I get many of my best ideas for these retirement blogs while walking the dogs, particularly the morning walk when I am at my most alert. It’s all relative of course. Not so many of them actually make it on to the ‘page’ as I usually forget them by the time I get home. But this one stuck with me. I wonder why?
This particular Saturday morning the weather suited my mood. All was simpatico (is that a word?). I was at one with the weather. It was wet, cold, windy and grey- perfect, just how I felt apart from the windy bit, that may come later.
I have to say that walking in the rain helps lift my mood if I’m feeling a little bleak. Weird? Maybe. And it would be true to say that a little bleak sums it up. At a personal level my friend has finally died; in New Zealand (a country we’ve lived in, feel very fond of and, like many others, had thought it beyond the kind of craziness that passes for normal here in the UK with knife crime and Brexit) where a lunatic thinks it’s clever to shoot innocent, unarmed people. Go and try and shoot some armed soldiers if you’re so principled. Coward.
So yes, a bit glum. Trying to rise above it I recall, as I do at times like this, some of my favourite lines. This one from No Country for Old Men from book by Cormac McCarthy. The sheriff (played by Tommy Lee Jones) and his deputy arrive at the scene of a multiple, drug-related shooting and the deputy says, “It’s a real mess ain’t it sheriff?” (as above mess) And the sheriff responds, “well, if it ain’t, it will do until the real one comes along.” Without searching out the book that will have to do for accuracy. Makes me smile every time I think of it.
I have a number of other go-to lines that never fail to bring a smile and one day I’m going to write them down in a blog. I’ll give you one more. This from an old episode of The Simpsons, the one where it is revealed Marge has been having an affair with an alien. He puts a tentacle around her shoulders and, in an effort to say something complimentary, says, ‘you look great, have you decreased in mass?’ Love it.
I’ve had a friend helping me with what he calls a Facebook advert. It’s obviously intended to increase my readership (yes, that old chestnut) by advertising. I don’t really understand it but my friend seems keen and he’s helping me set it up. Poor sod is just beginning to realise he’s dealing with an idiot.
He asked if I thought people understood the irony behind my writing. I said if they didn’t then they’re definitely reading the wrong blog. It’s meant I’ve spent a bit more time on FB than I usually do. Which, in turn, has meant more time observing the writings of ‘friends’. I don’t have many but the ones I do have spend a lot of time writing about political issues. American and British.
One recently-connected American friend commented that now she was retired she can ‘voice her frustrations louder’. I feel a twinge of guilt but I’m more of a ‘bury my head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening’ kind of guy. Until I’m dragged complaining into the unforgiving daylight.
I’ve decided we will definitely sponsor a guide dog. I mentioned it in a previous blog and now it’s become my two fingers to a world in a mess. I’m going for the Shakespearean approach, can’t remember the detail, never was a big Shakespeare fan, but it’s something along the lines of a good deed shining out like a candle in a naughty world. Close enough. Sponsoring the guide dog will be our candle in a definitely naughty world. (see above)
Of course there’s always the writing as therapy strategy that has served me so well over the years. So somewhere between walking in the rain, feeding the dogs (their worries are few and basic), remembering comforting lines and writing it all down (and so out of my head), there’s my strategy for coping with a naughty world. Oh and lighting the candle. Let’s not forget that. Oh and not reading the papers nor watching the news on TV. That’s about it, I think.
You can tell I’m trying to remain up-beat. And it’s simple enough. You just have to look for the good stuff even if it’s in the middle of the bad stuff. I’ll give you an example. I often think I’ve got the early stages of Parkinson’s (my grandfather had it and I keep falling over, well occasionally). This will get me before the heart attack that goes with 75% of the diabetes thing, I think.
And my point? While reading Saturday papers, trying to avoid all the bad bits there, in The Guide, was an ‘article’ – Funniest thing, a regular bit featuring different comedians each week. This time by a comedian, name of Paul Mayhew Archer (who I’d not heard of) under the sub-heading ‘funniest thing that shouldn’t be funny’, heading, he wrote about his Parkinson’s and a joke about getting depressed being a part of Parkinson’s but, because apathy is also apparently a symptom, he couldn’t be bothered to kill himself. But his ‘funniest TV show I’ve ever seen’ made me really smile – from sitcom? This Country, ‘Mum there are no holes in my crumpets. Well turn them over. Oh yeah, there they are.’ I liked that.
Maintain sense of humour at all times. My version of humour re Parkinson’s is that I keep fitter. Because I don’t walk in a straight line these days, I walk further. Or my other little ‘condition’, the essential tremors, very handy for turning still wine into sparkling and all while I’m pouring. So that’s me finished, 1,000 words of sadness and humour all in one retirement blog. That’s got to be good value. Hasn’t it?