Perhaps I’m being fanciful but there seems to be something in the air. It might be pollen or humidity, earlier it was low cloud. In fact yesterday Crich seemed hunched and sodden under a hill fog. All illusions of summer had been sponged away. But now there is that something abstract yet palpable. In the gardens little family gatherings are happening and the blue smoke and sausage smell of barbecues is creeping over the hedges and friends and families are trying to work out the delicate balance between socialising and distancing. Certainly, meeting with daughter and grandchildren this afternoon, though conscious of safety and careful planning, two metres quickly shrunk to 1 metre, and you wouldn’t be much closer than that anyway. True, I did have my own bowl of Whotsits and we did bring our own chairs.
More significantly there is an atmosphere of anticipation, without really knowing what is being anticipated. Schools and shops are being set out to try and steer children and shoppers into directed positions but no one really wants to be so self-contained and we are unlikely to manage it. The instinct to relate to other people is so primal and passion and enthusiasm are so overwhelming.
Some of us are nervously hanging back. Let the others be first to jump into the cold water. Some are like Formula 1 cars on the starting grid, engines roaring, blue smoke from spinning wheels, barging and weaving to the front in order to arrive at a long halt at the end of a kilometre queue circling the IKEA car park a few times. 12 weeks locked down without access to tea lights and meatballs have been too much for some people. But it is of course about re-starting the economy – and for we oldies it’s not so much Formula 1 but a fleet of vintage cars and traction engines with starting handles being cranked and engines coughing and spluttering and exhausts popping and banging and some vehicles can’t get out of reverse. The nervous anticipation that I sense in the air is about a lot of folk wondering where they are in all of this. This ambivalence has been so much a part of the last months and during the weekend before the shops open, work places are set in motion and the schools try to function, it is inevitable that we ponder what are we excited about, what are we prepared to do and if we can and not rush out to recreate the old world. Remember all those thoughts we have had about how things might be changed for the better.
Today a small number of us had to consider the pros and cons of re-opening the church. I felt so unready for this. If we were visioning a template for a new normality I would find some motivation, but actually we are unable to think beyond a sterile transition period of unsatisfactory transactions and half baked measures. It’s all represented by the roll of black and yellow hazard tape I have which will have the function of corralling people into a limited area and preventing them from accessing others. This is the dilemma for head teachers, clergy, church wardens and shop managers – they want to enable and expand people’s experience, not police and constrict it. In an early blog I welcomed seeing teenagers walking and talking with their parents, but having exhausted their conversation now, they need to be with their friends.
At some point each of us will have to review the last three months: what it has given us or rescued us from; what damage it has done and what it has cost us; how it has re-shaped relationships and opportunities. The full answers to some of these queries may not become apparent for months.
Now, in one of my seamless shifts of mood and topic, let us reassess what we have hoarded in the past and what might still be useful, what needs to be enjoyed and what needs to be discarded. Take pasta for instance. Having asked me for my opinion of tonight’s lasagne and receiving the usual unstinted accolade, Deirdre informed me that the pasta expired in 2016. The moral is that lots of old things retain their flavour well after their apparent usefulness. Now take suits as an example. I wrote the following as a performance piece several months ago but have never had a chance to air it. I enjoyed pIaying with the words but it is mostly fictitious - honestly.
AS A WEDDING GUEST
Waiting in the churchyard for the wedding to begin;
Tall girls in stiletto shoes and summer dresses thin
And floral,
Coral and turquoise fascinators
Gently fluttered by the breeze .
By the lych gate the two yew trees stir uneasily;
The groom and groomsmen stand by the church door queasily,
Four good lads
Clad in grey suits, shuffling and joking,
Glancing down at their watches.
I observe their matching jewelled cuff-links and silk cravats,
Their tailored grey jackets and sharp trouser creases that
Distinguish them,
Hems neat, friends and uncles in blazers
With carefully ironed slacks.
And I, watching from where the shadows ruffle the grass
The guests arriving, crunching on the gravel path pass
Cat-walking,
Talking of scarves and pashmina shawls,
The men measured in their suits.
Across the empty blue sky light summer clouds unreel,
While in the church tower the bells begin their wedding peal,
The organ plays,
Rays of sunlight dapple the shadows,
I sense something is missing.
Then I know what it is as I linger in the shade:
Turn-ups! My suit I’ve had for a couple of decades
Has turn-ups!
Turn-ups with paper clip, dust, desiccated dead fly
And furry lozenge from the last wedding I attended.
No other turn-ups have turned up today.
All turned down, turned out of wardrobes,
Turned in to charity shops,
Turned into cut-off shorts.
I alone in today’s turn-out have turned up turn-upped.
Turn-ups compounded. A right turnip!
Taciturnly I turn around to greet the bridal car.
The bride? She hasn’t turned up either.
“I grow old.... I grow old....
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”. (T.S.Eliot –‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’)