Dear Diary - Mother's Day - 2020

-

I knew weeks ago that I ought to be keeping a daily diary on here or elsewhere of events, appointments, thoughts, feelings and opinions.  I knew way back in August when I purposely declined to buy a 2020 diary even as my daughter was purchasing a selection of these items in a range of sizes and styles.


I merely flicked through the pages and returned the books to their display shelf, muttering "I'll not write in it". I realise this is a shocking thing to say by someone who purports to "write" and my only excuse is that ... oh wait, I don't actually have an excuse.


 Needing to write things down has become imperative due to my increasingly decreasing ability to remember anything at all for longer than a few hours, let alone days and although this is not a recently acquired inability (see numerous posts on this blog on this theme over the past 12 years or so) it seems a lot more important in this unprecedented  situation, namely the Corona Virus (Covid19) outbreak.
Within a matter of days, it seems, our whole lifestyle as we knew it has drastically and necessarily changed beyond anything we imagined, despite our following the virus' progression across the world since November/December 2019.
My emotions - and I am sure many others - have alternated between worry, anxiety and paranoia to disbelief and being almost convinced of conspiracies, and back again over the last 3 months. I have studied data and statistics which I barely knew existed and read scientific and medical research that could not have been deemed relevant to me and my family, until now. Information and advice from any and every possible source has been listened to, digested and put into practice. 
All of this tells me that, though there are millions of journalists, authors and media people recording every detail of daily events, I need to document my own account. Whether anyone reads it or not is irrelevant, though the word "posterity" is lodged firmly in my mind.

 And so, on this Mother's Day, the first ever known where we are advised not to visit our mothers, for very good reasons,  I am recording my mental ramblings here. 

Thank you to my children and grandchildren for their love and good wishes which I am fortunate to have every day, not only on Mother's Day. 

 Here's hoping that tomorrow brings some positive news for everyone and that we all appreciate the importance of all the people in our lives.  





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spiral

-
Image
Spiral    Linearity does not come naturally. It kills the imagination and nothing happens.  No bell rings, no moment of here and now, no moment saying yes. Without these, where is alive ? I prefer the pleasure of the journey through the spiral. Relax.  If you miss something on the first time around, don't worry. You might pick it up on the second - or third - or tenth ; it doesn't matter. Relax.      Timing is everything. If the bell does ring, it will resonate through all the rungs of your spiral.  If it doesn't it is the wrong spiral - or the wrong time -  or there is no bell.
Read more

To Where We Belong - Musings on a mill pond

-
Image
  He first went there with his school, long ago.  The teachers had told the classes that the stone work was from Roman times; remnants from hundreds of years back.  It turned out that it wasn’t Roman at all.   It was an old mill first used for smelting lead in the late 1600s and then between around 1760 and 1850 fine paper was produced there to wrap the products of the nearby iron and steel industry - often cutlery and probably the pins, needles and wire made in the local area. All that remained today was the pond which had provided power by supplying a water wheel  and some and some ruinous buildings.  Romantic maybe – but not Roman. When they had met years later, he could not wait to take her to this place, high up on the hillside in the depths of the forest with the stream trickling, then rushing down from the tops. Tawny, hazel, mustard and coral tainted leaves and ferns painted the background for the scene. And she had loved it too.                                                 
Read more

Seventy Five Years On - "I Am Neveen" - A Palestinian Child's Story

-
Image
  The Nakba - the "disaster" or "catastrophe" was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 and the permanent displacement of Palestinian Arabs. The term is used to describe both the events of 1948 and the ongoing occupation of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as their displacement in refugee camps throughout the region and beyond. The Nakba was the result of the partition of Mandatory Palestine after World War Two ended as the United Nations and world powers realigned the borders of the Middle East.  The following story is by Neveen Abuelola, my 'step -niece' through marriage. I am reblogging this from when she first wrote it, around 2012 I am Neveen. I am Palestinian. This is my sto­­ry. This is the Palestinian Story. I'd like to take you back to 64 years ago, to the fertile rolling hills of Palestine. To the land of orange, lemon and olive trees, to around mid May1948. My Grandmother, heavily pregnant qu
Read more