“Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently
an object belonging to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you
look at all landscapes differently. And
if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can learn to love another.”
Fugitive
Pieces/Anne Michaels
An object belong to
someone you love
My daughter who (temporarily) mislays a cherished onyx ring says old rings
carry the love of the people who once bought them and gave them.
Knowing a landscape: David Hockney painted a certain Yorkshire
view again and again at one stage, through different weathers and different seasons. Results on display at his
Royal Academy show in 2012. This was to rid
himself of a great grief, I think.
But what about knowing a landscape or having a landscape so
deeply ingrained in you that you are just not capable of seeing another landscape? You can never absorb, or adopt, another
landscape because it can never be valid i.e. 'the’ landscape.
Close to home in Cornwall there was a farmer
who had never travelled further than Truro i.e. 17 miles away. When he died, opinion
in my family was divided as to whether he had lived a rich life, or a very
limited life. Someone – who? a French philosopher? – said that no one
knew the world as well as the man who had never travelled more than five miles
from his door.
Lands
Palestine: local MP Andy Slaughter gives a talk at the
Upper Room on Cobbold Road. A walk to the church on a damp May night past
privet hedges. Privet has its own distinctive scent.
If you haven’t been,
he says, it’s really very hard to imagine. Indeed – it is. But his is a one-sided discourse – of course – to be
expected. He is Secretary of the Britain-Palestine All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and Vice-Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. He was not challenged. Did not one person in the room
besides me wonder why he did not explore the reasons the Barrier as he called it
– or the
Separation Wall or the Security Wall was built?
Journalism tended to polarise the debate, he said,…
the BBC….. But was he not guilty of this himself? Jews have the right to go to Israel – Palestinians do not
have the right to return. That is clearly unjust. Of course, too, Israel has broken all international laws regarding the new settlements. But
why is there never space for the voice of the liberal Jew?
The most interesting point from Slaughter: that this situation is debated so much, and attracts so much emotion, because it could be solved. 'It is an eminently solvable problem... It is possible to make a difference here. It is a political problem with a political solution.'
It is too late to argue and I am too tired: have had two glasses
of white wine and the company is too distinguished. Say hello to an acquaintance
who is a world authority on ancient Mesopotamian seals (not the animals). Someone else
in the audience prefaces his question… “As a lawyer….”.
My companion says as we part, concerned – ‘Your job was very
heavy – it was a heavy job.” Not that it’s over: I have two more months to
work.
Aging
Half asleep, read Jenni Diski on aging in the London Review
of Books. There is not much to be said for aging, she says – noting that a
Scandinavian correspondent of hers scolded her for describing herself at the
age of 66 as ‘old’. The Scandinavian said she worked with people in their 80s
who thought of people her age as young. Diski seems startled at this response –
but I tend to agree.
Why whine? Why look in the mirror? (Remember Nigella Lawson giving this very sensible piece of advice somewhere). Diski wrote
the article in question in response to the way that her hairdresser was
responding to her – with the terribly irritating ‘Ah Bless!’ to everything. “Are
you busy today?” “Ah bless.” “What are
you doing at the weekend? “ “Ah bless.” Yes - that is fantastically irritating.
And not much solace to be gained – I agree – from the traditional
antidotes to old age: e.g. saying fleshly delight is a thing of the past.
Virginia Ironside (Shepherds Bush resident) has apparently written a book
“The Virginia Monologues: Twenty Reasons why growing old is great”. One aspect
is sex and the abandonment thereof. Ironside had loads of sex in the past: now she has had enough and is
luxuriating the comfort of her single bed. Cheerful sexual abstinence... But that does
seem to suggest that sex is just a physical action that’s no
longer performed – it ignores desire and emotional engagement.
Simone de Beauvoir said decent aging involved a sense of love
and community.
“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the
life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion.”
All well and good – but of course: that’s how one should lead a
decent life anyway.
It’s probably not enough to get one through the twilight
years without a bit of serious thinking e.g. on the lines of
Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life. You probably
do have to learn how to live every moment as if it were your last: hard though
that might be and however much of a clich̩ that might seem. Age has nothing to do with it Рreally - as a very wise person once said to me.
Love
The woman behind the bar on the First Great Western train down to Cornwall says she has gone up
to a size 14 from a size 10 in two years.
“Contentment, that’s what they say.”
She is blond and plump and has a gentle West Country accent. Her colleague in jacket and navy trousers
(like men’s – why do they make women wear these versions of men’s clothes?)
comes and leans against the bar beside me. “Contentment, they say,” she nods in agreement.
“See," says the woman behind the bar. " I’ve been with Andy since I’ve been here and he feeds
me up, he likes cooking, so they say it’s contentment.”
Say what could be nicer. Thank you, she says.
(Wonder if Andy also works on the trains.)
NOTES
Bob Hoskins dies. Hard to imagine that someone so vital
isn’t around anymore.
Gerry Adams is arrested in connection with the 1972 murder
of Jean McConville. Mrs McConville, a
37-yaer-old widow and mother of ten, was abducted and shot by the IRA. Adams
spent the night in custody after going to Antrim police station where he was
arrested. He says he is ‘innocent of any part’ in the murder.
