Never mind what day it is: I have lost my capacity to work out what time it is. As a younger, working person, I could have told you within the nearest second what hour of the clock it was. Now, as assiduous followers will recall, I depend on my cat's appetite for breakfast to establish when is getting-up time. Summer days mean that it is full daylight from 5am so the light peeping round the curtains mean only that it is not the very middle of the night. Transactions have also changed their timings. For instance, it takes me twice as long to dry my thinning, poker straight hair than it did when it was lush and curly. Making sense of the haystack is time-consuming and infinetly boring - for you, too, I suspect. Every morning I have a competition with myself: how many seconds can I stand, unsupported, on each leg in turn in order to put my trousers on. I do try, I promise. I do exercises standing on a kind of spring board to enhance my balance. I stretch and bend and remember the flexibilty of my youth. Some time ago, I drove in to the centre of London with the Guru. We found a meter on which to park and he started to wander off. When asked where he was going, he replied he was going down the road to buy a ticket while I got out of the car. The cheek of it: but he was only half joking as I lumbered out in the snail's pace he had foreseen.
Some things are quicker. Since I have less often to present an outside- the- house persona, decisions about what to wear are less significant and, therefore, quicker. Just between us, I have been known to wear the same clothes for two days, providing, it goes without saying, they are scrupulously clean and the underpinnings are refreshed daily. Living alone, for the most part I have to rely on eyesight to inspect the condition of my apparel. Never mind "does my b.. look big in this?" For me it has to be "can you see what I had for supper in this?" Ever since I could handle words I have noticed that the days of the week - that is, the names for them, have appeared in colour on my inner screen. There is a name for this but I can't remember it and, in the afflicted, it usually applies to all words, not just one group. Anyway, the rainbow of the days goes round a great deal quicker than it used to. I both mind and dont mind. Nice things come round more quickly but the sands are also running out more quickly. For my young, the distant past is about five years ago. For me it is about twenty. One of the people I have known longest in my life is the Father of my children. Without his friendship I would have little verifiable past nor history. As I am sure you know or have guessed, I am a believer in who you were being who you are. Think Russian Doll: all the former yous fitting in to the current presenting you. I am still working to reconcile this belief with the Mindfulness of total 'Now' that I am being trained in. As I remarked, a post or two ago, my cat has proved the best of instructors in this phenomenon. She is absolutely in the Now so that, even waiting for me to provide the flat surface of me on which to lie, she can both anticipate that future and be wholly in the now of her patience. Recently, in passing, I said to someone close to me that I wasn't allowed to buy another book until I had read all the ones already in my possession. Immediately, she responded, that, having nearly died last summer, I should, on the contrary, buy and read anything I wanted when I wanted it. That freedom will take some getting used to. There is more than enough historical precedence for economic wariness in my make-up; brought up in the Second World War, for instance. But I see she is right and time should be wasted no longer, so off to the book shop with the hope I shall have enough time left to read all I buy. Bore da
Monday, 24 June 2013
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Volunteering
Recently, I have dropped the odd comment to lead you gently to the idea that I have started to work voluntarily at the local hospital. What a very old lady is doing in a very large hospital must be hard to imagine. Well, for one thing, I am the rear end of a trolley- pushing job taking library books round the wards. The trolley is heavy, the corridors are vast and I am no longer forty, as we know only too well. The toughest bit to deal with is bruised pride. The front end of the trolley is staffed by an old volunteer hand. She walks and pulls at a rate of knots. I need not only to keep up at something between a trot and a canter, but also to hide the fact that I am struggling to keep up at all. This particular lady is four foot nothing and very spry. I am convinced she could deal with the thing alone. However, Health and Safety requires there be two of us and we are certainly both needed to heft it over the inevitable little step created by the lift which takes us from ward to ward. (Elevator, in case you have lost your English-American dictionary over there in Mountain View, California). Health and Safety also requires bare arms below the elbow and no jewellery. Exceptions are made for wedding rings. I know, I know, there are anomalies. Why would bacteria keep clear of your wedding ring but not of your engagement ring. Likewise, one has to remove one's wrist watch and loop it around the lanyard bearing a photo and the word "Volunteer" in red letters repeated at intervals of one inch right round one's neck. The biggest anomaly, though, is in the books, themselves. How anyone could describe a library book as bacterium-free has stretched my curiosity to its limits. Don't misunderstand: I am very germ conscious, especially having spent two months in hospital, myself, last summer. It's the inconsistencies that get to my pedantic little mind.
The pedantry extends, too, to the card index which serves as catalogue and borrowing record. That's right. You did read correctly: no computer, an old-fashioned card index. It gladdened my old-fashioned heart no end. I know where I am with a feely row of cardboard information. I am not easy, as you know, with the Wizard of Cyberspace however genial he may appear to all of you. Anyway, the card index: every time I present myself, I take one letter of the alphabet and put the cards in it in to alphabetical order. Every time I present myself anew, the Wizard of Indexville has muddled them all up again. It's like painting the Forth Bridge. By the time you get to the end it is ready for re-painting at the beginning. (I can't really keep up with the parentheses. I shall have to ask you to Search- Engine the Forth Bridge for yourself). My other challenge is simply the distances to cover. It takes me three minutes to walk from the Library to the nearest call-of-nature facility. The canteen is enormous with bottles of water at one end and glasses at the other. Picture poor Liz, handbag falling off her shoulder, stick in one hand, tray in the other, bottle of water rolling about on it, traipsing forlornly from stage to stage collecting bits and pieces more by their stability on the tray than by their appetite appeal, getting really wound up because minced meat, carrots and potatoes wrapped in pastry are called "shepherds' pie" when they should be called pasties. Aware as I am of the tricks played by the inner world, I still transpose my crossness on to some totally innocent event or source. Like kicking the cat when cross with the spouse. However, the food is good and wholesome and one can always read the signs on the wall telling us how healthy it all is: no bacteria there, then. Bore da.
The pedantry extends, too, to the card index which serves as catalogue and borrowing record. That's right. You did read correctly: no computer, an old-fashioned card index. It gladdened my old-fashioned heart no end. I know where I am with a feely row of cardboard information. I am not easy, as you know, with the Wizard of Cyberspace however genial he may appear to all of you. Anyway, the card index: every time I present myself, I take one letter of the alphabet and put the cards in it in to alphabetical order. Every time I present myself anew, the Wizard of Indexville has muddled them all up again. It's like painting the Forth Bridge. By the time you get to the end it is ready for re-painting at the beginning. (I can't really keep up with the parentheses. I shall have to ask you to Search- Engine the Forth Bridge for yourself). My other challenge is simply the distances to cover. It takes me three minutes to walk from the Library to the nearest call-of-nature facility. The canteen is enormous with bottles of water at one end and glasses at the other. Picture poor Liz, handbag falling off her shoulder, stick in one hand, tray in the other, bottle of water rolling about on it, traipsing forlornly from stage to stage collecting bits and pieces more by their stability on the tray than by their appetite appeal, getting really wound up because minced meat, carrots and potatoes wrapped in pastry are called "shepherds' pie" when they should be called pasties. Aware as I am of the tricks played by the inner world, I still transpose my crossness on to some totally innocent event or source. Like kicking the cat when cross with the spouse. However, the food is good and wholesome and one can always read the signs on the wall telling us how healthy it all is: no bacteria there, then. Bore da.
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
Absent-Mindfulness
As I was saying, my cat has been teaching me the rudiments of Mindfulness. After I had signed off last time, she gave me another spot-on example. I did something which annoyed her and got a sizeable hiss for my mistake. She was totally emersed in the NOW of her anger and stalked off my knees. Moments later, she came back and snuggled down, again. The 'now' of the anger was replaced by the 'now' of the warm, familiar lap. Getting to resemble our pets has taken on a whole new dimension. I have been giving some thought to the opposite situation. Where does the mind go when it is not focussed on the moment? You know the scenario: cheese in the cutlery drawer and knives in the fridge. Arriving at the library when one had intended to go to the supermarket, would serve as another example. I suspect the category must also include the mislaying of objects. One's mind can only have been absent when one puts down one's keys other than in the right place and is then at risk of having to stay in for three days because they have disappeared off the face of the house. This also pre-supposes that you have a right place to put things.That would be one way to prevent the inevitable chaos when the mind is absent from the act of putting things any old where. I am too often plagued by the problems of Cyberspace. Try as the Guru has to educate me, I can't seem to hold in mind what I have been told. Among the words "reboot the modem", I understand but one: 'the'. Who is to say how efficient, cyberly speaking, I should be if I were totally mindful of what he was saying.
It occurs to me that the saddest absence of mindfulness must be experienced by those of us afflicted by dementia. Where, indeed, has the mind gone? How is the selection made of what is remembered, what is understood? I have an image of a huge jigsaw, the pieces all broken up and jumbled together with no picture to help reassemble them in a recognisable pattern. Among my contemporary friends, that affliction seems to be the most feared. Perhaps the end of the journey, when the mind has settled for the un-made jigsaw, is bearable because it doesnt leave room for demanding responsibility, for duty, for mindfulness. Knowing one was in the process of making the journey must be the hardest to bear. The challenge is to distinguish between absent-mindfulness and the tumbledown mish-mash of the loss of the mind as the essential element of being a being in the world. Someone close to me spent a considerable sum of money on new spectacles, having mislaid the ones he had. As well as the money, he endured the inconvenience of impaired vision while he waited for the new ones. Countless wrong buses and half-fat milk later - because he couldnt distinguish on the shelves which was the full fat, silly - he discovered the original pair in a biscuit tin. I now make lists and write notes to my insouciant self. The trouble is, I forget to read them. Bore da
It occurs to me that the saddest absence of mindfulness must be experienced by those of us afflicted by dementia. Where, indeed, has the mind gone? How is the selection made of what is remembered, what is understood? I have an image of a huge jigsaw, the pieces all broken up and jumbled together with no picture to help reassemble them in a recognisable pattern. Among my contemporary friends, that affliction seems to be the most feared. Perhaps the end of the journey, when the mind has settled for the un-made jigsaw, is bearable because it doesnt leave room for demanding responsibility, for duty, for mindfulness. Knowing one was in the process of making the journey must be the hardest to bear. The challenge is to distinguish between absent-mindfulness and the tumbledown mish-mash of the loss of the mind as the essential element of being a being in the world. Someone close to me spent a considerable sum of money on new spectacles, having mislaid the ones he had. As well as the money, he endured the inconvenience of impaired vision while he waited for the new ones. Countless wrong buses and half-fat milk later - because he couldnt distinguish on the shelves which was the full fat, silly - he discovered the original pair in a biscuit tin. I now make lists and write notes to my insouciant self. The trouble is, I forget to read them. Bore da
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Mindfulness
It has come to mind that it is going on for three weeks since the last post. Measuring time is a challenge since I no longer have a work-life with a regular diary for it. I used to know what day it was and what time by the repeat appointments I had. Now, I have to work hard to arrive at the knowledge. I welcome the lady who helps with cleaning because I have both to get up and to register what day it is. The incentive to get up is usually provided by my cat who stands on top of me miaowing until I tip her off in order to move my legs to the ground. On one occasion, when this didn't happen fast enough for her, she raised a paw and hit me on my cheek with it. I exaggerate: tapped would be fairer and there were no unretracted claws. I remember when I had a whole cat family that that was how the mother trained the little ones, with judicious smacks on whichever bit needed the lesson. Which is a long-winded way of saying I felt honoured to be thus dealt with. Once up, I have to find a time to practice the Mindfulness technique which has been prescribed to help deal with the black dog you may recall me complaining about. Having spent a lifetime viewing and interpreting the 'Now' from the point of view of the 'Then', I am not having an easy time with 'The Moment': the living totally in the exact moment of the present. I know the system needs practice but she who is capable of leaving three week gaps in her blogging, falls easily off the waggon of discipline in this matter too.
The extraordinary thing about the phenomenon of being entirely present in the moment is that that is exactly what my cat achieves. Observing her I was able to learn a great deal about how to do it. She eats Now, she sleeps Now, she wants her litter attended to Now, she wants me to provide a lap Now. However, she is aware of a past and, equally, a future. She will sit patiently under my bedside lamp waiting for me to complete the bedtime routine so she can come and lie on top of me. She knows, in that instance, what the immediate future holds and she recalls this from her memory of the past, but she lies on me fully in the present. I am fascinated by her observable routine. She is faithful to it, in time and in place. Perhaps, this is an essential factor in living in the moment. I see, too, that being fully in the present doesn't preclude one from a capacity for patience which assumes a focus on the future. I'm not sure of the wisdom of telling the kind psychologist who comes with tapes and hand-outs and enthusiasm to help me master the technique that my ultimate understanding of it came, at last, from the illumination of my four-footed friend. The habit of analysis is not an easy one to break and I am as 'if only' as anyone. Oh Dear! That's a lot of thinking for before lunch, but I leave you with another thought. To-morrow, I am attending a training course for volunteers at my local hospital. I have been given the programme and note, with some interest, that between 1330 and 1350 we are to do "Personal Developement". I have spent three score and a lot more than ten on just that subject so am particularly keen to see what we can do in 20 minutes. Bora da, see you much sooner, I hope next time.
The extraordinary thing about the phenomenon of being entirely present in the moment is that that is exactly what my cat achieves. Observing her I was able to learn a great deal about how to do it. She eats Now, she sleeps Now, she wants her litter attended to Now, she wants me to provide a lap Now. However, she is aware of a past and, equally, a future. She will sit patiently under my bedside lamp waiting for me to complete the bedtime routine so she can come and lie on top of me. She knows, in that instance, what the immediate future holds and she recalls this from her memory of the past, but she lies on me fully in the present. I am fascinated by her observable routine. She is faithful to it, in time and in place. Perhaps, this is an essential factor in living in the moment. I see, too, that being fully in the present doesn't preclude one from a capacity for patience which assumes a focus on the future. I'm not sure of the wisdom of telling the kind psychologist who comes with tapes and hand-outs and enthusiasm to help me master the technique that my ultimate understanding of it came, at last, from the illumination of my four-footed friend. The habit of analysis is not an easy one to break and I am as 'if only' as anyone. Oh Dear! That's a lot of thinking for before lunch, but I leave you with another thought. To-morrow, I am attending a training course for volunteers at my local hospital. I have been given the programme and note, with some interest, that between 1330 and 1350 we are to do "Personal Developement". I have spent three score and a lot more than ten on just that subject so am particularly keen to see what we can do in 20 minutes. Bora da, see you much sooner, I hope next time.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Similarities
A phenomenon has leapt up at me. There's a lot of it about you may say. I agree. However, this one just wouldn't be ignored. I suspect I have talked about it before but I am a touch lazy to trawl back and see what the status actually is. The phenomenon: how like the beginning is the end: the baby and the old lady. Let's start with hair. These days mine would need washing every day to provide bulk. There is nothing appealing about a glimpse of elderly scalp but the scalp visible under the down on a baby's head is utterly charming even though it would not fill a shaving mug were it to be shaved off - the down, not the scalp, silly. Drop your eyes a bit further. Both I and the baby are 'd' shaped. There is no waist where waist there should be and will be in baby's case. Any trousers which can still be done up at the waist are positively uniform for me. They enable the side view to have an 'as-if' waist. How about legs: bandy for both in my experience. Teeth: none of one's own, ten to one, I'd guess. There again, the similarities differ. Baby will acquire some in due course but easily digested and not too copious is a common factor for old and very young for many months. (In case you are kind enough to wonder, or are humanly curious, I do, actually, have most of my own teeth. They are no longer pearly but they serve and they are fixed in situ, anyway for the now.) Walking requires care and attention for both species. I do not have fingers to hold on to but I do have a stick. An afternoon nap is good for both. Mine is taken indoors. Babies are often walked in the fresh air.
There are bigger differences, of course. A baby is on learning duty every moment her/his eyes are open. What's this, how's that, safe not safe, yell dont yell. Like, don't like. Try, don't risk. I'm lucky if I have staying power enough to read a newspaper right through. The Father of my Children unknowingly keeps my education valve open. He is always ready to discuss items he has read, and assumed I have also read, in the daily papers.There are times when the odd grunt, a few "reallys" and one or two "don't says" don't cut the mustard or pull the wool. You may imagine that the retired amongst us have all day every day to fill with unprescribed delight instead of duty. Equally, a baby carries the same deduction. Wrong for both. See above for the baby's occupation and, as for me and my like, we are equally occupied in finding things to occupy us. I can hear a chorus of dissent. I urge you: transcribe it on to a 'comment' on the blog. It's true, though. I know retirees who are busy from morning to night with this and that class, group, voluntary work, outings and so on and so forth. Activities very like our putative baby's, in fact. ( I am very conscious that a sentence requires a verb. I think, though, it is sometimes permissable to assume one as in "those activities are very like...). I remember scrubbing a floor hours before the vague discomfort in my stomach and back turned in to rhythmic pulses and presaged the arrival of one or other or all. Currently, I am avoiding tidying desk, drawers and cupboards all of which will provide a first class horror task for those left to clear up behind me. You'd think I'd get a move on having a had a trial run at terminal illness last summer. Pretend I have done it, or, anyway, made a start, will you please?. But, as the thesis is intended to put to you, what's so very different from scrubbing floors? A baby has a limited communication range. It transpires that the elderly do, too, repetition being the curse of the old and, probably, alone. In fact, I have the strongest feeling that I am acting that very premise out. Somewhere in me I know that we have had this or a very similar exposition before and even befive. Prynhawn da
There are bigger differences, of course. A baby is on learning duty every moment her/his eyes are open. What's this, how's that, safe not safe, yell dont yell. Like, don't like. Try, don't risk. I'm lucky if I have staying power enough to read a newspaper right through. The Father of my Children unknowingly keeps my education valve open. He is always ready to discuss items he has read, and assumed I have also read, in the daily papers.There are times when the odd grunt, a few "reallys" and one or two "don't says" don't cut the mustard or pull the wool. You may imagine that the retired amongst us have all day every day to fill with unprescribed delight instead of duty. Equally, a baby carries the same deduction. Wrong for both. See above for the baby's occupation and, as for me and my like, we are equally occupied in finding things to occupy us. I can hear a chorus of dissent. I urge you: transcribe it on to a 'comment' on the blog. It's true, though. I know retirees who are busy from morning to night with this and that class, group, voluntary work, outings and so on and so forth. Activities very like our putative baby's, in fact. ( I am very conscious that a sentence requires a verb. I think, though, it is sometimes permissable to assume one as in "those activities are very like...). I remember scrubbing a floor hours before the vague discomfort in my stomach and back turned in to rhythmic pulses and presaged the arrival of one or other or all. Currently, I am avoiding tidying desk, drawers and cupboards all of which will provide a first class horror task for those left to clear up behind me. You'd think I'd get a move on having a had a trial run at terminal illness last summer. Pretend I have done it, or, anyway, made a start, will you please?. But, as the thesis is intended to put to you, what's so very different from scrubbing floors? A baby has a limited communication range. It transpires that the elderly do, too, repetition being the curse of the old and, probably, alone. In fact, I have the strongest feeling that I am acting that very premise out. Somewhere in me I know that we have had this or a very similar exposition before and even befive. Prynhawn da
Monday, 22 April 2013
Botheration
One's state of being in the world can reliably be measured by the degree of bother one is prepared to undertake. A carrier bag has been stationed in my little hall since Christmas. It contains gifts which are not straightforwardly dealt with; socks that don't fit so need changing, a Kindle of which I couldn't tell the back from the front and various beauty products that I doubt will affect my beauty in the least. Now, why is this bag still there, frozen, untouched? Simply because I havent had the bother factor to deal with it. To some extent it has become wall-paper. I don't actually see it any more. However, I am in danger of hugging this 'can't be bothered' syndrome so close to my chest that the house will soon be covered in un-dealt-with carrier bags. Today, I have invited a friend to supper. It needs telling because I have not entertained anyone at home since the enforced summer break in hospital last year. On a few occasions I have used a local eatery to take over my hospitality obligations: an expensive solution. Today is different and I have already prepared the basics of home-made eating. But, Dear Reader, it has been so long since I had my hands in a mixing bowl that I have forgotten where everything is. It is not a laughing matter. I spent ten minutes looking for the rice - kedgeree if you really want to know - and had to sit down and review things and ask myself where I would, most likely, have stored rice when I was a fully functioning feeder of friends. I did find it, among the few tins I keep routinely. It had no business to be there. Taking it down I felt a sticky resistance. Something had been spilt and not cleaned up. Not only had I wasted time looking for the rice I was then confronted with an essential use of time, to wipe the cupboard clean This is where the botheration factor really kicks in. Someone who is making a meal out of making a meal is not in a fit state to clean cupboards. Solution: sleep in an unmade bed and ask my cleaning helper to do the cupboard.
Assiduous followers of 75 going on 40 may remember that I bought two cars, one after the other, the starting mechanism of neither was I able to manage. Picture the hassle/botheration factor in that situation, not to speak of the monetary bother involved in changing the starting mechanism. In my sober after-state, I can see that, having easily started the twin of the car I purchased and not test-driven the identical other, it was clearly a fault in mine and should have been rectified by the dealer. Probably the most expensive outcome of can't-be-bothered I have indulged in in recent times. I have to say that I have seen myself as having a rather large tank of bother in my past lives: several children, house work, professional work and the Company Wife thing. Now I am stuck with sticky cupboards full of stuff with use-by dates in 2011. When I die successfully, having flunked it last summer, my young will have to hire several skips to deal with the rubbish lurking behind every storage door before they even ring the undertaker. (In case they are called something else over the Pond, a skip is a big iron -? - container used by builders for stuff they have torn out for which they have no further use. Oh, and an undertaker is, I believe, a mortician). I put this to a nephew who happened to telephone during this reflection. He responded that if they hired several skips they may not need the undertaker. Quite. Bore da
Assiduous followers of 75 going on 40 may remember that I bought two cars, one after the other, the starting mechanism of neither was I able to manage. Picture the hassle/botheration factor in that situation, not to speak of the monetary bother involved in changing the starting mechanism. In my sober after-state, I can see that, having easily started the twin of the car I purchased and not test-driven the identical other, it was clearly a fault in mine and should have been rectified by the dealer. Probably the most expensive outcome of can't-be-bothered I have indulged in in recent times. I have to say that I have seen myself as having a rather large tank of bother in my past lives: several children, house work, professional work and the Company Wife thing. Now I am stuck with sticky cupboards full of stuff with use-by dates in 2011. When I die successfully, having flunked it last summer, my young will have to hire several skips to deal with the rubbish lurking behind every storage door before they even ring the undertaker. (In case they are called something else over the Pond, a skip is a big iron -? - container used by builders for stuff they have torn out for which they have no further use. Oh, and an undertaker is, I believe, a mortician). I put this to a nephew who happened to telephone during this reflection. He responded that if they hired several skips they may not need the undertaker. Quite. Bore da
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Nevermore
You will have noticed how fragments of a song or a smidgen of prose pop in to your mind as a response to an external stimulus. It's a phenomenon I really enjoy and I often share the joke with myself as I attach the 'quote' to its source. A simple illustration: during the recent cold weather when, as they say Down Under, we were all thoroughly rugged up, I was enjoying fish and chips with one of the people I have known longest in my life. We had been observing a couple who were interacting loudly and in not too friendly a fashion. It all seemed very serious. As they stood up to go, the young woman pulled on a woollen hat that had rabbits ears in bright pink standing a good six inches above her forehead. The contrast between that and their earlier earnestness was astonishing. Suddenly, we started humming simultaneously: "Where did you get that hat?..." a comic song of days long gone but thrown at each of us by an inner voice with a long memory. Sometimes, in my experience, the smidgens form a memorial to the originator. (I was about to say "virtual" memorial when I realised that that has quite a different meaning these days.) Anyway, every time I say "probably" I hear the voice of a truly dear departed saying "probally". In all her life she never managed the second 'b' and she is thus lodged for ever in my inner ear even though it is now many years since I actually heard her say it.
As it happens, there is a queue of things where the three score and more than ten diverges from the two score. My inner self is running for a 'bus. My actual self waits for the next one. I shall never run for a 'bus again. Nor shall I ever sit at the back of the'bus or on the top floor again. Why not? Because I have to sit down close and quickly before the driver jolts off or I shall risk having to be scooped up off the floor where I have been tipped. I shall never again, politely, stand up so some old dear can have a seat. I am that old dear. There will be no more walking twelve miles along the banks of the river Ure. But I am ruthlessly walking come rain or shine the several hundred yards down to the local shops and back, No, I don't have a hat with rabbit's ears and, anyway, I think it is, at last, getting less arctic. Many 'nevermores' are really welcome. My young are so unlikely to want most of the belongings which fill my house that I no longer feel an oppressive duty of care towards them... the things, not the young. Temperamentally, I am not suited to 'last times' I havent noticed, and would always rather a 'goodbye' ceremony when whatever is to be lost. I remember one of my young leaning against me as I sat on a high stool when the clear words came to me: "She will never do this again". I was right. Having started, the examples are teaming, overwhelming. Overall, though, the relief of the nevermores is greater than the regret. But at least twice a day my inner voice can be heard quoting Hilaire Belloc: "Nevermore Miranda, nevermore. Only the high peaks hoar and Arragon a torrent at the door..." or words to that effect. Bore da.
As it happens, there is a queue of things where the three score and more than ten diverges from the two score. My inner self is running for a 'bus. My actual self waits for the next one. I shall never run for a 'bus again. Nor shall I ever sit at the back of the'bus or on the top floor again. Why not? Because I have to sit down close and quickly before the driver jolts off or I shall risk having to be scooped up off the floor where I have been tipped. I shall never again, politely, stand up so some old dear can have a seat. I am that old dear. There will be no more walking twelve miles along the banks of the river Ure. But I am ruthlessly walking come rain or shine the several hundred yards down to the local shops and back, No, I don't have a hat with rabbit's ears and, anyway, I think it is, at last, getting less arctic. Many 'nevermores' are really welcome. My young are so unlikely to want most of the belongings which fill my house that I no longer feel an oppressive duty of care towards them... the things, not the young. Temperamentally, I am not suited to 'last times' I havent noticed, and would always rather a 'goodbye' ceremony when whatever is to be lost. I remember one of my young leaning against me as I sat on a high stool when the clear words came to me: "She will never do this again". I was right. Having started, the examples are teaming, overwhelming. Overall, though, the relief of the nevermores is greater than the regret. But at least twice a day my inner voice can be heard quoting Hilaire Belloc: "Nevermore Miranda, nevermore. Only the high peaks hoar and Arragon a torrent at the door..." or words to that effect. Bore da.
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