The other year, I invented a new word for myself - fragmentary, but as a noun, describing a container for fragments of all kinds of different things, often unrelated. This is one of those. It reflects my total inability to focus on one single thing, ever.
The starting point is when Rishi Sunak announced last Wednesday, in the pouring rain, the optics incredibly bad, that he was calling a general election here in the UK, to be held on 4th July; a 6-week election campaign. My first reaction was one of elation, that we’d finally have the chance to get the Tories out of power, to rid this country of the evil which has wrought nothing but destruction on the fabric of the UK, and visited death on the poor and sick. But then I remembered how tired too many people are of politics, how many people have been disenfranchised by the law requiring photo ID to vote, and that, however large Labour’s lead might be in the polls, we have to get as many people to vote as possible to effect the change we need. So I put this short thing together, a call to arms if you like. Because there never is a foregone conclusion.
The other thing here is that the election campaign runs across the release date for A Fear Of Heights, one of the novels I’m most proud of, and which I really want to be read (Mallory and Irvine on Mount Everest, in case you didn’t know). So what do I do, agitate politically or promote the book? The context is that I’ve spent the eight years since the Brexit referendum more politically active than book promo active (and the fact that I’m not very marketing savvy nor marketing inclined is, at this point, irrelevant). I have poured a lot of energy into trying to open people’s eyes to the lies of the government in power, to the lies of those who claim Brexit is the best thing to happen to the UK (when it’s plain that it’s probably the worst thing ever to have happened to the UK). I’ll just have to try to do both things at the same time (and the chances are that A Fear Of Heights will sink without a trace anyway, as books by indie authors tend to because their writers are pre-occupied, unknown, and not backed up by a publishing apparatus - those aren’t bitter words; they’re just realistic. I have reached the stage now where I do actually know I can write and plot).
I’ve also written a spoken word and music piece about Chomolungma (as Mount Everest really is called) called Goddess Mother (the real name for Everest) which releases on the same date. This is a symptom of me becoming more and more preoccupied/obsessed with making music. I just haven’t put my mind to actually teaching myself to play the piano/sax/e-guitar/a-guitar better/at all. Just take your pick of all those things separated by forward slashes. See what I mean about lack of focus.
And, finally, as I sit here and type this, M is in the house doing what she insists on doing - hoovering, washing, cleaning, washing up (she told me to fuck off out to my office when I said I’d help and dry up). And it’s our 33rd wedding anniversary today. I wrote the poem below for her this morning (where have the days gone when I wrote her a poem nearly every day?). And this is probably the best place to finish this many-fragmented thing.
Safe
It’s the silences most people don’t understand,
Our sitting in the same room not talking,
Reading books and not exchanging words,
The static times when we walk through the
Same spaces and do nothing more than
Feel each other’s presence.
But love is understanding, not demanding;
It grows best in the quiet places that are
Left to grow wild to attract the harvest
Makers, a sanctuary to the bees and birds,
The small and the shy, away from
A world that prefers concrete to fruit.
What they don’t see, those who would have
Noise instead of peace, who would rather
Rush in search of distractions, are all those
Moments behind the closed doors, the
Days left behind, when we share words and
Skin and souls and lives.
As the universe crumbles,
You are the only safe place
For me.
R 25/05/2024 09:58
Happy Anniversary to you and M.! I'm so glad you have a safe place. And I am sure she does too.