May 26th Beginnings, Endings and In-Betweens

Yesterday a tiny baby robin hopped onto our patio. From the top of the step ladder where I was working, for a moment I thought it was a mouse, it was so small and so compact. Its tail feathers were not grown and its feeble little wings clapped to its side. A tiny beak emitted the tiniest of cheeps and it looked at me expectantly. This baby, fallen from its nest was unequipped in any way to survive. It had no understanding of how to eat, drink or who its enemies were. It hopped away as if confidant in its own ability to make a go of it. Later that evening I came across it again. It was getting dark and a night of cats, rats and crows was descending. I surrounded it with some bugs, seed, wet bread and cover but guessed it would be dead by morning, and indeed it was. Today, two more baby robins announced themselves, a little more lusty than their sibling with their parents hopping about in the trees scolding them. But what sorts of parents allow their offspring, with no experience and not much sense, to roam in alien worlds of paving stones and steps, of big boots and nasty cats.

Yesterday we thought about our innate needs for touch and smell and intimacy and our yearning for physical presence with others, especially family, that is currently denied us. And as someone commented, our grandchildren and family generally equally want to interact with us in the flesh. Today was our breakfast club, and I dutifully had my Full English and emailed a picture of it to the other members. But what is a sausage, even one of Jake's, without live conversation? I tried downloading a Ted Talk, but that was too sophisticated.

Deirdre remarked this morning that emotions are so exhausting, so no wonder many of us, despite luxuriating in leisure and lack of responsibilities, feel tired. The glimmer of light through the trapdoor that has locked us down is challenging us emotionally. It’s the promise of a future that will be constrained and with gaping pockets of emptiness. It tempts us with choices that in reality we won’t be able to make. It invites us into more open spaces where we will be masked, distanced and nervous, where we will treat every offer of a handshake, or sharing or intimacy as a threat. We know things will be done differently and we are being solicited to think creatively and to be visionary. We know this is an opportunity to reorientate our worlds, but with our senses dulled and our horizons lowered we balk at the choices, the opportunities and the revolutionary possibilities of it all.

We know we will have to make personal decisions. We might stick rigidly to the lockdown strictures and risk being regarded as pedantic and strange. We might venture out more, politely turn down offers of help and creep timidly into the supermarket or post office or attend a surreptitious barbecue. Are we the sort of prisoners who become so institutionalised they want to return to their cell after being set free? When we are told we can travel will we head off immediately or allow others to test the waters? Are we waiting to see if there will be a second spike before we get the car serviced or allow the upholsterer to collect the settees? Shops and garden centres are opening and their desperate owners beckoning us in, but we are told that we are vulnerable and at risk and afraid. We’re becoming impatient with ourselves for pondering so much on such dead-end trivial matters. Clearly the mobs who crowd into Matlock Bath would think us very paranoid, precious and over dramatic. There are so many things we do want but don’t want; so many things we do want to do but don’t want to do; so many places we do want to go to but don’t want to go to. This lockdown now seems to have concentrated and intensified our emotions. It wasn’t like this at the beginning when it all seemed a chance to opt out and relax; but there are only so many wonderful books to read in the garden, so many stunning walks and views, so many TV box sets. Today it’s all getting rather frayed. No wonder emotions are so exhausting.

So it was inevitable that we would get lost in Shining Cliff Woods today. There were too many paths disappearing downhill or winding off among the trees and brambles. We lost our sense of direction and wandered randomly mistaking landmarks and trying labyrinthine tracks that surely would connect with the path we were looking for, but which ultimately didn’t. We assumed there must be one major trail with a beginning and an end, and any little diversions would connect with it. This was an outing that reflected our emotional landscape. But the woods were beautiful and are made to wander in, not to journey through. Our inevitable destination was our beginning.

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” ― T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets