Dignified by Gratitude

To all you young ones out there,

Goodday! and wouldn’t you just like to know how the other half of the world (the old ones) are faring through this stormy weather?

Naturally, it first and foremost befits anyone over middle age to speak only for themselves. So, as for myself then, first thing in the morning I check the weather app to see if this sun promises enough warmth for me to choose a 60 dernier pair of tights over a woolly pair. Next, of course, - I remain sensible – I take my vit D, an Evening Primrose capsule and a Femina Complex multi-pill. As always.

I mix myself a “hot drink” (cocoa, chicory, barley, acorns, that sort of surrogate coffee stuff) and pick up a book from whichever pile takes my fancy. Ok, it doesn’t quite go like that, come now, I admonish myself to take my work more seriously than that. Try again. I observe my stacks and gravitate towards the one which radiates the most. Or, that is, at least, the occupational aim for every morning, only sometimes the BBC World Service will beat the books and inspire me to leap out into the world and mentally mingle with my fellow folks. (Maintaining always the appropriate distance, needless to add.)

This morning then, I heard a snippet on the radio of three Australian women, in a supermarket fighting like crazed alley cats, over loo rolls. Their carts, it needs to be added (I hope) were already stuffed with jumbo-sized packs of the commodity. You may have found yourself in a similar situation, but surely, from the calm position you are currently in, behind your screen, you must be able to bemoan this savagery? This hysteria, panic, and debased behaviour? It is no way to live or die. It only adds on to a reel of unsavory memories which will pass before you upon exiting this existence on Earth and entering the state of the next. Even for those not inclined towards the reality of reinicarnation this can mean, at least, that it is possible one is not remembered favourably.

The intention of these women loses it nobility by the uncouth manner in which they aim to keep their family well and safe. Gone is the kind and mild mother heart, worthless the devoted woman worthy of adoration.

I suspect their initial panic is called up by that good old self-serving fear of loss of control. Can you imagine the increased burden on the housewife and mother when there is no more loo paper to go around? With my own exaggerated appall I shudder to recall the film “Hunger” by Steve McQueen, where the IRA prisoners paint with their faeces on the wall (in protest) and I wouldn’t trust a toiletpaper-trained four year old with a bottle of water, Indian style, but I am sure it can be taught and we will survive without this mod con, should it ever have to come to that.

The Antipodian incident (which took place all round the world) reminds me that I have plenty of fresh water. It’s a little dear (as always) but it’s not easy to filter out our hormone and pesticide ridden natural-given aquatic life-giver anymore, so it is going to have to cost. I pause to be grateful for this water. In the past few years, I’ve had to go without tap water for several days in a row, upon several occasions, due to maintenance works that made it unavailable and then unsafe to use. When I had a baby it was even worrying.

I have gas and electricity too! And my heating still comes on and the immersion heater gives me hot water when I ask for it (read former posts to know how I have survived nightmares with my plumbing and heating specifically!). Wowie-Zowie, I’m one lucky lady living in luxury. I also have a (pre-Covid bought) stack of loo rolls to go yet. My luck overflows.

Only it isn’t luck, is it?
It is going about my business as I always do. I stay indoors for most of the day, but try to potter about in the garden or go for a walk around the block, to oil the fascia, loosen the joints, like normal. I pick up some milk and bread from one of my healthfood stores, who entertain me with different measures they would like me to observe upon entering, leaving. It is very cute, for largely, all their measures are inefficient, in as far as I can see, for I can see exactly where this critter virus is and is not.

I watch it float about ditheringly, much like a dandelion seed-parachute, before landing somewhere that triggers it into ferocious action. Busy like a bee and a parasitic grub in one, it burrows its way deep into a hive already provided for by us truly. I can even feel it.

No, don’t panic. Also no need for me to go into fight-mode. My body instantly sends its guards up front and orders the univited guest to leave. They do not get past reception. My mind knows that anti-bodies are the only way to get on top of this virus. My Manichaen Missionary disposition will not allow me - should the option occur - to buy into a vaccine that is mainly going to pander to fear, which I am sworn by oath to face head on and never avoid - albeit ever endeavour to keep at bay (hence my ivory tower in which I sit like a princess spinning yarn).