Road Ahead Closed

Started out as an ordinary day, that is until the bus driver, as we do, you know it, refused to believe the 'Road Ahead Closed' sign and had to resort to a problematic three-point-turn in a busy but narrow high street. People on the bus immediately became best buddies, and began talking to each other, offering words of consolation and advice to the bus driver who was rapidly  coming to terms with what had all the makings of a very bad day.

I use the bus on principle. The first principle being that it's free because I was lucky enough to be born in 1950, the second, it's good for me and the environment because I get to walk a bit and the atmosphere is spared 20 minutes of toxic emissions. We are both chuffed. 

The walk through Gloucester from Worcester Street, past  the Cross, up Eastgate St to the Salvation Army Citadel was troubling. I counted five rough sleepers. I can't remember a time when the problem was so visible. 

I stayed at the SA long enough to make sandwiches, get the tea table set up and prepare the helpers' lunch. I'm easing back in slowly, after a granny break. Usually I stay to serve the tea and reconnect with the people who need a meal they don't need to pay for, or haven't the facilities to cook themselves. Next week, perhaps. 

I read the New Scientist on the bus home.  I don't read newspapers any more, because I am too old to find other people's opinions and celebrity gossip other than tiresome. It would help if I followed football, but I don't, so it's New Scientist for me. Excellent article on why Americans don't listen to one another any more, and a study of small scale projects here and there working to pull people back together. (It IS possible) This is more interesting to me than bad stats and worse commentary on why the President-Elect managed a win on a platform of, "I know nothing about how to run the country, and I'm gonna get rid of those that do ... " I am awash with anticipation as to how THAT'S going to work. 

Rest assured American readers, I am not picking on your country.  I am at least as cynical about politics here in the UK, only more so, because I have to live here. 

The walk up the hill from the bus stop took me last an amazing burning bush. I stopped to drink in the beauty of the Autumn colours, I picked some leaves to play with when I got home. There will be pictures. 

Now the day draws to a close. I have gazed at the Supermoon, watched Planet Earth ll on my iPad, and, in the bath, listened to Garrison Keiller's 'Writer's Almanac'. It's a treasure, people: a daily reminder of everything I love about the USA.  It's here:

Check out this cool episode: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/writers-almanac-garrison-keillorthe/id136642066?mt=2&i=377815749

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch. 

Goodnight. 

I made a collage under glass for my dressing table:

Poppy Day

We always called it Poppy Day. My earliest memories are of grainy black and white TV pictures of hundreds of veterans marching to the Cenaph. The pictures changed from greyscale to HD and the veterans grew old, no longer marched, but were pushed in wheelchairs, and finally the British Expeditionary Force faded away ...

 

My Aunty's lodger was called Poppy ... He had been gassed in WW1, invalided out, and was too old to fight in WW2. He was billeted on Aunty: an evacuee from the blitz in London. He never returned home.

 

He was part of my childhood, he died when I was ten. I loved him, I mourned him. I never questioned him. I wished I had, but I was too young to ask. He was the first person I loved to die.

 

He never spoke of it. . The trenches, the shelling, the gas attack that bought him his passage home to Blighty, Not a word. I know only from the testimony of others.

 

My Aunty. She was a young and very beautiful widow during the war. I have only whispers of her conquests, but I know of her one true love. His name was Bill, he was in the parachute regiment. They were to marry, but he was killed. I don't think Aunty would have mentioned him, except for a peculiar piece of my own history.

 

Years after the war, I was about to marry a fellow student. It was 1971, we were young and in love, and of the options on offer, we chose the quirky one:we decided to get married. We had NO money, but I had a reasonable grant that bought the Paisley mini-dress from Marks and Spencer's, my husband-to-be borrowed the license money from my brother Adrian, and we were going to buy 7/6d brass circlet from Woolworth to do us for the wedding ring.

 

Before the big day, Aunty took me to one side and told me a story about a young airman whom she had loved, and whom she was going to marry the next time he was home on leave. But he never came home. He was killed in action. They had a ring ... Aunty gave me that ring, and Bill's 'wings'.

 

Both are dead now. Aunty never remarried, and I often wondered why. I do not know Bill's other name, but today, as I look down to the third finger on my left hand, I remember him.

 

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Michael

It's rewarding work, turning up at the Mission, serving food to vulnerable adults who don't mind listening to a few minutes of religion in exchange for a sausage roll, a bowl of soup, and some nice people to talk to for an hour or so.

 

I am full of existential guilt about it, because doing good makes me feel good, but I am reconciled to this since learning (EdX course 'Science of Happiness') that we are genetically programmed this way, and it helps species survival rates. So that's OK then.

 

It was my turn to give the talk. It's a tough gig. Most of the audience are appreciative, but I am very ambivalent about doing it. Anyway, I said I would, so I did.

 

Unfortunately, I spoke without notes, and close to the beginning of my 'put your trust not in men' homily, I accidentally called the President-Elect of the United States of America a narcissistic sociopath.

 

Michael got up and quietly informed me that if I was going to talk about Trump he was leaving. I kinda got the hint, and also the strong feeling that calling ANYONE a narcissistic sociopath wasn't exactly Christlike, so I rowed back and galloped to the finish, sitting down absolutely determined never, ever, to do the talk again.

 

Michael hadn't left, but I could see he was upset so I went over to him and let him tell me what a hypocrite I am ( I am, I am, it's true.) and then to give me his reasons for supporting Trump. I listened and I listened good.

 

Trump offers hope to people like him. Michael feels his voice is finally being heard. After I sincerely apologised for upsetting him, we had a real conversation. At the end of it I was both enlightened and chastened.

 

Michael was given up for adoption at birth, but his mother changed her mind, and struggled on for two years before giving him up for good. A string of foster homes followed, then a boarding school. Then prison ...

 

Michael, in his forties, is good-looking, and intelligent. As his story unfolded I offer up absolute respect for him: for having a completely shit life and not being totally crushed by it.

 

Yes, Michael gets that mysogyny and the racism don't look good, but he believes that's media hype, " The media lies. He's a good man with a family who wants to change the way the world is run ... "

 

Michael is sitting in a room with some very unhappy people with a food voucher in his hand looking for a job that's being done by someone in China and he wants the world to change in a way that would give him a life more like mine.

 

I wouldn't vote for Donald Trump in a million years, but after my conversation with Michael, I understand why people did.

 

I don't think my little homilies ever achieve much, and I sweat blood over them, but today mine achieved something. I made a monumental error of judgement, but as a result, I made a real connection with a young man whose opinions I really needed to hear.

 

 

 

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Staying Up Late!

Following the US Presidential election. I'm not going to alienate anyone by expressing a preference for a candidate: I am just going to enjoy the buzz of watching democracy in action!