AT the announcement of the lockdown did I weep, wail, lament the disappearance of my freedom? Did I beat my breast and cry for justice to the wind?

No, for how would I notice, I said languidly to friends? What for me is the difference really between then and now? Maybe the odd person permitting me a Lady of Shallot window lean? Or a surprise visit from my past? I think not – everybody knows I hate surprises.

So, if not exactly smug in my self-containment, I’d at least be relatively content, would’t I?

So many questions, and only one answer after all this time. No.

In week seven in France, or longer if you wrecked your back like I did, I can say I’m not content; indeed, where is the insouciance of yesteryear? Where is the tranquil, smiling soul of past times?

Gone. Broken. Banished to a corner where books give delight not, nor soothe not the soul.

I’ve worked it out. You see, real pleasure comes from being able to do what many others simply can’t. And if we can all take our pleasures doing what we want, when we want, then what is the point?

And if we can’t take them by winking back at those who can’t…..then they’re not as much fun, are they?

Be honest, pleasure comes often from doing the frowned upon things; the somewhat lazy or not quite approved of act of indolence or greed; the deadly sins indeed.

It is a rare soul who practices piety and great acts of kindness – they are more outward acts of inherent goodness. The rest of us may do the odd random act, but that is all and we will expect thanks to be given forever afterwards.

We mainly snuffle along, nose to our own bit of ground, occasionally peering about but in truth, beyond food, safety and sexual urges, there’s not really a hell of a lot to us. Le sigh.

We could of course be using this time to delve deep into our hearts and souls but, looking at the Trump press conferences, I don’t think we really want to follow that rabbit hole, do we?

We could listen to music that speaks to the notes vibrating fairy wing-like in those souls that we can barely normally hear them until the notes of a great composer burrow down our defensive layers and strikes them hard.

Or let the eye curve over the sublime glide of an artist’s brush as all her senses form what only she can see….and then, we.

And, yes, a beautiful piece of woodwork; perfection in a crystal glass; a photograph carving through man’s outer shell – all have their place in our definitions of beauty and humanity.

For all are testament to the history that we once, too, deserved a place in the celebration of our planet. We once created worth and a world adorned with rare, fine and beautiful things.

We once produced for the sake of the production, not to see the envy in other men’s eyes. And now I’ll demolish my opening argument.

We read, we listen to the music, for us – no-one else, and what a beautiful thing that is. We respond to pleasure, to rhythm, to bass notes and riffs, to sensuous colours melding into unnatural rainbows, to a universal minuet continuous, if changing patterns.

Sure, if we irritate or merely charm the watcher, there is a flicker of momentary feelings, that disappear to be replaced by a feeling of euphoria that seeks neither approval nor a stamping of one’s intellectual passport to continue.

Why ever we do all this is actually neither here nor there. We do it because we have to – we need to, we hunger for it.

Beauty and learning are an altered state of being. Frankly, who needs to ‘be’ anymore? We tried that.

So, what next? God knows. I don’t have a clue only the knowledge that we can’t lose all this, nor should we want to.

I once brought back from California at Tang Dynasty funeral piece of a bodyguard and horse. I cherished it the long journey and placed it on my chimney piece.

The following day I told my then cleaner – a not too gentle woman – never to touch it, impressing upon her its worth and its history. And that I’d slit her throat if she did. She promised.

At some point I moved it to a side table, thinking it too obvious to bother pointing out.

Even now I cannot describe the pain of seeing it headless, where she picked it up to have a ‘wee dust.’ I know I moved myself to another room for I would surely have killed her – it would have been worth it.

Anyway, the point is – I once shared in its beauty for however brief a time – it had existed and that knowledge is enough, enough for me.

I can rise above mere existence. We’re all worth more than that. Right?

(Enough? You know that’s a lie. I’d still mentally devise exploding heads when she went near it. For two years afterwards.’)

I did but strange...it all seems so meaningless now.

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