I'm trying to increase the readership for this blog, and you are the subject of a rather unsophisticated experiment.
But the fact you are reading this says quite a lot about you. As well as me.
Sorry
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Thursday, 29 November 2018
Sunday, 25 November 2018
I Appreciate the Sabbath
The fourth commandment in the Judaeo-Christian tradition is to Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. The story went that God, after six days of creative activity, needed a rest. This rest day, within my culture, is taken to be Sunday, and this is still reflected in the UK in restricted shop opening times and quieter roads.
The Sundays of my early adulthood largely followed the patterns of my childhood, and were filled with going to church, helping out with Sunday School, and cooking roast lunches. These things tended to make me tired, but if I didn't do them, the guilt I felt after wrestling with myself was just as exhausting.
Within these Sabbath days, there were some lovely moments, such as crispy roast potatoes, singing Bruckner's Locus Iste, and going for late afternoon strolls in Attingham Park.
It took a while to de-programme myself from the expectation that waking up on a Sunday meant it was time to get spruced up for church / heat up the oven for a chicken / prepare (last minute) for whichever activity I'd volunteered to run.
Since I have stopped going to church, Sundays have come into my week like new gifts. At first, a novice at this new-found freedom, I treated them a bit like Saturdays: days to catch up on work and chores or to rush around seeing friends. These days, I've put myself under a new commandment - that is, to Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it wholly devoted to bike rides, walks, writing poetry, eating simply cooked food and lounging around watching films. I find this to be an entirely satisfactory means of recreation.
The Sundays of my early adulthood largely followed the patterns of my childhood, and were filled with going to church, helping out with Sunday School, and cooking roast lunches. These things tended to make me tired, but if I didn't do them, the guilt I felt after wrestling with myself was just as exhausting.
Within these Sabbath days, there were some lovely moments, such as crispy roast potatoes, singing Bruckner's Locus Iste, and going for late afternoon strolls in Attingham Park.
It took a while to de-programme myself from the expectation that waking up on a Sunday meant it was time to get spruced up for church / heat up the oven for a chicken / prepare (last minute) for whichever activity I'd volunteered to run.
Since I have stopped going to church, Sundays have come into my week like new gifts. At first, a novice at this new-found freedom, I treated them a bit like Saturdays: days to catch up on work and chores or to rush around seeing friends. These days, I've put myself under a new commandment - that is, to Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it wholly devoted to bike rides, walks, writing poetry, eating simply cooked food and lounging around watching films. I find this to be an entirely satisfactory means of recreation.
Thursday, 15 November 2018
I Comfort Myself
Forms of comfort are required on a day for needing comfort - a day of resignations, resignation and a sense of toppling into need. I've been holding out, but today, on the way home, the need for fish pie, peas and a good glass of Chenin Blanc came over me like a retreat.
Brexit is in the air like the smell of broken drains, lingers above and around other chaos, and I care about this and about the people who are unwell - so many loves - and I am wanting to go back to my head in my European mother's lap, to lying down on the sofa with my head in her lap whilst she strokes my hair.
Back to the child in me, then - and I need to be held whilst the world rocks, burns, plays with fire and what it does not understand. My mother is dead and Europe is breaking. And meanwhile a girl that I know is thought to be beyond rescue.
Oh but what can I do to save this! Nothing. Not one thing. And I have tried - eeking myself out across weeks, marching on Parliament like I could make a difference and rocking up each day to an office growing slowly unfinished.
Don't look for sense here. I've eaten it already - fish pie, peas and a good glass of Chenin Blanc, then a bath up to its bubbles and my warm bed.
Brexit is in the air like the smell of broken drains, lingers above and around other chaos, and I care about this and about the people who are unwell - so many loves - and I am wanting to go back to my head in my European mother's lap, to lying down on the sofa with my head in her lap whilst she strokes my hair.
Back to the child in me, then - and I need to be held whilst the world rocks, burns, plays with fire and what it does not understand. My mother is dead and Europe is breaking. And meanwhile a girl that I know is thought to be beyond rescue.
Oh but what can I do to save this! Nothing. Not one thing. And I have tried - eeking myself out across weeks, marching on Parliament like I could make a difference and rocking up each day to an office growing slowly unfinished.
Don't look for sense here. I've eaten it already - fish pie, peas and a good glass of Chenin Blanc, then a bath up to its bubbles and my warm bed.
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