I woke up as usual at 6 AM this morning grateful that I had slept well enough not to have to turn to Audible as I habitually do after midnight. I reached out for my mobile in addiction and found a new WhatsApp. It was from someone with whom I have a fortnightly therapeutic dialogue. A man known far and wide beyond the City for his left hand brain logic and for solving financial deals that defy even ‘Macavity’. He has taken to writing poetry as consolation in a way that has staggers me. it arrives automatically and fast, sometimes while he is, or used to be, waiting for the tube, without warning, in a way that reminds me that Yeat’s wife Georgina Hyde-Lees invented automatic writing when she wanted to save her honeymoon. Now we are all trying to save the world.
When I asked permission of the deal breaker to share he said,”‘Of course but it’s a bit corny.” Well everything has started to hurt like a corn – we will all be limping soon – but when hard headed counsel take to poetry writing the morning feels hopeful. Particularly when it was accompanied by another WhatsApp from one of the professionals I work with telling me that I am loved. As is he. For what will survive of us is love. And it is time that we put love, kindness and responsibility onto the breakfast menu along with the porridge and supplements.
SURREAL ( by JT)
Dreaming, possibly
It seems so real
Yet so unreal
Like a dream.
Quite disorientated
Bizarre facts
Seemingly nonsensical
Like a dream.
More like a film
Can’t be reality
Floating past
Like a dream
Get a grip
Survival at stake
Wake up
Like a dream.
So much data
Hard finding truth
Losing control
Like a dream.
Fear rising
Nightmare transpiring
Leadership required
Like a dream.
Focus, focus
Take control
Wake up
From your dream.
I have also realised that one commodity, or deadly sin, that is not going to survive is our vanity. At the end of Proust’s great novel the Narrator describes arriving at a party after he has been absent due to illness for many years. To begin with he thinks he has arrived at a fancy dress party, Le Bal des Têtes. The guests look as though they are wearing powdered wigs and their noses seem not only to be rheumy but dressed up in rosacea and carbuncles. Their necks appear reptilian and the guests have withered into hunch-backed cartoons of self.
What is going to happen to those of us who dye our hair (to which I will happily confess although to nothing else) ? My chicanery of lowlights is one of my biggest financial outlays. All those regular six weekly hair cuts. What about the botox, fillers, tucks and threads. The electrolysis and waxing. (And the waning.) And more botox in-between, even if it’s just a baby one! The tints and dyes, the lows and highlights. The manicures and pedicures: Shellac versus Gel. And, I’m not convinced I am speaking only about the women. What on earth are we going to look like in six months time without access to our beauticians and hairdressers or is that where some will draw the line at voluntary isolation? And when we emerge again will we recognise each other? We might all become a bit leaner which would be no bad thing. Just so long as we don’t have to swop our beauticians for morticians. Yikes!
Prescriptions for the day:
https:/www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/convincing-boomer-parents-to-take-the-coronavirus-seriously https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/im-losing-faith-in-the-leadership-a-doctors-story-coronavirus