more and being acted more deliberately. I admit I envied his act in that it is something I would have loved to have the balls to do.
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So, having written the above on Monday morning about the okayness of my progeny, I later discovered that my middle son had had a crash at 7.30 on that bright day, and succeeded in writing off two cars, including his own. Fortunately no-one was hurt which, apparently, was what the owner of the other car told my son when he came out of a shop to discover his new and much loved car had been destroyed. It is ok, he assured my guilty and shaking son, we're not in Syria and we've not been nerve gassed.
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On Monday afternoon, I was visited by an old friend that I haven't seen for nigh on seven years. I have known that her not seeing me was a conscious decision because she hasn't been far away. My guess was that she didn't want to smoke any longer and that she reckoned being around me would be too tempting. I understood this because if i didn't want to smoke I'd keep away from me too.
Last year, Elaine called me after coming to a funeral of a friend in Glastonbury. It seemed that the occassion had made her feel that not seeing old friends could have a downside. When she rang that day, I was too busy or self-preoccupied - okay, I wasn't busy - to make myself available. Similarly I put her off a couple of subsequent times before agreeing to be in on Monday afternoon.
I was nervous before she came, more because of wondering what she would make of me rather than the other way around. Also I couldn't really remember her or much about the flavour of our relationship - beyond being very stoned and quite close.
She stayed for about three hours - at which point I made up an appointment to go to because I'd run out of attention span.
It soon became apparent that Elaine was 'involved' in some sort of group which advocated a certain type of lifestyle which, I gathered, was essentially a simple one. Her thing is called Universal Medicine and it has a leader, an Australian called Serge. ....
(To be continued)
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This morning I was making a cup of tea and wondering what to eat (always a trial) when I thought about tinned fruit and mandarin organges which in turn brought up a memory of my father standing in the kitchen in a house of my childhood. And then I cried.
I don't know why.
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