ON AND OFF THE CURB
AI, social media, fake news, Ukraine, climate change, PutinTrumpJohnsonErdogan, (to name but a few) Brexit, cost of living, homelessness, Covid corporate greed, political corruption, racism misogeny, Oh, the noise, the anxiety, the sense of helplessness, nay, hopelessness, the sunlight coming in the window warming my shoulder, dazzling the page, the shiver of the birch tree in a sudden gust of wind, neighbours’ children shrieking with joy, the kindness of strangers, babies, the perfume of lilac carried on a breeze, roses everywhere, the half-moon full of promise, somewhere the sea laps the shore, buttercups uplift, enough bird-life remains to fill an evening with plaintive song, oh, the glory.
A couple of decades ago, for 6 years, I studied the 50/50 nature of reality. It gets me through. When I find myself alone on the see-saw I get off.
Years ago, age 10, my mother marched me to school in spite of my being ill. She needed me to earn the certificate that would state I was a good student, punctual and never absent. The poor woman needed that certificate to prove that she’d done a good job with her adopted illegitimate daughter. Fearful that I would turn out like my blood mother, she was forever on the lookout for wickedness.
How easy it is, for all of us, in this seemingly out of control era to be on the lookout for danger, for the negative, as if to see it before it arrives, we might not be damaged by it. And so, we go to the constant feed; the screen, the scroll, damaging ourselves before “they” or “it” does it to us first.
The day my mother marched me off to school I became so ill I sat on the curb. She yanked me up and marched me on, so great was her need for that certificate. I got it. But the damage was done. Until recently, whenever I felt ill, or tired, I’d yank myself off the curb and march on in order to prove I was a good girl.
Interesting word, curb.
I don’t sit there any more, there are other options:
Bed, the sofa, a beach, a bench, the grassy slope,
Once in a while my husband’s lap.
And the chair, by the window,
The sun on my shoulder.
With love
Maggie
