Trying to write a poem – the first line came up as: ‘Any other day…’ but nothing after that.
Maybe writing a poem about trying to write a poem? That sounds about as mad as the idea I had of trying to write a novel about trying to write a novel… another non-starter.
Any other day… and it wouldn’t matter so much. Why not? Come on, it’s just a day – a Tuesday, in fact – tai chi day, in normal times. Except it wouldn’t have been ‘normal times’ anyway, because I wouldn’t have been here, but on a narrow boat called ‘Teasel’, pootling about the inland waterways around the Hampshire/Surrey border with my son, his wife and their dogs.
I keep telling everyone -especially myself – that I’m fine with this lockdown thingy. Missing a holiday and spending a birthday alone are nothing in the grand scheme of things, nothing compared with what others have to deal with.
So here I am, putting all that to one side and getting on with it. Trying to write a poem – or failing that, just 500 words of any old nonsense, nothing too whiney, nothing too self-pitying. Do some gardening – I’ve been putting that off, till I realised that weeding could be quite appealing, it’s destructive after all. But I might miss the postman, there might be a delivery, so I can’t go in the garden until after then.
Waiting. Waiting for an indeterminate period, for an indeterminate outcome. Waiting for Godot. Beckett on failure: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better’. Story of my life.
Late this morning – in fact, it’s just turning into afternoon as I type. Awake half the night, early enough to fall asleep again and sleep in till 8.30, then do my morning stuff and it gets later and later, and my sister rang to say happy birthday, and I tried to call my brother (his birthday too) but couldn’t get through.
So, having made my mind up to do some weeding, I thought about the possible delivery and decided to wait in the front room, and in the mean time to do the writing that I didn’t do before breakfast. Waiting.
It’s not so much the activities that I do to break up my weeks that I miss so much as the café-sitting. It’s a habit I picked up in my flat-dwelling years – in Bedford, Ramsey, Prague and here in Southsea – and the months when I was travelling, when I would inhabit the public spaces – cafes, parks, seafronts and riversides – rather than sitting in hotel rooms. Now I have a garden, and the weather (at the moment) is good enough to be out there. But hunkering down in your own space – however appealing – can become a trap.
Just been interrupted by a phone call from my brother. It was nice to hear his voice, but has broken my chain of thought. We don’t always get on very well, but good to know he’s there.
