I have had several letters of late from admirer’s of my writing to the effect that they have missed my weekly diaristic jottings which were published in this august journal during the past year. I do not know how come they have been able to write to me, for I am determinedly anonymous and, more to the point, people do not write letters these days, the art having fallen miserably by the wayside with the advent of several abhorrent forms of technology. But be all of that as it may, I have been moved, just a little, by those epistolary sentiments, but alas for them! Since the turn of the year I have not been keeping a daily diary, or even a weekly diary, for I have allowed my innate laziness to dominate and, in collaboration with some of my other qualities, which include ennui, cynicism, and general apathy, it has been something of a quiet time these last couple of months or so.
But it has not all been down to my general lack of motivation. On waking up one morning in early January I felt a pain and stiffness in my back, and it refused to wear off, even after I took a bucketload of painkillers. Long story short, as they say, I was more or less bedridden for almost three weeks. It comes to something when a chap does his back in merely by having a night’s sleep, but that is what seems to have occurred. My doctor said, very helpfully, that “these things happen”. I pondered a bit. Perhaps the trouble had something to do with the dream I had that night which involved clambering up and down hills and quite a lot of strenuous effort to reach something or other. I don’t remember exactly what it was about. As a matter of fact, my back has been an intermittent problem ever since a pole-vaulting mishap in my younger days. I don’t like to talk about it. I was not cut out for the pole vault: I always had a fear of heights. But as I said, I don’t like to talk about it. At the same time, I have often begged the gods who oversee the life of men and ladyfolk on earth that I not fall prey to the ailments of old age before my time, but I sense old age may be in the process of arriving, and while at the moment (today) my back is not too bad, I am wary: the occasional “twinge” gets me worried and no mistake.
While I was confined to bed, Cook (bless her) assumed the role of Nurse, and revealed a caring side that had hitherto kept extremely well-hidden. I increased her wages a little to show my appreciation.
Abed there was little to do but sleep and read. Montaigne, always a good stand-by, has an essay ‘On Sleep’, in which he talks about chaps who slept even when faced, for example, by an imminent battle or some other huge crisis that would scare the pants off ordinary men. Some of them even had to be woken up to go into battle, for they considered this massive event as no more important than, for example, a visit to a shoe shop. It was just life that they had to be getting on with. Of course, I am not like that, not in the least.
While I dipped occasionally into Michel de M., I also spent some time with Sam Beckett, who can always be relied upon for a chuckle or two, especially when he is at his most hopeless. I stumbled upon this, in “Molloy”, on a morning when I was feeling especially pained. The narrator, as it happens, was also in bed:
Far from the world, its clamours, frenzies, bitterness and dingy light, I pass
judgement on it and those, like me, who are plunged in it beyond recall, and on him
who has need to be delivered, who cannot deliver myself. All is dark, but with that
simple darkness that follows like a balm upon the great dismemberings. From their
places masses move, stark as laws. Masses of what? One does not ask. There
somewhere man is too, vast conglomerate of nature’s kingdoms, as lonely and as bound bound.
Perhaps it was my intimation of mortality – yes, a bad back, and a Cook/Nurse who grimly tells you she is going to get you a walking-stick can be that kind of intimation – but I lingered over this passage a long time. I’m not sure I actually understood it completely, but one does not have to always understand a piece of writing for it to make one think and go somewhere in the head one would not otherwise have gone. If I could explain better what I mean I would, but I can’t really be arsed. A little further down the same page was this:
I get up, go out, and everything is changed. The blood drains from my head, the
noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my
eyes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different
message, I drown in the spray of phenomena. It is at the mercy of these sensations,
which happily I know to be illusory, that I have to live and work.
You read something for a chuckle and instead it gets you thinking of the Lord knows what. As it happened, that same day I was asked if I would consider putting together my “Collected Poems” – a publisher with fabulous taste has decided that such a volume is overdue. I cannot help but think that it is one more sign of the approaching end of my days, but I have tentatively agreed to go ahead with the project. It will mean a lot of work, because I have not been the most diligent of archivists, but if nothing else it will give me something to do over the coming months.
So, what with one thing and another, and in my current state of tentative hobbling around and some back-fear every time I bend down to do something, I shall soon embark upon a trawl through my back catalogue of genius, and have decided – if only for the sake of my fanbase –to resume my diary jottings, although it will not be daily, because I really am not that interested, but every now and then I shall update my admirers and anyone else who stumbles across it with notes regarding any doings I deem worthy of mention. But I suggest that the world does not hold its breath.
Continuing what I acknowledge has not been the most cheerful tone, I received sad news this morning of the passing of my friend Robert in the United States. He left us in his sleep and, I understand, peacefully and painlessly. The day is dimmed. This is from one of his poems:
There are people who I know are dead
and people I suppose are dead
and people who I fear are dead
and dead people long forgotten
and dead people who never leave
I probably should have picked one of his funny ones. Never mind. I suspect that those few souls who begged me to resume my diary may be regretting they ever suggested it . . . I can’t help that. One does not always get what one bargains for in this life.
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James Henderson, Gentleman
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