Solent Green – blog

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Retirement

I didn’t write a long post yesterday (if 500 words counts as ‘long’ – probably does, in today’s frantic world). I missed out my morning routines because I got up and went straight to the shop, then when I got back I made a poem of it and felt I’d done my ‘writing duty’ for the day. Today I feel inclined to do the same, because I had a poem that popped up first thing and then developed while I was in the shower. But I mustn’t keep doing that.

Have I mentioned on here yet about the phrase that’s apparently going round: ‘…if you don’t come out of this with a new skill, you never lacked time, you just lacked discipline’? Bollox to that say I – (but then I would, wouldn’t I, because I’ve always been a lazy, selfish cow who’s never even tried to become a better person… etc etc etc).

What occurs to me is that what’s currently happening to a lot of people (but not everybody, let’s not forget that, a lot of people – including but not exclusively those employed by the NHS – are having to work their arses off) is a kind of enforced premature retirement. Of course, the fantasy of retirement is that you’ll have the freedom to go swanning off wherever you like, and do those things you never had time for, but in reality lots of retired people just don’t have that many options – whether because of lack of money, poor health, commitments to others (lots of older people are carers for their partners, or want to be available for children, grandchildren, friends, even cats and dogs). Even without those limitations (and I speak from experience as someone who retired relatively young and financially comfortable), sometimes you just don’t have the energy or motivation to get out and do stuff.

I’ve always thought of it as the housewife syndrome (apologies if that sounds sexist, but I spent a lot of my middle age involuntarily unemployed/underemployed so I know what I’m talking about). When you theoretically have lots of time to do things that need doing but you really don’t enjoy, and there’s no formal commitment or external authority (like an employer) imposing sanctions (like the sack) if you don’t do them, it’s easy to slide into a mindset where you’ll do anything but, and spend huge amounts of emotional energy and time on finding reasons not to do those things, and by the end of the day you feel like you’ve achieved nothing, but you’re still exhausted, frustrated and bitter. Well, you do if you’re like me (but then we’ve already established that I’m lazy, selfish, self-pitying… see above).

I think many people who are currently on furlough from work are in that position. It’s not an easy adjustment to make at the best of times, and I’m sure that knowing it will end at some point in the future – but not when, or if, or how, or what happens next – exacerbates it.

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Day15 – Terza Rima

As we are now half way through the month I thought I’d push the boat out and write something in verse.

The image above is genuine footage of Dante’s reaction to my poetry.

I thought that I would write a terza rima.
I had to look it up to find what’s what.
But every poet is at heart a dreamer.

Though rhyming is a skill I haven’t got.
It’s not because I think it’s for the birds,
but when I try I just sound like a clot.

It’s rhythm that I love, and sounds of words,
alliteration and internal rhymes.
Free verse is where I soar above the herds.

So please forgive me for this garbled (c)rhyme.
Perhaps I’ll try again another time.

Linda Rushby 15 April 2020
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Day 14 – Foraging

I ran out of milk
so I went to the shop.
First time in a week.

At 8 o’clock,
there was no queue outside.
The aisles were empty,
but the shelves were full.
I didn’t want much
till I saw what they had.

Kale, a swede and kiwi fuit;
cheddar and brie and mini pork pies
(I always get those).
Parsley and basil
in pots for my window.
Live Greek yogurt
and UHT milk,
so I can make more.

Couldn’t find hummus,
but I got Brussels pate,
two bottles of wine
and two chocolate choux buns.

Dark choc digestives
and dark Choco Leibniz;
cat food, and matches
for incense and candles
with my morning yoga.

No decaff ground coffee,
I forgot the cheese twirls.
And I almost forgot
the milk.

Linda Rushby 14 April 2020

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Day 13 – Poems

I had the idea for this in the middle of the night, and it seemed wonderful at the time – as things do, in the middle of the night.

But I haven’t got anything else to offer, so here it is:

I sent my poems out on paper darts,
fletched with the feathers of Halcyon birds,
shimmering blue and moonlit.

I wonder if
they will ever return?

Linda Rushby 13 April 2020
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The Guilt-Gremlin

The wind has come back. No breakfast in the garden today. It was always the height of foolishness to think that summer might be on its way before the middle of April. Lovely week to be on the river though. Yes, wouldn’t it, but it didn’t happen – deal with it.

Sometimes over the last few days I’ve been feeling guilty about rushing inside for 3 o’clock, to spend an hour sitting in the front room listening to drama on the radio and crocheting, rather than being out in the gorgeous sunshine. Ah yes, guilt. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, as well.

In the past, I’ve often been asked if I was raised Catholic – occasionally, Jewish – because of my intense relationship with guilt. A few days ago I blogged about how I’m enjoying the lockdown, and later felt pangs at admitting that I was happy in such awful times when so many people are suffering in so many ways. Yet a few days earlier, I experienced guilt because I was feeling so sorry for myself over my missed holiday and non-event of a birthday, when so many people were having it so much worse than I was- enough with the self-pity, count your blessings, be grateful etc etc.

Guilt gets you like that. I’ve always known it, but don’t think I’ve ever seen it so starkly before. There is literally no way I can ever win that argument: if I’m happy, that’s bad; if I’m miserable, that’s bad too. The only way I could defeat the guilt-gremlin would be by putting myself out there on the front line and martyring myself for the sake of others – though then, you might have to question my motives – and I’d probably get it all wrong and make things worse, so there’s the perfect excuse for sitting on my backside and not doing anything.

I’ve heard Buddhist thinkers say that compassion must start with oneself – that until you can love yourself unconditionally, you aren’t in any position to share the light of compassion with the rest of the world. I can’t see my mother having any truck with that argument. Until everyone else’s actual and emotional needs have been met, there’s no question of looking out for yourself. But how can you ever tell? You need an instinct to know what’s best for everyone else (even before they know themselves), and act on it at all times. That’s what being a good person means – you can’t relax and think about yourself until you’ve checked how every action on your part might affect others. And if you’re generally a dreamy, thinky person, not overly sensitive to reading other people’s minds and moods, social interaction becomes a minefield. Where next to stick your foot where it’s not wanted, and prepare to deal with the consequences when they blow up in your face? (See, appropriate metaphor, not just a cliché).

But I’m being unfair on my mother. Can’t go blaming her for my failings.

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Day 12 – Mr Fox

You asked me to send you a poem.
I sent you an old one, generic in intent
(though you were in there).
I never wrote one just for you,
till now.

We never shared that bottle of champagne.
I never wore that silk dress for you –
(they didn’t make it in my size.)
You never got what you deserved,
yet you were always kind.

I saw you run across a snowy field.
I saw no hounds upon your tail, and I was glad.

I never felt that I deserved you,
but I remember you with fondness.
Do you remember me,
my foxy-whiskered friend?

Linda Rushby 12 April 2020
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Easter Sunday

I wrote a poem yesterday evening, and announced it on Facebook. But now I don’t know if I want to share it – it’s a bit personal.

Seems a waste, though, if it means I have to write another one today.

I haven’t done my yoga etc half hour yet, because when I got up I thought I had something to say and if I didn’t say it, it would annoy me because I’d forget what it was and have to think of something else. So here I am.

It’s just that I was thinking: have I done this long enough to prove that I can do it? Have I done it long enough to prove that there’s no point? I suppose it kills the time – but then time passes anyway, whether I do anything or not – it has no regard for human intentions. Now I remember that when I was downstairs feeding the cat and getting a cup of water – or rather, after that -I forgot to bring the washing basket up from the kitchen.

When you write a journal, is it/should it be about momentous things which have happened, or just whatever rubbish pops into your head at the time of writing? The latter is easier, and sometimes it throw up some surprises. That’s my excuse, if I need one.

I need excuses for everything I do. I feel pressure to justify my actions, even though, realistically, I know that no one cares or is interested. My life trundles along its predictable daily paths, and if it wasn’t for social media, no one would know – or probably care. That’s significant, that I think my actions and thoughts are of no interest to anyone. I am anonymous and invisible, even more so at the moment. If anything happened to me, I wonder who would be the first to notice, how they would notice, how long it would take, and what would they, or even could they, do about it?

My main concern is what would happen to my poor little cat. Anyone else concerned can look after themselves, but I worry about her, trapped here alone and starving. Perhaps she would finally be brave enough to go out through the cat flap, and once out there, she’d probably be a lot tougher and more resourceful than I give her credit for. They’re like that, aren’t they, cats? Someone would find her and maybe take her to a vet, where they’d scan her and get my details from her chip, and try and contact me. Maybe that’s when they’d realise I wasn’t responding, and call the police, and they’d come round and find me? Or maybe not, in these times, when everyone has more important things to worry about than a stray cat – or a stray woman, come to that. One more or less in the grand scheme of things. Who knows what might happen? And I didn’t write about moths. Maybe I should keep that one for tomorrow now.

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Happy Days

A couple of weeks ago, a friend said to me on Twitter: ‘This must be a good time to be alive for people who don’t like to go out’. Which incensed me because what I’d been saying was that I need to make myself go out and interact with people, because otherwise I’m worried that I will close down and disappear inside myself. Anyway, who was he to tell me how I was feeling?

But, strangely enough, I am enjoying life at the moment – well, I know I wasn’t a few days ago, but that was for other reasons. The relief of not having to think: ‘It’s such and such a day, I need to be there by this time and be with them…’ is actually helping me to relax and accept life. My simple routine is starting to sort out my days. I aim to do my half hour of exercise and meditation, feed the cat and let her out, and be at my computer with a cup of coffee by 8 o’clock – it doesn’t always work out that way, but I don’t beat myself up if it doesn’t. No one is expecting me to be anywhere else.

My health is good, my finances comfortable, my freezer full. The sun is shining; I have breakfast outside every morning after I’ve finished my 500 words – sometimes it’s as late as 11, but it doesn’t really matter. Last week there were three times when I connected with people through Facebook, Zoom or Skype: for meditation, tai chi and my weekly session with my psychotherapist. The fixed points of my routine are more frequently dictated by the radio schedules – 1 o’clock on weekdays for the half hour drama serial on 4 extra, and 3 pm every day for an hour of drama on 4 or 4 extra (though I can always catch up online). I’ve had to go out to the shops on four days out of the last seven, but for now I’m fine, until the milk runs out, which will be about Tuesday.

Having reduced housework to the level of: ‘I’m out of clean knickers, better put a load of washing on’, I’ve caught myself once or twice spontaneously tidying up some small area just to make my living space more pleasant, rather than because I’m frantically looking for something vital – yesterday I even started weeding the garden, and found myself enjoying it – I think partly because it’s quite satisfying to be pulling things out, rather than trying to coax them to grow. I crochet and weave – I tried something new in my weaving the other day, which didn’t work out, so had to undo it, but that’s ok because now I can do it again but better. My paper crafting stuff is all over the kitchen table and has been for weeks now – I keep thinking I’ll do something with it. Might even revive the idea of making a book from the haikus I wrote for NaPoWriMo in 2018.

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Day 10 – Wallflowers

I am now seriously, seriously pissed off.

While out in the garden weeding, I had an idea for a poem for today which I typed into the laptop so I wouldn’t forget it, then emailed to myself so I could access it from the PC.

When I came to upload it a couple of hours later, the attachment opened in Google docs and I looked at it and thought it was pretty pathetic. Then I had a brainwave of how to change the third line to make it a bit better, but when I tried to edit it, I fell foul of the same problem I described in my post this morning. Then by the time I had opened it in Open Office I had forgotten what I was going to do to improve it.

So, I decided I would just post the original version, and explain all this, which I duly did, typed directly into WordPress rather than in Word (which is what I usually do).

Copied the ‘poem’ into the post, formatted it as a poem (which didn’t go too well), looked at the preview, chose the categories, pressed the publish button, then changed my mind about something (now I can’t remember what). Tried to get out of the ‘publish’ menu, but when I tried to press the ‘x’ to close it and get back to preview, for some reason it kept flashing to another menu. (I think that the curser had got too close to the top right hand corner of the window and it was trying to open the Profile editing window, but there seemed no way I could close the other one if you see what I mean).

I tried to go back a screen, assuming that the post had automatically been saved as a draft (I’m sure that’s what usually happens), but apparently not, and I’ve just had to explain all this all over again.

And I nearly published this without copying the poem in again.

Wallflowers,
with their fiery colours
bringing the power of summer
into a sad and fearful spring.

Linda Rushby 10 April 2020