Thoughts and Observations

I do not want your sympathy and I most definitely do not want your anger, so please just spare a few moments to listen to my story. My tale probably is similar to that of many others. In these difficult times, I feel for those who are ill, or lonely or have had friends or relatives die. Unlike those poor souls, who deserve and need our sympathy, patience, understanding and if possible, a kindly action; my story is like the mayfly here one day and gone the next. All I ask is that you read my story and then ponder a while upon my fate.

It is not that I am lazy, far from it. I may be retired now, but like Chesterton’s Donkey I have had my hour “One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet”. No palms beneath my feet, but plenty of shouts as I was a teacher for well over 30 years and in that job just to survive one cannot afford to be lazy. I was not lazy, I was just selective. I should make it clear, right from the start that my partner (who is an avid reader of this illustrious publication), is as near a perfect human as one could hope to meet. So, all blame is on my shoulders, but for years, the perfectly reasonable requests of “can you do this”; “we need that done now”; “you have made a mess everywhere” have, up to now, been easily ignored. These here, there and everywhere statements have been consistently foiled and put to one side with “of course dear when I have time” and a sharp exit in the opposite direction. As I have said, I am not lazy, just selective and just as physical exercise is important for health so is emotional exercise. I like to think that I am encouraging my partner to exercise her patience.

We are now both, like many millions of people, confined to the same four walls. My sublime partner has risen to the challenge, but worryingly this challenge has caused her to change and not for the better! She has now total recall of every request, suggestion or idea made over many years that would have required me to do something. How times have changed as she keeps reminding me, we now have all the time we need, to get all those little jobs done. I can no longer delay, prevaricate, hedge, fence, shilly-shally, shuffle, or dodge the question. I cannot even walk off in the other direction without walking into a wall. I cannot say “yes dear when I have thought up a good excuse for not doing what you want, I will get around to thinking about when I will do it”. I have a strong sense of survival and she must not be toyed with, the list is long, so I see dark days lie ahead. The garden will get done my dear, the spare room will be painted my precious, the car will be washed light of my life. I grasp the list to my chest and think of A. E. Housman’s wonderfully prophetic poem “How Clear. How Lovely Bright” in which the second verse begins with the promise “to-day I shall be strong, No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more;”, but ends like all my days with “Falls the remorseful day”.

There is a character in Orpheus Descending a play by Tennessee Williams who says, “We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life”. I know that there will be readers of this article who are not only confined inside their own skins but are solitary in their own house. If you know of anyone like that, please call, message, facetime, Skype or Zoom even if it is just to say hello. I am sure I am not alone in my belief that they would welcome the excuse to stop what they are doing and defer it to a later date, and I am sure that you would welcome the same opportunity as well.

Yours anon,

A. Mouse