One Sunday afternoon I took myself off for a walk to collect ideas. The damp air cut my face and the wind seemed
eager to poke its way into any unsealed gaps.
It was cold enough for most families to stay in, some doing things, some
doing nothing. The sound of an electric
tool within a garage indicated a doer, a project. Through the windows of many of the houses
families sat round, the telly showing cartoons, toys all over the floor. Each house had a plume of steam emitting from
its side – everyone had their heating on, and every now and again I was
engulfed in the plastic cloying smell of laundry detergent as the washing
machines filled the drains with warm soapy water. The occasional of Sunday roast was also
detected; presumably some people were starting to prepare their evening meal.
Is that it? Is life
just a question of food and shelter?
Warmth? Time with the family? Despite two days of staring out of the window
I have at least achieved those things. What
about projects – the sawing in the garages, car and motorbike restorations,
DIY? They seem much less important than
just thinking at the moment. I have the
legitimacy of going to work without feeling guilty about what I do on the
weekend. ‘What did you do this
weekend?’ ‘Nothing’. ‘Good for you!’
Through stopping and standing I have made contact with my
own existence; I have recognised my place on the land; I see myself in the
grand panorama. I sense life, feel it.
The occasional drift of coal smoke but only from older
houses; new ones don’t have fires despite the chimneys poking out of the roofs
in a facsimile of tradition. The wind stilling, the pink-cheeked children with
woollen scarves granny-knotted round their necks going home now, the white
noise of the cars on the main road, the cars on every road, going out, being
purposeful. I stop and watch them all
going on – baskets of bread from the Coop; white so the kids will eat it, a
bottle of white wine for supper to deaden the start of the week. Last minute dog walks – two runners dripping
with watery mud with rucksacks and a map.
I resisted talking to them, but it was a tough call.
The garden paralysed with wet. The chill seeping into all living things;
small birds flying over the top of all this dampness.
The conceit of the ruminant!
The luxury I have of being able to stare at the floor all
day if I wish. I can bring value to
inaction in a way that I couldn’t have ever considered in the past. I have licence to think.
A couple of weeks afterward I walked through the streets of
Bath, back from visiting a student. It
was rush hour and people were walking and driving briskly: it was too cold to
be hanging around. Frost had sat all day
in corners and sun-free parts and was now causing pedestrians to walk with
caution.
I went past a hotel that had an open bar – you could peer in
from the darkness and see the inviting warm, polished brass, thick carpet,
dimmed lights. In the summer they put
polished aluminium chairs on the pavement and waitress service offers an air of
wealth to a fairly mundane place. Karin
and I went there a couple of years ago, we had been given some vouchers for the
Spa and had spent the day in Bath. The
gin and tonic in the hotel was the last drink in the sun before leaving for the
train station.
I looked further down
the street; each doorway housed an inviting restaurant or bar – the smells from
the Thai restaurant drifting enticingly through the cold air. Being early on a Wednesday evening not many
people were in them, but each one looked as if Karin and I would like to go there, have
a drink and enjoy each other’s company.
Except we couldn’t.
We can’t. The times we did that
were the times we had; there aren’t any more.
And I was struck by the number of opportunities, all unavailable
now. Sometimes we didn’t have anything
to say, and her attention would be taken by some other people close by,
sometimes we fell into mundane conversation; planning things. But sometimes we hit the lodestone, a golden
vortex of company, warm and fluid, and the time and drinks flew past and left
us behind, slow motion. Those were the
ones, and the others were the ones that didn’t quite make it.
One of the first, a Chinese restaurant so long ago I can’t
remember where it was. We ate and drank
and got the giggles – I remember the beautiful porcelain waitress looking at us
rather judgmentally.
The meals in Sicily and Carcassone. What did we say? I have no idea; I just feel
a light whisper of the warmth, the smile, the eyes. I hope I said that I cherished those times, I
hope I did.
Friday drinks at the Bird in Hand – the unfettered joy of
spending far too much on good gin – the mutual clinking of glasses – cheers!, a
pot of spiced almonds, someone’s dog coming over. I hope she got it – I hope I did at the time.
Sometimes it is like spiralling down into an endless pit –
the world rushing past and that lurching sense of gravity, that most reliable
of forces, has let me down. All physics
has let me down, existence has been wronged.
I sink lower and lower, slowly spinning round, arms out to grab things,
but of course there is nothing to grab.
I cling onto things – I cling onto work as a certainty. I get rewarded for work, I can commit to it
because after all I have little else to commit to; it validates me. No wonder I leave early in the morning and return
when by rights my supper should be finished and washed up; there is purpose in
work. It is also a welcome
distraction. I can feel the buzzing of
confusion slowly receding when I am not at home – activity gets layered over
it. When I sit and mope the buzzing
becomes louder and more annoying.
I now realise that Farewell Trip was wrong – at least in my
experience. I suspect that in the free-fall
of losing a partner, the last thing someone would want is to have a messy
reappraisal of their life together with secrets surfacing like splinters in
your hands after a day’s gardening. No,
there is too much going on in my own head to consider anything other than the
present. When you are left behind you
are not left behind intact, some of you is lost and so you are different. If a glove is lost the remaining glove is
changed by stint of it now being rendered useless. It had value as an item before, but no it is
partner-less and thus has no function, unless it has the very good luck of
meeting someone with one arm and one cold hand.
And the same side.
And so I think. It
doesn’t matter what the imagery is – a single glove, a starfish re-growing an
excised arm, a venn diagram with one of the circles suddenly missing – I use
these things to place myself, reframe things.
I sit in ideas.
