As Mary ate her Weetabix, she felt a pain in her left leg rather like a toothache gone astray
Emile, what are you doing?
Emile crawled out looking dusty. And he had just had a bath.
I was trying to bite the hairs off your leg, he miaowed plaintively
There are no hairs on my leg, she whispered. Oh, dear,I must have walked into a cobweb
I wish Stan had got a cobweb brush, she muttered tp herself
But do we really need a different brush for everything? Soon we will have one for each tooth. That will be expensive
She felt in her pocket for her Tablet. She wanted to draw a diagram of her brush cupboard using an Android App. But her pocket was empty
The back door opened and in ran Annie wearing a yellow nightdress and matching slippers
Hello, she cried. I wanted to catch you before 9 am
Why, asked Mary?
The postman will be here by then. He has got a parcel for me. But I put your address.
What is the point of secrecy when you live alone? You have no man to question your expenses, have you? Nor a woman either
Well, Emile might ask me to explain.
Just because Emile is male it does not give him the right to tell you what to do
All my life I have obeyed men, Annie cried
Yes, after you have manipulated, seduced and terrified them
That is very cruel. I was only trying to help them.
Well, you may have done, but why not help yourself?
How can I do that?
Tune into your body and see what comes to mind
Beetroot, Annie responded.
So you must need them, get dressed and we will go to the greengrocers
You have got very bossy, said Annie. Did you have a nightmare?
It was more like a night-tiger, Mary revealed. Something bit my foot and it hurt
Oh, mother , cried Emile, it was me!
You, Emile. What made you do that, she said angrily?
It was in my way as I crawled under the duvet, the cat whispered.
Surely you could have gone further down.
I wanted to see what you tasted like!
That is evil, not to say perverted, Mary told him. I shall take you for therapy or would Confession be better? Is it a compulsion you cannot help or is it a sin?
Annie was silent. She did not like questions nor any kind of prolonged thought
Don’t ask me, she finally said. Maybe Emile needs a man in the house.
I don’t want any more men, Mary said sadly. They seem to die
Well, Stan was 128 years old. Annie informed her.I saw his birth certificate once. Unless it was 12.8 years
Don’t be so ridiculous. How could he have been 12.8 years old?
It must be a miracle, said Annie. Tell the Pope and he might be declared a saint soon
St Stan of Knittingham, Patron Saint of Almost Adolescents.
The bell rang. In ran Dave.
He was dressed in navy.
I am ready to take you to Church, he told the ladies
To church? I’d rather go to Wigan Pier
Oh, the sea is not there on Sundays!
Is it there on the Sabbath, Annie muttered?
No, it’s not, Dave said quietly
Wow, two more miracles, she said as she fainted into the Pantry
How annoying, Mary said. I just classified the jam
Well, things could be worse, said Dave. She’s not broken any and cut herself
What, she falls and breaks nothing. She must be very light.
Yes, she is quite electric, he quipped
Whatever next? The marmalade!
And so ask all of us
I have walked the silent paths of grief Sunless,dreary,cold and all alone.
I have slept on beds of winter leaves.
I know that death’s a greedy starving thief. Although my heart weeps and my joy has gone. I have never felt I was deceived.
I have learned that human life is brief. I have learned by sorrow we’re undone. I have sifted earth and what’s beneath.
I have felt the dark emotions seethe I’ve felt cruelly burned by glaring sun. I have learned the geography of grief.
I wait in sorrow for this life to cease Yet some are never loved by anyone I have dreamed in beds of winter leaves
Unconsoled grief can make us dumb Into our hearts, we drag the ice that numbs I have walked the silent paths of grief I have made my bed on winter leaves
If everything is relative and nothing’s true or false We can’t make distinctions, the world does not exist Meaning leaks out faster than a a list of all our faults
The patient is unconscious but he/she has a pulse Waiting for the Coming of the Saviour or the Beast But everything is relative and nothing’s true or false
We think existential problems will be solved by someone else In the Vomitorium the leaders have their Feast Meaning leaks out faster by decision or default
The Leader’s being neutered;the people get more tense Then s/he went to Downing Street to get themself more pissed Drunkenness is relative ; the reading’s not the best
There is still a Dictionary; the words do not make sense We fall into chaos but we don’t know Them we’ve missed Meaning leaks out faster as we do not love pretence
I went to have my Orals,but they asked me to desist Every system’s incomplete,I wrote it on my wrist If everything is relative and nothing’s true or false Meaning has no meaning; what will we all do next?
Cheerful readiness to do something [ plus ditto to feel or be something]
Thinking about the significance of “willingness” , it comes to my mind that if we are asked to do something pleasurable we will not need urging.We will easily be willing unless we are masochists are have pressing needs that cannot wait.
So what is the significance of “willingness” when it relates to something unpleasant or painful we must do?
I can imagine one scene where I ask someone to do a small task for me and though they are busy they are “more than willing” knowing my circumstances.But I ask a different person and though they agree there is a grudging quality about their doing what I ask.
Tn the first case we all feel joy when we know someone will go out of their way to help us and in the second we feel uneasy about asking that person and neither side gains much from the transaction.
Now turn inwards and imagine that you wake up feeling in poor spirits and moreover you do not like this.That is, you are unwilling to feel the way you do.
In my experience being unwilling in that way makes the spirits worse. We have secondary anger or depression about our state which can only make it worse.
Now think of the term “acceptance”.We can easily imagine that if we can accept a situation we can deal with it better.So a wife who finds her husband’s hobby is studying maths in the evening is going to have a problem if she believed they would spend every evening chatting together.
The husband too has a problem that he may not have foreseen when he was madly in love.He has to work out how much time he needs alone with his abstractions or whether it is an excuse not to engage with his wife.
The wife who finds her husband genuinely needs to study for long hours or he is unhappy will have to consider whether she can accept this as a way of life or whether she should seek a better partner because nowadays women want to have their needs met too,
If she accepts it and adapts then she may be happy.A problem arises if she keeps up a war with her husband, criticizing and blaming him for his needs.I might say she can’t force him to talk to her as what value does it have when it is not spontaneous?
If people have good will towards each other then they can find a way of living and respecting the other.
If we have good will towards ourselves then we can accept and live with parts of ourself we do not like or parts which cause us suffering yet which cannot be changed and must be lived with.
If we don’t have good will towards ourselves then life is much harder as we attack ourselves with criticism and deprivation of love.
I think willingness or good will is crucially important in human life though no doubt I frequently forget it! Ill will directed anywhere outside or inside harms both parties or splits the self and causes deeper problems.
Of course, it is hard to be willing to suffer painful emotions but what choice do we have? Only to find the best way or at least
“to be willing to be willing”
as I describe it to myself.
Is willingness a virtue or a decision? Or an impossibility for some of us?
A study suggests that taking time to contemplate aesthetically pleasing art can boost abstract thinking and help free us from everyday anxieties. More specifically, it appeared to induce what is known…as psychological distancing, a kind of stepping back from your own thoughts, allowing for greater clarity and a healthier perspective.
How my heart sings 