WI, bombs and William James

[creative writing]

There was an explosion on the tube that day - nothing unusual in that - bombs were frequent, nearly as frequent as bomb scares - but it frightened him for longer than usual. It was if his personal elasticity was wearing thinner and thinner - he was already half deaf with tinnitus from being too close to an explosion in the 3rd Afghan War - wasn't one war enough?

As part of their developing role in supporting civil society, indeed in maintaining any attempt at being 'civil' and any attempt at being a 'society' the Women's Institute had established a volunteer group from all 5 sexes known as WISPERS - W.I. Special PERSons. This group was hugely popular because they were reliably fed which was less than secure event in i2020 but also because they often distributed food and clothes to others. And after their role in the Glasburgh famine of i2019 the popularity exclipsed all.

Nobody knew or troubled about who planted the bomb - there were just too many groups possibly responsible and too many outrages. It could have been a splinter group from almost any of the group of Nineteen or any of a host of other groups. Groups were formed, split, mutated, reformed on almost a daily basis - rather like governments. Indeed it was increasingly difficult to distinguish groups of any kind from the government and vice versa.

The old anarchist notion of replacing the government of people by the administration of things had all but happened. It was not necessarily a good thing - indeed how would 'good' be defined in these i-times - the best for the most number of people, or the least bad for most, or to parody William James the good was that which worked. If that was the case then the world wide web was arguably the best good we had but did that make it true?

Nothing else matters (poem)

Nothing else matters

If I close my eyes
And listen to
The cries of the seagulls
I can be at the seaside
With the wind in my face
And you by my side

If I stay like this
For long enough
It will be true

I can hang on to that
I don't have to open my eyes
I don't have to lose you
As long as the seagulls
Stay here with me
I am with you

And nothing else matters.

Why poem

Why poem

Afghanistan why?
Poverty why?
Homelessness why?
Hunger why?
Racism why?
Homophobia why?
All men
And all women
are created equal why not?

Music musings

Regular readers of this bog will know of my struggles with music that go back to my primary school when my music teacher told me to mime rather than sing out loud in the choir. I have been learning piano for nearly 2 years now since my daughter first showed me how to sound a note and how to read music in 5 minutes flat. To someone who loves maths like I do music scores are just logical.

I get tremendous satisfaction out of playing music - watching my hands go where they need to and hearing it when I hit a wrong note. But it is a slow process for the would-be performer in me.

My patient piano teacher Rebbecca has been also working with me on singing the past few months. I have written before about the struggle and the delight I have had in learning to sound a note accurately. In the last two sessions I have finally been able to hear the difference between two notes only half a semi tone apart (that is the smallest possible internal) Not only at long last can I hear the difference but I can finally say this one is higher or lower than the last one. This is a huge step forward for me.

Get this it's a major breakthrough and I am 60. It's been almost something akin to dyslexia without denying the challenges that presents. I have not previously been able to distinguish these minor differences, not able to hear even when I could sound it right from memory. I can know hear it and know whether it is above or below. I am staggered at what it is possible for me to learn with no obvious music ability. No one put an instrument in my hand as a child. I did mess around with a guitar as a teenager not very fluently, and without any help. A year ago we put a clarinet in my daughter's hand at an open music do at the Northern College of Music. She loved it we got lessons and on my birthday we heard that she had passed grade 2 with a merit!

Well one of these I will be ready for grade 1 music. Last night Rebbecca did some of the singing I with me that i will need to do for grade 1 for the first time. Oh boy!

Mourn the past and do what it is in your heart to do with gratitude!

Bill on bike

Snown

[creative writing]

He couldn't figure out why she had spent four months, four months(!), in the Arctic - summer or winter it didn't matter which. One week of snow in England was enough for him.

But.. but something had happened to her, some deep hibernation of the spirit, staring at the snowscapes, walking or driving through those strange twilight zones in which the sun was barely awake at midday before turning over and going back to sleep again.

He could understand the attractions of a simpler life, a more basic life, just surviving. He could even understand how someone might want to stare at the wall or even at the snow and the sky. But to seek it out, to embrace it still seemed weird.

But there she was now changed for the better(?) by her snow odyssey and he remembered when he had to lean out against the fates to see if he could and would survive.

That was it. The testing of the inner spirit, the tempering of the inner steel. He knew that from old. That which does not destroy me makes me stronger. Modern warriorhood perhaps. I suffer therefore I am.

Getting started

[creative writing]

- It was an ordinary dark winter morning, and snow was still falling- she began
- No it wasn't
- Don't interrupt
- Will
- Wont
- Stop it

There was a silence.

- OK, it was summer and the sun was shining-
- No
- No better
- Oh

There was another silence.

I am sure Tolstoy never had this problem.

- The river flowed all through my childhood
- Yes
- Yes, go on
- The river flowed all through my childhood, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes just wanting to hang out and wait-
- No
- No

There was a longer silence this time

- The river was black, Bible black
- Nooo
- Noo
- OK it's your turn

There was an even longer silence, then a tiny voice said, 'It was my 60th year to heaven-
- No
- No
- Never.

Now I am sixty part two

OK so I am getting my head around this being 60 stuff, I think. It has got several upsides:
1) Senior railcard. This is a serious bonus (1/3 off!) and gives me dreams of post retirement travel as does the free bus pass.
2) I am choosing to be a bit out of the loop at work. I have seen it all before and I don't want to work myself to death pretending to be a young thing. I would quite like to offer a slower, deeper more wisdom(!) based approach but my bosses don't understand what I am trying too articulate.
3) I am physically OK thanks to cycling not bad diet and lifestyle and also my genetic stock.
4) I know I am not physically immortal and i don't hold with a Christian resurrection of the body so death is real. I am afraid of a painful drawn out dying and of becoming frail and forgetful or even worse dementia etc but I know that when I am dead if that is it then so be it. I hate the idea of not being with my family and friends but if I am completely dead then I wont know it. I rather suspect there is some kind of afterlife based on my own 'experiences' of ghosts etc but it is not clear enough (to the inner scientist in me) nor satisfying enough a lot of the time. Part of me knows this to be true, part doesn't. It rather depends who is in charge at the time!
5) This death stuff and my age causes me too be profoundly grateful for being alive and well and knowing that there is maybe nothing more than today and the people I meet today. So it is all a bit precious without me getting too daft about it. So I notice more and acknowledge and thank you for reading this! (And do look me up on Facebook if you like)

Bill on bike wearing my walking boots because of the snow.