The last Friday of February, this year, was also a full moon, thus seeming especially auspicious. Previous years would have had me and the small blue car at Glasson Marina, enjoying the year’s first hints of spring. From Glasson, I like to walk the quiet lanes to Cockerham, then back up the Lancashire coastal way, over the green sward, by the remains of the abbey, and the Plover Scar light. I’d have lunch at Lantern O’er Lune, then return home via the garden centre at Barton, for coffee and cake. A grand day out, as they say.
I first did that trip in 2014 in an old grey commuter mule called Grumpy. I’ve done it every year since, except last, and this. On that first trip there was a guy at the marina in a gorgeous red MGB. He looked to be in his seventies, living the dream, with his Irvine flying jacket. At £850 a go, that jacket was as much of a statement as the car. Cynics might have said he was menopausal. But in your seventies? Not likely. Okay, he looked a bit eccentric, but the guy had spirit, and he inspired me. The next year I was in the small blue car, an old but reasonably well-kept Mazda roadster. All right, she’s no MG but, forgive me, I never held the same faith in British motor cars as others. I’d thought to keep the car a year or so, get her out of my system, and sell her on, but we’re still together. I drew the line at an Irvin jacket.
This pandemic year however, the car is under covers, and I keep my steps local. On Friday, I walked a pleasant circuit from my doorstep, instead, just clipping the next village. I was hoping to see a particular buzzard, thus scotching rumours the bird had been shot. I didn’t see it. As I walked I was thinking of Glasson. I was picturing the crocuses in the churchyard, and along the canal bank. I was also thinking about writing, and the answer to a question I’d posed: Why have I not decided upon so much as an opening sentence of new fiction yet, months after putting up my last novel? I have never been without a work of fiction for company. But time is ticking.
Things are pretty well upended, was the answer to my question. You’ve had a big change of circumstance, what with early retirement and everything, so let it ride, don’t rush it. And fair enough, I’m not. I’ve bought a 3D printer to tinker with, and I’m designing and building bits and bobs for myself. I’ve made a clock case, a watch case, and some quick-release clips for stashing Alpine poles to my rucksack. Ironic, I thought. For most of my life I have been writing as a distraction from the trials of engineering. Then I retire, and I take on personal engineering projects as a distraction from writing. I am, if nothing else, perverse. But the answer goes further, deeper. It takes in the ruins of the world, and how best to move on from them.
I understand that in one sense I’m in a good place. A final salary pension helps enormously, but most of all I’m lacking anger. However, I’m also lacking passion, which is possibly less good. I look upon the corruption of political high office, and I don’t care any more. I read how the cost of BREXIT is now roughly the same as our contributions to the EC since 1972, and I don’t care. The Labour Party is veering once more to the right, purging itself of even moderate old lefties like me, and I don’t care. I’m fine, I want everyone else to be fine too, but I’m waking up to the nature of the world as being one of ineradicable inequality, indifference and self-entitlement. Money makes you mean, and since money buys power, you can plot your course from there to the most logical outcome – which is pretty much the ruins of where we are.
The Taoist texts talk of clarity. They use the image of a lake. If we are emotionally aroused, they say, it’s like the perturbation of the surface, and the stirring of sediment. Then we cannot see through to the bottom of things. Only through calmness, through stillness, does the sediment settle out and clarity is restored. But while in stillness, there might indeed be a kind of clarity, I find there’s not the energy to power a hundred thousand words of fiction. It strikes me therefore, I might have already written my final novel. On the one hand I’m surprised by that, since I’d always imagined my retirement as a time I could spend writing to my heart’s content. On the other hand, again, I don’t care. The muse has been slipping me the occasional idea, but I can tell she’s not serious. She has not once lit the blue touch-paper. All of which perhaps goes to show the Universe is not without a wry sense of humour.
Then, as I write, my son brings news of a pair of buzzards circling my garden. He’s rummaging in some excitement for the binoculars. It’s an unusual sight, a pair of them like that, and a bit of a shock, actually. I break off for a photograph, snap-on the long lens. I’ve been stalking buzzards in my locale for a while now, trying to get a nice sharp image of one, while lamenting their vulnerability, and suddenly there are two over my house, as if they had come to look at me and pose. It’s surely an omen. Of what, who can say? Light or dark, we take our choice. Myself, I’m optimistic. It seems you don’t always need to venture far in seeking what you want, also that we needn’t go chasing every shadow. Indeed, perhaps what we seek is actually seeking us, and all we have to do is find sufficient stillness of mind to let it in.
Glasson, on the last Friday of February 2022? The small blue car will be twenty years old.
It’s a date.
Surely an omen, of something. I don’t think there are omens for not much going on, so perhaps it might be the return of the muse?
I had a 1990 Toyota Camry for 25 years. It had manual shift and was fun to drive, although certainly no sports car.
Thank you, Audrey. That’s true about omens – nice one. I just wish the muse would stop teasing me with snippets.
I remember the Camry. That was a nice car!
I was thinking about a couple of recent posts of yours, and your mention of a man on a train, it didn’t occur to me then as my service had been shut down for lock down, then as I was thinking about my own blog, where the air is thick with the sound of tumbleweed, I thought about how excited I get with the “likes”, and I thought about your man on the train. My train is running again now though only a 90 minutely service, and I’m obsessing with catching it whenever I can. It is a lovely route that takes me half way to work and passes a victorian park boating lake, where about once a year if I’m lucky I see children sailing little dinghies, then it tunnels through the hill that I’d otherwise need to climb, and I look out for the famous station cat at the next stop. It is ten minutes of sheer delight.
I can’t be your man on the train though because the relationship you were referring to was somewhat cooler, a little more mysterious, perhaps if I keep my trap shut!?
Anyway, I saw the same moon, but I saw it on the 1st of March from my boat club, and after packing up the woodwork tools in the dark, I took a walk out on the jetty in the very last light. The tide was out and the wet mud shimmered like quicksilver. The birds were taking a rest from their racket, the sea was calling me in the distance, and the lights around the estuary were pricking out their confused locations.
I’m very happy waiting for the book Michael, I can imagine how frustrating it must be, but I’m glad you’ve not followed the first rabbit into its burrow!
I wouldn’t like you to keep your trap shut. I’d sooner get a comment from a human being than silence from a mysterious reserved chap on the midnight train. It’s great to get likes of course and I suppose what I was trying to say was we should be careful not to get too despondent when they don’t appear.
I loved that description of coming out of your boat club onto the jetty by the mud, in the moonlight. That was very evocative – I was definitely there.
I’m sure there’ll be another book, once the novelty of having all my time to myself wears off.
Keep well!
Oh no, a midnight train, that really would be some other fellow. A harder worker than me for sure, I am just a playboy. I imagine him coming home tired to a suburban house, and a wife and children who fein sleep, but they don’t sleep until he’s home.
I have an idea for my blog but it’s a bit iffy, it would go under the category “end of the world”, I want to use text from Dr’s death reports to tell stories of old folk who’ve died of covid. Not scientific, but a thoughtful piece using the death report as a jumping of place to tell the story of an imaginary person. The cause of death is, of course in the public domain, but the more detailed information I draw from question 9, part 1 of form 4 for cremation, “from your medical notes, and the observations of yourself and others immediately before and at the time of the deceased’s death, please describe the symptoms and other conditions that lead to your conclusions about the cause of death”. Many Dr’s answer this very badly, most don’t read the question, even some of the better, more interesting answers don’t quite fit the brief, but some, particularly hospital Dr’s put real information that colours our reading of the cause of death.
That sounds like an interesting angle, and one you’re uniquely placed to make work. There’s something inevitably impersonal I suppose about the reported death figures – so many hundreds per day. Telling a back-story – fiction but grounded in facts – would have some human impact.
Yes I should get on with it, I wanted to show the dr’s beautiful handscript but even with all names deleted that could land me in trouble, there should be no harm in quoting though.
Thoughtful post, Michael. I know what you mean about a kind of peace replacing the ‘fire’ after retirement. But it does let you focus on what you really want… and besides, as a good friend often remarks, where’s the rush? I had an MGB convertible – bright yellow. Not too subtle. Nice car, but I suspect the Mazda has better engineering. Looking forward to more of your raptor shots.
I’ve often thought if I wasn’t working full time…if I only had more time…. if I wasn’t so tired all the time from working (vicious cycle)… I could do the writing I finally want to do. I would not be surprised if my muse decided to tip-toe away on the first day of my retirement.
Maybe yours will slip you more ideas when you least expect it. But I understand about “not caring” too. I think I’m entering that phase–a little early! Someone asked me how the writing was going recently and I told them that I didn’t really care if I ever wrote again.
You have a lot of books to show for your time, tho.
Your list is nothing to sneeze at! 🙂
It’s a fortunate situation to be in, which is why I’m not complaining too much. Although I went early, I was starting to feel tired – working and commuting, early get-ups and all that, so I sympathize with all who are still in that situation. I’ve felt this way about writing before, but it always comes back, and I realize even if I’m not writing fiction, I’m still managing to find something to write about on the blog. I have totted up quite a list of books over the years, but one more wouldn’t hurt. Keep well.