OUR minds wander into strange worlds when faced with crises of any kind. Comforting worlds made up of warm memories and flickering films of long-forgotten episodes in our lives; of people and places and even snapshots of ourselves always young, always laughing.
They come in daydreams, not just in sleep, as gentle as a hand stroking our faces to soothe and calm. To remind us of who we were, not the shivering, frightened creatures this virus has forced us to become.
Transported to such places makes me remember others and it is with a kind of awe I realise that were all this to end I have been privileged to see the beauties of this world; privileged, in my job, to enter and record many people’s lives.
I relive my son’s nine-year-old wriggly body as, bronzed and blonde, he slips from my grasp to race across dazzling white sands and into water so clear it makes the eyes hurt.
I hear my mother’s laugh again and watch her, cigarette in hand, legs crossed, perched on a chair holding an audience in thrall with one of her stories combining truth, fantasy, mysticism and mirth.
I see her wise sardonic eyes search me as I justify the times that I know I’ve failed myself, and silently urge me on to finer things and personal responsibility without ever verbally chastising me.
I even see my lost self as a controlled devotee of truth through journalism, grasping my shiny sword to go forth and slay the liars.
A belief, I hope, never too lost in the pursuit of mortgage payments and shiny toys to show some bizarre form of status and success.
I see the thrust of a dog’s face, the snicker of a favourite horse’s head as it puffs hot sweet air through its nostrils, warming my neck and nibbling my shoulder in its love. All flit through my mind with an aching physical presence.
And when the pit of fear opens and I totter on the edge, balancing hard to prevent myself falling, falling, I hold on to those times, those memories of what was.
Now, unreconstructed brainwashed Catholic that I am, I also go about my day muttering thanks and prayers to numerous saints, particularly those connected to foul plagues and lost causes, and all add up to an umbrella of hopeful protection.
I’m a great believer in using whatever you can to get you through the darkest hours.
Increasingly though I’m coming back to the theory of Gaia as promulgated by well-respected scientist James Lovelock in several books over the last four decades.
He sees the earth – Gaia – as the pulse of a system between organic and inorganic life to form a synergistic and self-perpetuation world. In other words, everything, everything, is interdependent for the good of the planet.
Everything has to work in harmony to keep this blessed place alive and healthy. A reversion of the very interconnectedness that has spread this virus far and wide to our detriment.
Using the same hypothesis, others have taken his theory further – that Gaia will protect herself above all and will strive to survive above all.
The earth will shake off all who do harm to the whole. And, let’s face it, the most harm has been and is wrought by us – Man. We have trashed this planet in pursuit of comfort and luxury.
So, they say it is time for us to go, or at least the bulk of us, to keep the glorious blue planet, as first seen from space, to continue its existential destiny.
I have a sympathy with this. We are mere fleas, irritating beyond measure, our host, who has warned us time and time again that harsher measures will have to be taken if we don’t behave.
And now those measures have been, coldly I am sure, taken.
I can write such words in a semi-detached measure, fortunate as I am, even with my lung disease, to be in splendid isolation. I can indulge in such abstract, intellectual, thoughts as I strike the keys and I feel almost a shame in being able to do so.
I think of the single mother trapped with her children in a high-rise flat; of the homeless, huddled beneath blankets in corners where this evil swirls and teases their forms; and above all of those extraordinary, brave, determined NHS, SNHS, staff who form the thin line between life and death.
I think of the terrified old without friend or family who quiver behind doors and windows.
And then, then...I check my internet and see the many, many good people who are combining to seek and help the weak. Who roam the streets and closed doors to bring hope and comfort.
There are so many magnificent, generous-spirited men, women and children out there. There always has been but, somehow, they got lost in the selfish rush of the rest.
Perhaps Gaia senses this and will therefore spare some of us. The decent ones who’ve always cared.
One can but hope for them. And again…upwards and onwards my friends.
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