The luxury of being quiet for awhile
Silence is true wisdom’s best reply - Euripides
I am writing this, not quite live, but sort of alive all the same. The change of website, and host that is. Still trying to fathom the doings of this new child, there shall be many mistakes, but having control of this, and every other part of my life, is more important to me now than it has ever been.
Two years and some months of the pandemic had us all at freeze, and change. Both good and bad. I still feel the flatness and lack of joy for things I used to revel in, like going into the city or window shopping in the department store - it means little to me know. Why is that? Why was it so exciting to look at the new season and buy that little something you knew you didn’t need. It doesn’t stop there. The general malaise of ‘not worth it, or couldn’t be bothered’ extends to the cinema, magazines, going out for dinner. How depressed have I become? Is this a general thing of just me, and I fall into silence because I just do not have the answer.
War fatigue must be the same - how does one feel anything for the frivolous and jollification in parts when life revealed the ugly side in too much detail? Anyway, this was the first of something I had to address; the lethargy of numbness must go. Now able to travel, I bolted like a thunder-whipped horse to get back to my family. Let’s just say I will have twenty vaccinations in order to travel and be with loved ones again. Armed with volumes of ‘I have this covered in case you question’ documents, hardly a one was asked for.
Paris and London seem like a post war film set. Parts are moving, little sprigs of normal life in the suburbs, but the main tourist centres are cold and cheerless. Perhaps the season, perhaps the lack of tourists.
More pronounced was, particularly in London, the dire shortage of staff, in hotels, cafés, supermarkets, just about everywhere. Tables heaped up with plates while staff tried valiantly to cope with a few customers. Some department stores had shut down entire floors and more than one restaurant we tried, had notices on the doors, shut, due to lack of staff. Was the outfall of Brexit finally coming home to roost? It will take time to feel the hustle and bustle of what we experienced not a mere two years before.
Such was the lethargy that the beginnings of Christmas decorations revealed in shop windows. Just a little bit blah to be honest - who was in the mood for celebrating when furlough was ending and the cost of gas and electricity rising?
Yet, and I am such a believer in the human spirit, pockets of life still bubble here in London. The river continues to slip through the city, bringing with it pleasure boats, cargo boats and plenty of rowers. Joggers ran in the parks, dog walkers stop to chat with other canine lovers and of course, children will always want to play. Nature blooms and birds glide upon the lakes. Normality, though the new kind, will return at some point - London has seen centuries of pain and loss, yet here she stands, ready to put her shoulder back to the wheel and move past the pandemic.
I feel a little flat, but in a way, being able to walk without the crowds of busy people, pushers and groups of tourists, seeing more of her majesty as I amble into Covent Garden or walk through the Borough and along the South Bank.
Buses fire up at five in the morning. The tube snakes along the city’s tracks. There are few planes in the sky but this will change soon.
Autumn is here. Colours of jewel and venetian glass frame all. Perhaps that is it, Autumn is supposed to be a quiet time of wrapping and closing and mulching, returning to earth for slumber. The season slows towards winter. We are tired of the endless, repetitive conversations of vaccines and disease, we are tired of frippery and waste, finding value in meaningful activities and objects, in nature.
Being forced into quiet by the shut down these last few months, has taught me the value of quiet, and even though the city seems dormant at times, there is a beauty in this also.