Once off the work wheel does one just replace it with a different wheel? I am in France, in a small village in the Eastern Pyrenees. Today I have been for a walk around the cemetry and marvelled at the long lives most here have lived. This afternoon I finished my book and whilst all slept I tried to sketch but was too unrestful. So I walked back to the river to watch birds, those I had not seen, for want of my binoculars, that morning. But there were virtually none. It was a very hot afternoon out in the sun for anyone. I lent over the brige to see the Castellean flowing beneath.On the terraced gardens to the side someone was weeding their vegetable plot. Two others sat under a tree, enjoying the shade, one sewing a tapestry. How simple the life here seemed and communal, now fast disappearing.I recalled that my aunt was a tapestry maker. Yet though she must have gotten much pleasure from doing them it was never really matched by those she gave them to. But did that matter? It was maybe the making and giving that counted, not the piece of woven fabric. What happened when she had finished it? Satisfaction for a while. Then a void. Then another one? When that person died would the tapestry, so lovingly undertaken beneath the tree, just be turned out, destroyed, along with many other personal possessions, suddenly unwanted? Are the longer lives here attributable to the exercise and quality that comes from growing their own food. Yet it looks back-breaking too. However, why do it? Why do any of it? Sometimes I conclude that as we do not know why we are here we may as well make the best of the time we have. That is fine if one never asks what is the point of that, of reading a book, spotting a bird, growing your radishes, strimming the lawn.There are things which give me pleasure, love, a laugh with friends, a smile received and given, a walk in early evening Springtime.But when I stand back and observe the context, wonder this question and the cemetery it is hard to see ultimately the purpose in it all and yet at the same time, how dearly I hold on to life and wish the longevity of us all.Do others never wonder?

snow and its joys

We have now surfaced from the recent "White In" of the UK. The snow here, in London, has melted away returning, to us, the comfort of our familiar surroundings. The recognisable dirty, grey, wet pavements with clear curbs and slip-free surfaces. The warmer weather. We are now safer to venture out. Yet I open the curtain to see this world returned - and miss the joys of the snow. Its smooth soft covering over of detail and texture. A pure whiteness contrasted with black outlines giving the cityscape a clean, minimalist simplicity that was a beauty to behold. A Feng Shui of our surroundings. Venturing out too was fun. The sound and feel of scrunching snow beneath our boots. Kids, and larger kids (aka adults) building snowmen and tobogganing down the local smallest of slopes with glee. The patterns and prints on the frozen ponds and the swans still landing as if it were water. People could not get into work and, for a week or so, the country was turned into both panic and pleasure. Snow is a rarity here so we are hopeless at coping with it in the way other experienced nations do. The media, which always welcomes a problem, made the best of whipping it into a frenzy for fear of appearing boring. Despite their best efforts, it seemed that, in contrast, people did not seem panicked and took it with the usual acceptance. Where there were real problems a "Dunkirk spirit" re-emerged we thought lost. And yet, at times the snow also turned us into recluses, frightened of falling over on the ice. But how good it was to appreciate the cosiness of our home, the sofa and not to feel bad that we were not "living our lives" to the full by speeding out to exploit the potential of all on offer…or being lazy. So maybe the snow did not "turn us" into recluses but gave us permission to stay in and put our feet up. Enjoy our homes. Certainly I am now well into reading "How to be Idle". May I now learn the joy from both...

"Doubt"

I would recommend seeing "Doubt". It seemed to give rise to many different areas for thought....

Our world must always be full of doubt for how can we know anything for certain?

It seems to me that, from birth, we desire a world which we feel is predictable; the certainty is reassuring. Without it we feel afraid of the unknown and ultimately uncertain about our survival.
Perhaps from this comes the desire for there to be a clearly defined right and wrong; rituals we must obey for security and ultimate salvation. But rules and rituals vary and conflict across the globe, and through time. Perception varies between individuals and their own often changes as the events of their life cause them to re-evaluate.

They gain hold when we are most afraid. Early in evolution, when much of the world was unknown, mystical ideas - life determined by the planets and stars held sway. Where there is pain or poverty, a way out is sought, so that people become more susceptible to the promises of religion or extreme politics.

These are held on to, defended and walls erected against anything or anyone who challenges their efficacy. In that way people can shut out the pain their actions may cause others. They lead a life that complies outwardly with set rules yet conflicts with their own interior feelings. Peace at home can only be achieved through war abroad. Focusing on the "sins" of others is a palliative to looking at our own feelings. Much unkindness is thus done, and defended, by those who profess to subscribe to a religion that counsels the opposite.

Sometimes, though a revelation can burst through a strongly defended position, giving a realisation that we are all faliable and life uncertain. And without certainty, "Belief" can flourish as can any gossip without foundation. Belief is not proof.

Playing

Is playing permissible whilst jobs remain to be done? Must I, as an adult, always be "responsible"? My mother tells us so. I wonder why since she loved her job as creative and fulfilling, if demanding, and a salvation from an unhappy marriage. She loved dancing and went there at least once a week. Later, when retired, she developed a beautiful garden. Should I look at her actions not the words?

I played as a young child, post offices, paint by numbers, tents and trolleys, marbles, fag-cards, football, train sets, stamps, chemistry sets, Meccano, soliders, drawing.

Then, at some stage, I lost the desire, the freedom. Was I consumed by other needs these child hood pleasures couldn't meet? It didn't help that there could be no communication because there was no sense of being acceptable. I could cite, too, that reading was considered rude for excluding others. It was only acceptable as a means to an educational necessity. Magazines were "books". And there were no books in the house save a few my father kept in his bedside cabinet and I was warned not to read. So obviously I did and I could not find anything in them, disappointingly, that would render them "unsuitable". My father's mother read and that was looked down upon as neglectful of her duties. And yet.

Even now, writing this, I feel guilty. But this blog has taken my mind off work worries, worries I could not stop intruding, tentacles spread into my mind without welcome. The other day I decided I had to stop them. So I decided to count every time they entered my mind and put them outwith the walls. Ten times in two hours is bad. They burst in, consciously unwelcome, to my night hours, upon waking and hypnotised me such I would suddenly awake to the realisation that I was laying in a bath, now turned cold or had driven x miles without knowing.

I say, consciously unwelcome, because, at some level, my mind was choosing to create them, let them in.

Perhaps because there is not much of a life, or greater worries so that work has become number one thought. In contrast, when younger, I never thought of work once I'd left it and could not understand why others did. Of course I was more driven to achieve a "relationship" and friends. And now I have more responsibility at work and the world is more demanding, less easy. Less rewarding too as bureaucratic obstacles constantly prevent achievement, with frustration, stress and lack of creative reward.And yet in my heart I know this is only part of the story.

Maybe too there's a greater truth in the slick saying "get a life"...a wider one. Do work demands not allow or do I?

So whilst I am again, thinking about work now it feels more "out there". Perhaps, because I'm out there. To recover I know I must build myself interests, play, to save my sanity and expand my world. I will get a life.

revolutionary road

Revolutionary because there is no happy ending. Not even a wry Woody Allen smile on the human condition. Because maybe there cannot be. With the exception of a woman who, it seemed, could not let it in, the audience was still sitting silent as the credits rolled up instead of the usual springing up, fluffling around with coats and heading for the exit. I too felt naked, shocked, facing what I had just seen, and admitted in myself.

It would be avoidance to simply say it is set in the fiftees so there's the usual tale of the bored suburban housewife and the man tied to family and job. A view of a system that provides money/security in exchange for your free spirit.

Of course there are always these deals, conflicts, prices we pay. Yet more, it asked, why do we? Is it that we are too afraid to choose differently? That, no matter who earns the most money these days, even if both support a family, is there still something that means, despite greater wealth, we end up with something a lot less than we need? Do we see this even in the rich? Is it without class or income?

Is it more about that which we inherit from nature and/or nurture that fills us more than others or less than we need? And, if the latter, must that always be with us? Are the sexual sideshows but one of the many ways we try to divert ourselves, or fill our unloved place with someone or something else?

Here was a man wanting to be more, yet perhaps too afraid, not simply of the unknown out there, but of the unknown inside. I am no fan of box office names but I felt Leonardo Di Caprio played the many inner emotions superbly simply through his expressions.

Too, there are many of us who realise our parents were not happy and a child, maybe me, kept them on that route.

But the question is more than that. For, even without dependents, how many of us still opt for security? And, even when we have got the best we can of that, do we have that inner sense of strength, to be more than we have grown (or rather not grown) to be; or even understand what that might be? Unless we do, will we always be looking for love and, from these fears, never grow more than that allows?

Secrets in the snow

As the snow fades, so do the secrets in the snow. From four and two legs many journeys are revealed as a burglar leaving fingerprints. Secrets of journeys made whilst I was focused elsewhere and in the darkness after dusk. Visits, made quietly and stealthily by those whose lives are also here - cats, foxes, squirrels, birds...others? Criss-cross patterns in the snow, some small, round paws, others lean and long. How often I welcome the cat, trotting toward me up the garden path with upright, tip turned over tail. Or I glimpse the fox slinking across the back or the squirrel suddenly bounds across the grass. Yet I do not know by what routes they came or go? And little of why. But for this brief time the snow records their many journeys, places too dug, scrapped, tossed around. A straight line of small potholes in soft snow lead directly to the side fence. And a break in the snow lining the top of the fence tells of the jump onto or over it. Purposeful prints proceed across roof tops of sheds and next door's lean-to. So these are their routes, their journeys around my life, of their life. And, whilst I may know little of their's, it seems they know more of mine. For the most travelled garden is the one belonging to the elderly resident who rarely comes outside. The safest place to be. The rest of us are watched, sniffed out.

The day moves on. The air warms, snow melts. My view into their world recedes and soon, again, the grass will be green and feet pass over unseen.

as day light fades