April 20th Time in My Hands

I woke up very early this morning and decided to get up and watch the sunrise at 05.55. I thought it might be an impressive opener for the blog. Then I thought I could stay in bed and pretend I had got up to watch the sunrise. Sadly integrity costs you sleep. There was a pinkish haze to the East and then a sharp nail-paring of sun which quickly took off like a molten balloon. For one morning in its 1500 year history Alfreton was gilded in glory. Unfortunately Alfreton remained asleep beneath a mist the colour of pink gin, and missed it.

Then we read Psalm 31 and the Psalmist had clearly got us wrong: "I am the utter contempt of my neighbours. I am a dread to my friends - those who see me on the street flee from me." Actually our neighbours are wonderful, our friends keep checking on us, those we see in the street bellow their greetings across the road and we still all agree that Crich is a lovely place to be self-isolated and locked down. But I still feel as if paralysed in a sunny time warp; each day a deja vu of yesterday's deja vu. We walked out and met the same happy mum, dad and kids as on the two previous walk outs. I remarked that this was becoming predictable. She retorted, "It's Ground-hog Day." Are we becoming incarcerated in our little routines, pleasant as they may be? A Zoom meeting of half a dozen fellow Fishpond Choir members speculated about the choir starting up again at some point. It was difficult to imagine. A Skype with some friends in New York State confirmed we are all the same. I think I'm becoming institutionalised, contentedly settled to having no decisions to make, no variety of human contact, the shopping being delivered, few choices. High points of the day: get up-breakfast-coffee-lunch-tea-evening meal-TV - the hours merely dividers. If I'm not careful. Psalm 31 v 15, "My times are in your hands." But I need them to be in mine. Several of us from the choir agreed. My inner engine is in neutral and as yet I can't contemplate a rusty gear change when the lights drop to green. Can I go back to meetings, agendas, minutes, diaries, negotiations, machinations, conversations even? Will the social skills need to be polished up? Or will we sit around the pub table tongue-tied, carefully edging along the seat away from our friends, furtively wiping our pint glasses with an anti-bacterial wipe. It took only two weeks of retirement before I could no longer imagine myself in the classroom. But I have plans, a new strategy devised for keeping the pigeons off the bird table - wire mesh high enough to allow the blackbirds in and low enough to shred a pushy pigeon.

I enjoyed the Rolling Stones on the One World Concert last night. But some of the stories were harrowing. That's one of the reasons we were sitting this morning reflecting and praying. Loved ones driven away in ambulances. Loved ones never seen alive again. And these are not just remote stories. These agonising narratives are edging round our little village on the hill. The coal tits bounced on the air, trampolining in flight, darting at the bird-feeders as messy and bad mannered as 5 year olds at a birthday party. While we meditated on separation and death they were living exuberantly. Emptyness and grief and the relish and energy of life chirruping somewhere in the ivy. A dichotomy I can only hold, not resolve.

Tomorrow I will monitor my anti-pigeon device from the sunroom - sunshine and shadow.