Mary was feeling very bad tempered.Wearing her good brown coat without its fake fur collar she had ventured into Waterbones Bookshop.Putting her crutch against the wall she sat down on a small metal folding chair for a few minutes., pondering whether to buy a book for £20 or to go into Boots and buy some foundation cream and pink nail varnish
Suddenly a young woman approached and said in a strangely peremptory manner
If you want to sit down, you will have to go upstairsâl
I can’t get up the stairs Mary told her truthfully.You have no lift
Well, you are next to the Crime Section, it is very popular
There’s nobody here right now.So if people come I shall have left
No,get up cried the assistant
As the woman seemed unable to leave her alone, Mary left the shop.She decided to use Amazon.
So much for protecting her High Street!
As she approached her home. a neighbour came by and said a very offensive few sentences.Maybe she had an aversion to women
In the evening Mary received a text
I realise I offended you.I was in a hurry.Apologies.
After a few days Mary replied
I am sorry I could not stay to allow you to insult me further.I am in severe pain when standing still.If you wish to verbally attack me or insult me please invite me to your house and let me sit down .Then you can ring 999 and ask for Dave.
Later on Dave the transexual,transvestite and transforming paramedic ran in with a chocolate cake in his hand.He wore his denim dress with a yellow pinny decorated with embroidered ladybirds and some pink velvet shoes he had just got in the Market
Would you like me to make you a cup of tea,Mary? Where’s Annie? Dave said anxiously
Annie is down in Brighton for the weekend.She wants to see the sea,Mary lied
What’s wrong with Sheringham? Dave asked thoughtlessly?
She liked the shops in the Brighton.She likes to wander aimlessly about the lanes bumping into men now and then,Mary cried ironically
She could be arrested and imprisoned,Dave said untherapeutilcally
The men don’t seem to mind! Mary muttered loudly with envy on her voicel
You look pale,Mary,Dave whispered into her ear.Are you ok?
No , she murmured.Why are people so cruel to me?
Why not hit one with your stick, he suggested brilliantly
I am a pacifist and anyway they might hit me, back she thought out loud
How about :The gentle art of verbal self defence? I saw you read it/
I’d rather kick them, she answered pointedly
Now I have an idea,said Dave.I’ll put a suit on and accompany you out to the town
I can’t believe I need a “man” to protect me, she said in a low voice
But I am not a “man”, he cried desperately
Are you ” other” she queried
I am all and nothing, he said in a puzzled tone.
Are you God? she said in a sudden panic
Not yet, he cried.It’s Emile who is to be the New Messiah
No, mewed Emile.I am still not fully converted to Judaism.It is complex.
Well, get a move on.We can’t keep living the way we are,Mary sighed
Would you like to walk on water in this weather, the cat answered . Many are called and a few are frozen, he continued philosophically.
It would make a change, from the Gaza protests, Dave cried
I wish the PM would try it,Mary giggled fervently.Would her leopard skin shoes get wet?
We will never know.She’s into ankle boots now.
Next it will be knee high boots
Heil Theresa…..
Heil Boris
Who’d have Brexited that?
Send us peace in our rhymes,Lord

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13818697-200-mind-body-modes-of-mind-what-have-small-children-playing-with-dolls-in-as-edinburgh-nursery-got-to-do-with-buddhism-one-psychologist-says-she-has-found-a-link/

Extract

She concludes that there are indeed advanced modes of development for
the emotions. Since these emotions are deeply significant for the people
who experience them, she calls them ‘value-sensing’. She identifies a ‘value-sensing
construct mode’, which is the realm of the arts and of religious myth and
ritual, and mirrors the intellectual construct mode with its scientific
thought. And then there is a ‘value-sensing transcendent mode’ which is
the realm of spiritual experience, and mirrors the intellectual transcendent
mode with its mathematics.

She describes these modes as ‘advanced in the developmental sense, in
that you can’t get them in the early stages of living. They are also perhaps
advanced in another sense, in that they have to be cultivated more than
the early ones. There may be flashes of either emotional or intellectual
insight, but to cultivate them you have to be systematic and disciplined
and you rely more heavily on teaching.’

Her ideal is to be able to move from one mode to another at will. We
may choose to think logically about a problem, for example, when that is
useful to us. In the same way, it can be useful to have transcendent emotional
experiences. ‘They put our personal goals into some sort of perspective.
By being more aware of our emotions and valuing them more, we might live
more happily and society might work better.’

She concludes by speculating on the possibility of a ‘dual enlightenment’
in which intellect and emotion are equally valued. If that happens, ‘we
may come to feel less embarrassed about and suspicious of transcendent emotion,
seeing it as no more ‘weird’ than the capacity for mathematical thought’.
Each of these, she says, is ‘a normal, though generally ill-developed, power
of the human mind’.