The weight of those who’ve gone  pulls at my heart

They have wound me with their ropes so they can tug

And as I stumble through this world’s sick fog

I wonder how long we will be apart.

Should I cut the ropes that bind me hard?

Must I be sister cruel to those who’ve died?

They won’t want to know how much I’ve cried

Should I walk away from all we shared?

In the early morning, in the night.

I lie alone too long before the dawn.

Weeping at the moon . oh broken heart.

The images of loved ones hurt my sight.

But I must cut the ropes and venture on. 

Weep no more for all the ones who’ve gone

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/may/12/money-pervades-everything-the-psychotherapist-delving-into-our-deep-anxiety-about-finances?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://prowritingaid.com/Irony

From… The Cambridge Handbook of irony

The nineteenth-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once famously wrote, “no genuinely human life is possible without irony” (Kierkegaard, 1992: 326). Irony may automatically arise in our thoughts and language for many personal and social reasons. As the philosopher Jonathan Lear also observed, irony “opens up opportunities to pierce illusions.”1 One of the main benefits of ironic thinking and expression in both verbal and nonverbal contexts is its capacity to “shake things up,” or to open people to disruption

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/04/i-can-say-things-other-people-are-afraid-to-margaret-atwood-on-censorship-literary-feuds-and-trump?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/18/meet-author-ruth-rendell-wexford

http://www.georgeatwood.com/the-madness-and-genius-of-post-cartesian-philosophy-1—a-distant-mirror.html#:~:text=A%20truly%20post%2DCartesian%20theory,premises%20and%20their%20psychological%20foundations.

On a personal level, Wittgenstein’s philosophical efforts reflect a struggle to disentangle his identity from the confusing, mystifying language of his original family.  He had been brainwashed, so to speak, under the usurping pressure of his father’s self-centered universe.  Hermann Wittgenstein was an epistemological tyrant, defining reality for all those who sought to be connected to him.  This philosopher’s thinking, therefore, can be viewed as a self-deprogramming enterprise, ultimately directed toward the possibility of liberating himself from the paternal agenda and claiming his own place in this world.

     Wittgenstein’s first book, the only one published during his lifetime, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921/2001), is an effort to clarify the relationship between the words of our language and what he called the “states of affairs” appearing in the world we perceive.   Two specific assertion appear in this book, ones we believe are charged with personal significance:

 “There is no such thing as the subject…”

“ The subject does not belong to the world…” (1922, p. 69)

   On a philosophical level, this reminds us that we ought not to objectify the first person singular: the ‘I’ is not an item in the world.  We are being told that the experiencing subject is not a content of the world we perceive; it is instead what he spoke of as a ‘limit’ of this world, a standpoint from which what we call “world” and all its contents appear.

     If we lift the statements out of their ordinary philosophical context, and think about the personal, life-historical meaning they might contain, an epistemological rebellion on Wittgenstein’s part appears, one mounted against the powerful father who tried to be the all-defining director of his son’s existence.    The son is saying:

 “’I’ am not a thing belonging to your world, not anything anyone can define or control.  My being lies outside the insanity of your self-absorption.  Above all, know this: ‘I’ am not an item in the inventory of your possessions, to be made use of as you please!”

     The pull of the father’s usurping authority, though, must have continued to be very strong, presenting an ever-present danger of falling back under his control and becoming once again the obedient extension of an irresistible will.  This is not just a matter of a child fighting back against a parent who is strict and controlling.  Wittgenstein’s separating himself from his father was a matter of rescuing his very being as someone independently real.   A crisis occurred in his young life in which he saw that continuing to walk on the road laid out for him by his father would be to become permanently itemized on the list of his father’s many possessions.   It would be to embrace annihilation.

     A sign of the felt danger of returning to the obliterating conformity of his youth appears in a feature of Wittgenstein’s life that his biographers have noted but not fully understood.  It was his incapacity to dissimulate, to lie, to conceal the truth because of the claim of whatever circumstance he was in.  If he did move toward some concealment, which happened exceedingly rarely, he was thrown into a crisis of wanting to immediately kill himself.    Our understanding of this inability to lie is that presenting anything other than what he felt and knew to be true posed the danger of a re-engulfment by the falseness of an identity based on the need to be accepted rather than on his own spontaneous intentionality and authenticity.   If the only possibility was that of a false life, then his only option would have been death.  

     The philosopher enforced his emancipation from enslavement by cutting off relations with his father, and he refused even to accept his very substantial inheritance after the father finally died.  Wittgenstein saw taking the money as sacrificing a very precarious sense of personal existence.  The heart and soul of this man’s madness lies in the danger of annihilation that haunted him throughout his life.  His philosophy we can thus view as a search for an answer to this ontological vulnerability. 

     His writings, for the most part, consist in aphoristic meditations focusing on language.   He gives us trains of thought that attempt to expose various confusions into which we fall, arguing that many – perhaps all – of the classic problems of philosophy arise as secondary manifestations of these linguistic confusions.   Wittgenstein engages himself, and his readers, in dialogues subjecting specific examples of how we speak and think to relentless reflection and analysis.  In the process of these conversations, a profound critique of the whole Cartesian tradition emerges, a dismantling of metaphysical conceptions and distinctions that otherwise enwrap our thinking and imprison us within structures of unconscious confusion.  Central in this transforming inquiry are understandings of human existence in terms of ‘mind,’ seen as a ‘thinking thing,’ an actual entity with an inside that looks out on a world from which it is essentially estranged.   Such an idea, once posited, leads inexorably to a dualism: one begins to wonder how the entity ‘mind’ strangely, mysteriously connects to another entity, ‘body.’  He makes compelling arguments that specific linguistic confusions based on the human tendency to turn nouns into substantives lie at the root of such otherwise unfounded ideas.  In Wittgenstein’s universe, there are no ‘minds’ that have interiors, no intrapsychic spaces in which ideas and feelings float about in some “queer medium,” no mysteries we need to be fascinated by regarding how the mental entity and its supposed contents relate to the physical object we call the body.  Longstanding traditions in metaphysics are accordingly undercut and the terrain of philosophy is opened up to new and clarifying ways of exploring our existence. Well-known arguments against the coherence of solipsism as a philosophical position and also against the possibility of an individual ‘private language’ definitively refute the idea that it makes any sense to think of a human life in terms of an isolated ‘I,’ or ego.   He was a post-Cartesian philosopher par excellence.

     Wittgenstein sometimes viewed his scrutinizing of our linguistic expressions and associated patterns of thought as a form of ‘therapy,’ performed upon philosophy and society.   It is our view that this therapy he offered to our civilization mirrored precisely the personal effort described earlier, in which his life goal was to free himself from the entangling confusions, invalidations, and annihilations pervading the family system of his youth.   In this respect he succeeded in connecting uniquely personal issues to important currents and needs of the larger culture.  His philosophical journey therefore allowed him to find a meaning for his life beyond the narrow orbit of his father’s deadly narcissism and helped him avoid the tragic fate of his brothers.

     Let us turn now to one of Wittgenstein’s (1953) most important specific ideas: that of a so-called language game.   It is an elusive term that he never formally defined in his various dialogues, so one has to note how he used it in various contexts and extract a meaning.   Of course one of his most well-known formulations is that “the meaning is the use,” and exists nowhere else, which is a distinctively post-Cartesian view of semantics.

     We think of a Wittgensteinian language game as a set of words and phrases, along with their customary usages, that form a quasi-organic system, such that when one uses one or two elements in the system one is catapulted into the whole, subject to its implicit rules, in some respects trapped within its horizons of possible discourse.   The German word for this is Sprachspiel, and the word obviously derives from spielen: to play.  A language game, in whatever sphere of our lives it becomes manifest, encloses us within a finite system of elements and possibilities, and subjects us to rules we knowingly or unknowingly tend to follow.  Such a structure literally “plays” with our minds, shaping and directing our experiences according to preformed pathways and constraining them within pre-established boundaries.  Wittgenstein wanted us to become aware of these systems in which we are all embedded, and this would be part of his therapy for our whole culture.  The goal is one of ushering in a greater clarity about what we think and who and what we are, illuminating what he spoke of as our “complicated form of life.”

     The primal language game of this man’s personal history was the communication system in his early family, which designated his existence – and those of his doomed brothers – as playthings, almost like chess pieces belonging to the father’s controlling agendas and properties.  A clear perception of the mystifications and usurping invalidations of his early family world would obviously be of assistance in this man’s attempts to find his own way.   He tried mightily in his philosophical reflections to release his discipline and the world at large from its “bewitchment” by language, even as he was able to free himself only very tenuously from the spell cast by his father.

 Kierkegaard, S. (1834-1842) The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard. Excerpted in Bretall, R. (Ed.) A Kierkegaard Anthology, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1946.

 Wittgenstein, L. (1922) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London and New York: Routledge, 1974.

 Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. New York: Macmillan

There always were many places where you were not.

Now there are more.

But in the places where you were not

I knew that you were somewhere.

But now you are nowhere except in our minds.

And the world seems more empty to me

Without the familiar the beloved the long known

The whole world seems empty of you.

But maybe in the walled garden

I could catch you near the azaleas

Hear you singing in the distance

See you along slender body run to hide from me

But would I see your face?

Why have you abandoned me?

Why do you run from me and hi behind these old walls,?

Yes you are not here but I sense you from the corner of my eye I see you moving away running..

You’re a child again playing with me.

I almost hear you laugh now you are free of all your burdens and the pain.Ii may be happy for you leaving you in the world garden with the old bricks in the wall and the benches by the rosebed.

I see a shimmering light maybe it’s migraine

But I think it might be you teasing me.

Now the world is empty of you yet I’m still here.

You should be there or there or there but you are not.

You have gone

Don’t pull me under the water with you  now

Don’t take me to the cavern of the drowned

There’s too many down there already don’t you think?

All pulling on the rope around me wound.

Don’t pull me under the water with you yet.

I’m not ready for another world today

But yes I feel the force of all those hands

And by this family yearning I’m beset

Don’t pull me under the water with you all

Leave me here alone I’m still alive.

Take your hands away from me at once

I don’t want to swim with you much less to dive.

Don’t keep pulling at me all the night and day.

There’s one more act in this my last,my final  play

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-reasons-why-receiving-harder-than-giving-karen-eley-fbyoc#:~:text=People%20with%20a%20low%20sense,deserve%20such%20gestures%20of%20kindness.

You stabbed my heart when I was left alone
Telling me my writing was like porn
Now you give me nightmares,  be my pest
We all need one or two,and  you confessed

My writing is so  bad, you  envy not
Did I hit you  on a painful spot?
If others have a gift, that is their call
You have yours , get out a net and trawl

Ambivalent  in love which turns to hate
We wound ourselves in making this our fate
Talking  overmuch lets such thoughts out
As tea will  pour down from a  tilted spout

The ancient virtues,patience and restraint
Shall be our wise protectors when distraught

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/humor-and-poetry

Extract:

In 1993, I took a left turn one day out of my MFA program and found myself at the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco. There I discovered several poets who were funny for the sake of being funny. Particularly Hal Sirowitz from New York (“don’t stick your arm out the window, mother said” and Matt Cook from Milwaukee (“it was easy to write the Great American Novel, back when there were only five American novels”) Both poets initially delighted me and confounded me: There are no similes, a voice in my head said. What would Tom Lux (my first teacher) say? the voice continued. Despite my resistance, I believe those poets gave me a kind of permission to explore humor a little more vigorously in my second book, The Forgiveness Parade (1998), for “I thought the word loin and the word lion were the same thing. I thought celibate was a kind of fish”. Perhaps in that book there were places where I was too vigorous in my pursuit: looking back there are a few poems that are just a little too jokey somehow, a little one-dimensional.

I am becoming aware of how some humor can set a roadblock for the poetic speaker, making it impossible for the speaker to get back to a serious place. And how some other (less frequent) uses of humor can leave that door open. I want to leave that door open

Mary was reading a very interesting blog called London postcode by postcode They had reached London N9 and she had got rather bogged down there even though she had not fallen into the Marshes around the River Lea where once the Danes had sailed as Invaders. They would find it very hard to invade us now as the River Lea seems to have shrunk
So lyrical, there are parks and green space,s dirt and mud. Wright’s flour Mill in Ponders End and possibly a lot of illegal immigrants eating Canada geese according to folk myth and racist’ ideas.Canada geese do tend to breed rather excessively and anyway, why are they here in Britain without visas

Mary discovered that her favourite poets John Keats had been apprenticed to a doctor in Edmonton and here is the house where he stayed.There is also a house where Charles and Mary Lamb lived for many years; they are buried in the church graveyard nearby.The church is 15th century and is rather beautiful. there was a hero from World War II who lives in one of these quiet streets in a white painted suburban house.
His name was Charles Coward and he managed to rescue 400 Jewish prisoners from Auschwitz ;his name is on a memorial in Israel. there’s even a film about him with Dirk Bogarde it is called “The password is courage”
in this quiet little Street he lived for many years until he died at the age of 71
We never know who might have been living in our street or the next street. people who had done a very courageous things but had never boasted about them
Mary was so busy trying to read this blog and put away the groceries from Morrisons not to mention other household tasks that the day seemed to go by very quickly
How alluring Mary was looking in her pale turquoise and grey wool skirt topped by a turquoise roll neck top from Lands End and with that a rather shrunken jumper in cream with brown dots on it whether it was an accident or deliberate we will never know.On her elegant slim legs she wore some warm black tights and cream shoes
Mary was dressed up like this at home yet went out on Saturday evening wearing an old motheaten jumpe to meet some of the wealthy and members of our parish ;what’s the total mystery is this:did Mary want to look poor and downtrodden or was she was trying to signal her unavailability to be the wife of any men at the meeting only Mary knows. As a matter of fact even Mary doesn’t know. this is why life is so hard because we don’t know how our own motivations
Mary has spent several hours looking for a SIM card for a mobile phone which she never used and did not need and yet could not stop looking for it; however during this process she found that her gnt spray for Atypical Angina was 6 months out of date. so she had to ring the surgery and speak to the doctor Who quickly emailed the note to the pharmacist telling them that this was an emergency that Mary must have the spray as soon as possible or she might have a heart attack .Why Mary might even die like Jesus Christ, not for the same reasons as Jesus Christ and he was probably too young to have got this migraine of the heart as the most poetic language might name it
Mary herself had never known that she had it until one morning she had a terrible pain in her chest and was unable to speak.then she was whizzed off to the hospital to have all sorts of tests and her heart was totally alright except for this symptom which stops the blood from flowing into the heart
Mary went into the kitchen and took some things out of the washing machine wondering where God meant us to dry our washing in winter
When human beings were first created they did not need to wear clothes because they lived in the Garden of Eden surrounded by fruit trees and flowers. it was only after they fell into sin by eating a tomato that they became aware that they were naked and decided to knit themselves jumpers and trousers
Did you know it can be a long time before we learn to knit or, as needles had not yet been invented [come to that neither had wool]. Of course they did not have polyester or nylon or plastic. they did not have gas central heating. yes they were very happy bearing their beautiful family and eventually killing each other when they were not busy procreating .So the world has continued right up till now .We still knit jumpers and sometimes we kill other people because they do not worship the same God that we worship nor do they have as much money as we do. and whatever they have so others will try to take it away.Just like our own Empire of the Done
Mary concluded there has never been any peaceful time in human history and those who try to be too humble or too good or too kind will be the first ones to be slaughtered. Virtue may not always be its own reward .
if only we were descended from the apes, not the chimpanzees everything could be totally different but what is the point of that kind of thinking?
Mary brooded philosophically while washing the kitchen floor where she has spilt single cream. Mary very rarely eats cream and already she has wasted half of the Carton.
Emile came in: Mother why did you not let me lick the cream from the floor?
You might get food poisoning she cried happily you can have some of the cream from the carton on a saucer for your tea. is that good ?
Well said Emile I suppose there’s nothing else now since you have washed the floor but you know that we prefer to eat things from the floor .Cats don’t have China and cutlery
Neither did Adam and Eve Mary screamed softly
Mother ,control yourself anybody would think that you were a chimpanzee, Emile winked at her!
And they’d be right Mary thought to herself I am a chimpanzee

and so are all of us humans beings

I apologise for the errors in this document I am using speech to typing on Google Documents I have tried to edit it but I may have missed some mistakes.It reads as if I need lessons for people whose first language is no tEnglish

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/09/darfur-atrocities-ethnic-cleansing-human-rights-watch-report-rsf-sudan?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I wish I were on Orrest Head again.

I wish that my own sisters were still here.

I’d like to see the lake  below me now.

The largest longest lake it’s Windermere.

I wish that I were getting off the train

With my old school friends and all our gear

The first and best of all my holidays.

I’d like to take the boat on Windermere.

I wish I were in Ambleside today.

I’d like to  hire a boat that we could steer

I’d see the river Rothay gurgling in

At the Northern end of Windermere.

My sisters and my mother, they have gone.

But drifting on the lake,I smile again

Virtuosity,,….being very charitable.

Precocity,,,going mad before most of us do

Animosity,,,. ,…kindness to animals

Ferocity,,.,,having iron teeth and using them.

Democracy,,…. demons running a country.

Humorisity,,,….getting a degree in Yankee jokes

Criminology,,,, understanding criminals

Religiosity,,,.misinterpreting love.

Tasmania,,…going mad in the sunshine.

Curiosity,,,.a desire to heal the sick

Originality,….

The desire to make a fresh start in life

“When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.” – Tennessee William

Put salt onto your scalp with your shampoo
If like the ocean you are feeling blue
When you rub, the dry skin will come off
So at the moment  you must never cough

Do not  grate the cheese with your false  teeth
This will give your  other some relief
There are  great devices you can buy
Make certain yours  is not a home for flies

Coffee with no  milk may be a dye
Pour it on your head as alibi
Is there any warrant  for arrest?
Do not send your blood until it’s blessed

If you see some tear gas in your street
Lock the door and hide beneath the sheets
The Bible as a weapon is uncouth
God does not embroider  his own truth

Integration means so much  to me
I learned  the Calculus from A to B
I learned  about  geometry ,don’t tell
If Euclid comes I’m up  the pole as well

Wasting life when we would like to dance
Walk in ferny woods. exchange a glance
Can we have a decent person at our head?
Jesus Christ,no b*gger understood

Why be happy when you could feel mad?
Glad that Donald Trump is not your dad
Don’t let logic, reason or plain thought
Sell you something Mother never bought

Why not let the police take all control?
They know how to score a self made goal
They can kill a man and wound a child
Yet kneel down in Church along the aisle

Holding a black Bible in one hand

Will not take you to the Promised Land
Cain and Abel,Jacob and Esau
Does he hope to start another War?

As the old man fell towards his death
They offered us a handrail for the bath
I was so shattered by their wilful lies
I could not speak, my saliva had all dried

He was walking albeit slowly when at home
When they took him off I heard the groan
Lost inside his head, no wife nearby
Even Satan would have wept that night

Gabriel and Satan, hand- in -hand
Neither one will ever understand
We humans waste so much,we’re almost blind
Full of envy,hate and so unkind

G

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/me-myself-and-i

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Literary Lives

Me, Myself, And I

What made Michel de Montaigne the first modern man?

By Jane Kramer

August 31, 2009Save this story

Every French schoolchild learns the date: February 28, 1571, the day a well-regarded and uncommonly educated nobleman named Michel de Montaigne retired from “the slavery of the court and of public duties,” moved a chair, a table, and a thousand books into the tower of his family castle, near Bordeaux, shut the door, and began to write. It was his thirty-eighth birthday, and, by way of commemoration, he had the first two sentences he wrote that morning painted on the wall of a study opening onto his new library—announcing, if mainly to himself, that having been “long weary” of those public duties (and, presumably, of his wife, at home in the castle, a few steps across the courtyard) Michel de Montaigne had taken up residence in “the bosom of the learned Virgins, where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life, already more than half expired.” His plan, he said, was to use the second half looking at himself, or, as he put it, drawing his portrait with a pen. He had his books for company, his Muses for inspiration, his past for seasoning, and, to support it all, the income from a large estate, not to mention a fortune built on the salt-herring and wine trades, which, in the last century, had turned his family into landed gentry. (His full name, as most oenophiles can tell you, was Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.)

Montaigne’s pursuit of the character he called Myself—“bashful, insolent; chaste, lustful; prating, silent; laborious, delicate; ingenious, heavy; melancholic, pleasant; lying, true; knowing, ignorant; liberal, covetous, and prodigal”—lasted for twenty years and produced more than a thousand pages of observation and revision that he called “essais,” taking that ordinary word and turning it into a literary occupation. When he died, at fifty-nine, he was still …m….

https://poetryzone.co.uk/interviews/laura-mucha/

https://poetryzone.co.uk/interviews/john-foster/

 in summer times when sun do shine

I’m happy on my own

I gaze up through red maple leaves

All transparent in the sun.

But when winter comes I’m lonely

Sitting here beside my fire.

So I want a  winter lover

To keep my spirits higher.

Oh,my winter love come to me

And I’ll gaze deep into your eyes

The light that shines in there

Is so much warmer than my fire.

We’ll go through wintry woodlands,

Where elegance lies bare.

The branches struck by sun

Now feel the frosty grasp of air.

I’ll love you all the winter time.

I’ll love you  in the dark.

I’d like to rest within your arms,

And have a peaceful talk

When summer comes I’ll disappear

To roam across the dales

I’ll sleep on heather moorlands

And send you loving mail.

I can’t be tied in summertime

I must be roaming free.

But ,if you accept this  need of mine,

To you I’ll faithful be.

• Tagged
• freedom
• humor
• light verse

Published by

Mary woke up as she heard a strange noise.Except it was not as she had overslept.
She put her head out of the window where a young man was standing by the wall
You can leave their parcel here, she cried in her muffled shriek
I have come to collect one, he responded
But they are not at home, she informed him.They have emigrated
No wonder, the man said.I’d like to escape from Dominic Cummings
Has he captured you?
He damages my soul and God is angry
Let’s leave God to one side.I know how you feel, I think
Thank you very much.God will remember
Mary sat in bed and wondered where Stan was.Suddenly she realised he was dead.
Emile came in purring loudly
Emile, is Stan really dead?
I think so although sometimes I think I see him in the kitchen with his Robert Carrier cookbook
Tears came into Mary’s eyes remembering all the meals Stan cooked
He would be horrified if he saw her eat a frozen shepherd’s pie or macaroni cheese straight from a tin
At least I still use Earl Grey Tea, she thought intelligently
Mary drank tea from a large blue mug; in fact it was half a pint of tea. She looked at her phone to see if any emails from her friends were there but none of her friends had written to her which could hardly be surprising as they had all written to her the day before
She saw a letter from British Gas offering her help during the lockdown but she didn’t use gas anymore. if they had been more compassionate when she was having trouble with her boiler she might still be using it but she had decided that gas was a bad thing; it made her think about horrible things like Sylvia Plath and the Holocaust
On the other hand electricity has also been used to harm people and kill them in the United States ;what was the answer?
The best thing is to get up at once. she said and read The Guardian the Times, Independent newspaper The Telegraph and the London Review of Books.By the time she has read all of those who would go back to bed?
Only a sex addict and has she had no husband that was impossible
After all, who prefers a plastic vibrator to a loving man or woman?Mary decided 4 Weetabix and some milk would make a very nice breakfast
Where is my breakfast, called Emile louder?
Oh dear I am very sorry , would you like some kippers for your breakfast
Thank you, Mother
How many times do I have to tell you that I am not your mother; I am human and you are a cat
But you are my mother in a metaphorical sense :you look after me, you feed me, you bath me
On the other hand I sleep on your bed and if I was your son you would not want me to sleep on your bed would you since I’m 18 years old?
No, it might look like incest Mary replied humorously but would an 18-year old youth be attracted to an older lady
Don’t ask me, he said, I am just a cat
I would not know my own mother if I met her and if she was willing I might even mate with her without knowing that she was my mother. God is very kind to animals in some ways but on the other hand why does he let people hunt and kill for fun?
Well he would not tell Job nor his so-called comforters so I don’t know whether he’s going to tell me; if he did tell me I might not be able to understand
Why not, said the cat?
When we don’t know what language God speaks how can we talk to him?
Only by paying attention in the Silence in the middle of a wood or a cathedral as long as it was not full of tourists and and dogs
Are dogs allowed to go inside a cathedral?
I don’t know said Mary I have never thought about it before but I would imagine they are banned because they might start Barking at the wrong moment
I could go to church, Emile cried
Do you want to go to church , Mary asked him
If there is nothing else to do, I will go to church, he mewed
That is not the right attitude, she told him, God is more important than anything else at all
How do you know God is not here in the house
Yes he is; he is everywhere but we can’t see him except in the eye of a child or or the smile of an old man when he is going to die peacefully in the arms of his wife
And what about the wife? the cat pondered<Shall I have to hold you in my arms so that I can see God in your smile as you pass away
Oh dear me said Mary. I never thought of that I am too big to go into your arms. I can go on a diet and save money by only eating half a tin of Heinz macaroni cheese for my supper and half a tin of vegetable soup for my lunch
It is impossible, the cat told her, because even if I eat a lot my legs will never go any longer and as mathematician you should be able to see that you would have to become as small as a tiny baby before I could put my arms around you
The end of a wonderful dream,sighed Mary
I’ll have to ask somebody else Dr Patel maybe if I can die in his arms|
It is like the ultimate act of love to allow someone to die in your arms but one can’t do it too often as it is too emotionally and spiritually demanding
I agree, mother, the cat told her and now I’m going outside to try and catch you some frogs from the pond next door, goodbye.

Mary was walking down the High Street of a little town  a few miles from Knittingham. Here stood tall trees, which have been hacked into stumps by the local council,They are vehemently opposed to anything that might change the town into an upmarket suburb of   Knittingham. They wante it to be ‘modern’, like a small version of Manhattan or Paris, maybe, or even London. but there was not enough room to build a skyscraper or a Gherkin, like the one that Ken Livingstone had erected in London after he went to Soho

Mary was wearing a long, blue, unlined, woollen coat from Marks and Spencer, over a dark grey and green sweater dress, with matching leather boots .  iIn her hand, she carried a large green handbag, which contained her Kindle Paperwhite and her purse

Suddenly she had a loud cry: “Mary, Mary!”.

She looked round and there was an old friend whom she knew  before the advent of smartphones and computers and, therefore, not being very well organised, she had lost the address of this dear lady, Margaret.

“Shall we go and have a cup of coffee in that  Turkish restaurant?”, Margaret inquired politely.I have my cat in the car and I’ll get him a scone.The people are very friendly

“What a brilliant idea!”, Mary cried, “I have come out just to have a change of scene and Annie, my friend in in Knittingham, has got measles I have a cat myself

“I do hope you’ve had  measles already”,  said Margaret.

Yes, I have”, Mary  lied.
“Well, tell me your latest news. How is your rheumatoid arthritis?  Have they given you any of these new drugs, which suppress your immune system to stop it from attacking your own body?”

“No, they haven’t given me any yet”,   Margaret replied cheerfullyA bit late now

“I believe that, nowadays, they give them to people right at the beginning of the illness tbut, in my day, they did not give them to you until it was fully  developed , unfortunately, I have become somewhat disabled.”

“Well, how do you manage living on your own?”Do you have a lover who might help you?

“No lover as yet but I have various devices that I can use”, Margaret told her with a twinkle in her eye,  giving Mary the impression that Margaret was the owner of a gigantic array of vibrators and other similar implements  trying them out for some Health Magazine for the handicapped

Mary was thinking that they were probably better than codeine for taking your mind off your pains and aches which, in the case of arthritis can be  excruciating, making it impossible in many cases for a woman to have sex  though she had imagined marrying her cat Emile as he had expressive eyes and did not desire her body
She did not tell Margaret what she was thinking but  said:

 “I know that you can get a stand for your electric kettle, so that you can pour the water out of it without lifting the kettle up from the work surface., and you can also get vacuum cleaners that are self-propelled.”

As Mary had a great many books, she was unlikely to buy one of these vacuum cleaners, because they would knock over all her carefully choosing piles of scholarly works and art books, not to mention the tubs full of pens and pencils, and coloured pastel chalks.

When they went into the cafe, the waitress was very polite and soon they were drinking their coffee at a little table in the window, from where they could see the local people passing by.Many were wearing badges asking for an end to the Civil War in Britain

“You’ll never guess what happened to me”, Margaret said

, “I was in  the bookshop, where they have a folding chair for me to sit ; they know I can’t stand up for a long time without suffering pain.  I’d just sat down when this young woman came up to me and said:”

“You can’t sit there and read: you have to go upstairs and sit in and armchair.”

“Well, if you show me the lift, I will be very happy to go upstairs ” , I said humorously

.Or maybe you can carry me up as you are very heavy and strong

“We don’t have a lift”, t he woman cried loudly, “We only have one for us to  take books upstairs and we do not allow customers to use it, because it is not insured.”

=Would you mind if I just sat here for 5 minutes?”

“No!, you cannot sit there for 5 minutes”

“ Well, I was unable to get up, straight away”, said Margaret “but, as soon as I could, I put the expensive book, which Ihad been going to buy, back onto the rack of new non-fiction and saved  £20  there and then

” “That’s not very nice”, continued Mary. i“It might even be illegal to tell a disabled person  to go up some stairs, when there is no lift or escalator.”

Margaret  called
“Let’s talk about something else.  I like that coat: it’s a lovely shade of Prussian blue

“Never say the word Prussian to me”, said Mary “it reminds me of the war.”

“Well”, said Margaret “if our luck continues on its present track and also the Middle East, there will be almost no country that we can talk about it without  getting distressed by the name.”

It’s a real indictment of humankind.Civilisation is inextricably linked to War.Let#s put that thought aside and talk about clothes instead

“I like this coat however we name the olour”, said Mary “because it is made of wool and the sleeves are lined but the body is not lined, which means that is suitable for this early spring weather and also quite llight to wear always an advantage for the older lady. iIt also covers up whatever else I am wearing underneath because it is quite long.”

“What  on earth are you wearing  underneath?”tMargaret asked humorously

“For all you know I might  have nothing underneath it”, said Mary “exccept a pair of silk knickers and a silk vest.”

But I have a dress on over my silk and wool underwear,I am using an deodorant called

Unarmed and dangerous

“ I have changed a lot since my husband died and I do all sorts of peculiar things.  For example, I believed in times it will soon be legal to marry an animal and I would like to marrylEmile, so that he can sleep in bed with me rather than on top of the bed.”

“But he might scratch you accidentallyy!  “, cried Margaret.And can he kiss you?

“Oh, there’s always a fly in the ointment”, Mary said.

“Well don’t marry the fly”, her  friend responded.”I don’t think that Father Brown would like that, even if it could speak and say ‘I do’; it would definitely not want to sleep in bed with you. it will be flying  around  your bedroom, buzzing all night, and I don’t think it’ll be the only. one”
“I have to marry a spider then”,  said Mary, “Maybe two spiders”

They both laughed uproariously, to the amazement of all the other people in a cafe

“It’s good to see old ladies laughing isn’t it?”

It certainly is.”

“So will you be going back to that book shop?”

“Well, I did try to go back but, as I approached the door, my mouth went very dry and I realised I was getting that ‘fight or flight’ reaction, even though I didn’t feel so anxious but something inside me was worried that history was about to repeat itself and I ’d be the object of scorn and derision.”

“Yes, it’s horrible to feel humiliated isn’t it”, said Mary. 

“I was reading an article in the Guardian, which said that some scientists of the most social sorts have discovered that even the nicest people unconsciously see disabled people as less than human.”.

“Oh my god! that is very frightening because I am getting older and I might get disabled and then I will suffer like you do.”

“Well, you have to be  tolerant of suffering”

But how tolerant should one be? I don’t want to have back some of those politically correct people who go around like Methodist -preachers, attacking people who are agnostic or who want unisex toilets

“Are there any heterosexual toilets?”

“I’ve never seen any but you never know.”

After drinking their coffees, they walked into Marks and Spencer’s  to look at the new spring clothing

That looks like a satin  tracksuit!”,   Mary called politely

“I believe that the short trousers are coming back into fashion. tThey are a big problem because itthey puts all the focus on your ankles, so you cannot wear those dirty old socks that you can wear  at home or with long trousers. I think they are a plot to make us buy ankle boots.”

Everything’s  a plot now, isn’t it. 

“Don’t say that to the doctor or she will think you are getting paranoia.”

 “Getting paranoia? I’ve been paranoid all my life.”“How sad!”

We’ll, nowadays you need a bit of paranoia, especially if you come from Europe and believe that you can work in Britain and contribute to the economy, while enjoying all the lavish pleasures of London city and nightlife.”

“The so-called foreigners are much more courteous than English people. iIn fact I a’m ashamed to be English now and I pretend that I came from Ireland instead.”

You look more like a Valkyrie.”

“Don’t say that! I hate  the composer Wagner.”

“I do believe the word existed before he wrote the music but I understand how you feel. It’s not your fault that you’ve got blonde hair and blue eyes and a white skin.”

“My hair isn’t really blonde any more.  I think it’s more silvery, like Helen Mirren.”

“Does it really matter what her hair looks like now?”

”“Well, we have to amuse ourselves somehow and, since we no longer have husbands, wel ’re deprived of much pleasure and love, and we  have to put out the wheelie bins ourselves, which I think is really awful.”

Well, it’s a sort of exercise, isn’t it?”

“If that’s all I got, I’d be paralysed by now!”

“So, what else do you do?”

“I do some vacuuming, now and then, I move books out of the bookcase and carry them into the other room and, you won’t believe this, last week I accidentally put a bag of nearly new clothes into the ‘dirty’ wheelie bin and found I still had the rubbish in the hall.!  Unfortunately, the bins had been emptied and there was nothing I could do to get them back.Mind you, I did feel a certain relief but as the hall was no longer full of black bin liners and other stuff like that..

Not to mention all those cables, cords, and chargers that we have nowadays. I think the computer was invented purely to give us more things to buy, to keep the economy going. Nobody really wanted to have computers but they realised that, once you got one, you would want to connect it to your camera, or your television, or the printer, and so it would mean a big market for those cables and cords.

But it gives me something to do, while the Government argue about  Brexit.”

It’s not just the Government who are arguing. My gardener nearly hit me when I said I wanted to remain in Europe. I am forbidden to mention Brexit anywhere near him.”

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Photo by Jean-Baptiste Burbaud on Pexels.com

“I have noticed that it doesn’t matter what the evidence is,; even the most intelligent people will not change their minds, so it must be coming from a deeper level.”

“It sounds  as though people are trying to understand why Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews and they have come up with all sorts of theories about his childhood.  I thought it might be related to sexual fantasy   but the latest idea is that it is beyond explanation in any human terms; it is evil beyond our ability to explain. It is not true that, if Hitler did not exist, someone else would have behaved the same way. He could have lost his mind when he was defeated by Russia at Stalingrad but, if you lost your mind, would you go and exterminate six million Jews  and gays or 6 million  other people?

 The frightening thing is that it could so easily become the way that Muslims are treated. People say to me: “I don’t want to think about politics, it’s upsetting me”,
but isn’t that what the German said in the 1930s?  If we don’t bother about it, we may find ourselves in a trap that we can’t escape from.

 It is painful to think about these things, when we would rather think about the daffodils and the magnolia flowers, but who will protect us  or guard us, when we go further down this lunacy track.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. iIt’s like thinking that know, if people are depressed, sad, worried, it’s just thought to be very, very bad and they have been put on tablets and getting CBT when, in fact, it may be  appropriate to  feel that way, as long as one can channel it into some useful activity.”

i“It can give you energy… I believe there’s a big march in London against racism and fascism.  I don’t know wherether the big marches have any effect. dDo you remember the one against the Iraq War?  One of the biggest matrches ever seen in London and yet it made absolutely no difference to Tony Blair.”

“Anyway, just give me your news before we depart.”

“I shall tell you what; I’ll give you my email address and then we can communicate about our children or our other activities: grand-children etc. Maybe we can meet more frequently now, as we don’t have to rush home to make the dinner.”

The two women hugged each other before they separated and then Mary went back to the High Street. although she couldn’t remember now what she was going to buy.It might have been an electric tin opener, or a bottle of wine, or a throw from Robert Dyas to hide under, if anybody looked through the window.

Does it  matter what she was going to buy? s She just wanted to get some fresh air, and meeting  old friends always a good things, especially for aged people

I’m sure Emile would agree,  if Mary brought him with her in her handbag, but he was putting on weight and  is a little bit too heavy to carry.  It would be wonderful  if Emile were very big, then Mary could ride on his back as if he were a donkey
Why not buy a real donkey?

“Oh no! cry all of us .”

One of the few good things I could say about the big hospital was that at least they didn’t tattoo us with numbers.

I wouldn’t be surprised that they don’t start using numbers instead of names They still love everything technological

I’m glad that they are saving water but only washing patients about one third of the time. I got one shower in a fortnight. They could have put us outside in the rain.

But then someone might have noticed so they’re just too busy.

But could it be bad for our health?