The Big Clap – did you do it? Wasn’t it great? I nearly forgot, but I heard them getting going, and came out from the kitchen into the front room, opened my window two floors up and leaned out into the darkness to clap. I find every standing ovation moving, but this one even more … Continue reading Clap Hands
You know you’re going mad when… You take to the skirting boards with a toothbrush to clean around the cracks. You panic buy a 65-inch smart TV. You decide Barry Manilow really does write the songs that make the whole world sing. You look forward to C. calling you to talk for an hour about … Continue reading You Know You’re Going Mad When…
‘Every now and then life says, where do you think you’re going so fast?’ We’re apt to think it’s cruel but sometimes it’s a case of cruel to be kind.’ Those are a couple of lines from a Ron Sexsmith song called ‘Gold In Them Hills’. He’s a Canadian singer songwriter with a voice that … Continue reading Every Now and Then Life Says
My late husband once told me something very obvious, except at the time it wasn’t in the least bit obvious to me. He told me that taking oneself to a place of elevation (Arthur’s Seat, for example), climbing up to a look-out point (say, the top of the Scott Monument), finding a view out over … Continue reading Looking Outward
Rear Window – have you seen it? It’s a Hitchcock classic; a masterful take on one man’s social isolation whilst living, incapacitated, in a bustling Lower Manhattan apartment block in the 1950s. As social distancing and self-isolation sweeps the world, I thought I’d revisit it. If you’re short of something to watch during these quiet … Continue reading Rear Window
I lay in bed last night listening to the news and thinking about the horrid days around us. This sent my mind spinning back to other times (which were mostly moments) that were I thought were horrid and would scar me forever; whereas now they’re like half remembered films where I can visualise certain scenes, … Continue reading That Horrid Time
I passed a man on the street this morning walking towards me with a cardboard box over his head. It was a huge one. I can only guess at what it once contained – a microwave oven or a shipment of bananas or a consignment of flat pack garden furniture – but this morning, as … Continue reading There Are Worse Things
Here’s the thing about feeling stuck: when you are in it, you are convinced that it is a black and white situation, that people are either stuck, or unstuck. A flight is grounded, or it’s airborne and going places. There’s no in between for the stuck mind. And when you are stuck, you are convinced … Continue reading Stuck
I have been lonely in the past, but I am not anymore. I know I might well be lonely again in the future, and, when that happens, I’ll have to remind myself that the feeling will not last. That’s one of the good things about getting older: we’ve seen it before. Some call it, ‘wisdom’ … Continue reading This Feeling Will Not Last
I fear the whispering wind and the messages it brings me. It loosens worries from my head in unnerving gusts. I fear the whispers will become raised voices, shouts, screams of terror that pull waves from the ocean floor, rip slates from roofs, and send gulls spinning and shrieking and competing with plastic bags that … Continue reading The Whispering Wind
