I Sense a Low Point

Sunday 19th April 2020

Maybe we are half-way through, one third of the way through or getting nowhere. Who knows? Last night we tried Zoom at 8pm. Archie Hurling came on. He’d received a remarkable package through the post, the contents of which he caused him to fuse his ring at 4 in the morning. Poor Merle once again much victimised. ‘Everybody’s talking at once,’ Merle said, again and again. No effect.  Angus and Fergus kept disappearing into their background, which was the Maldives. They wouldn’t sit still. Next thing, the pair were blank altogether. Battery failure apparently. ‘They’re drunk,’ Archie said, in the interlude of their absence, like one stamping the final paper before the gallows. Once they were back, he cried, ‘I’m not coping. I’m very emotional. I’m not used to this.’ Nobody took any notice. He started snacking desperately in full view on Zoom.  Where was Heavenly Brahms? He’d been painting a floor, Archie said. ‘Here is the floor he painted,’ Archie said, moving his device to capture it. But no sign of the person of Heavenly, none whatsoever. Evap completely? Who knows? Only Miss Miracle, after I asked six times through the chaos, was at all forthcoming with anything resembling sense which was remarkable because in ‘normal’ times she’ll have your menu turned upside down, her cardie she’ll pull off over her head and it’s never been laundered from the Charity Shop and she doesn’t agree with anything you say. Now she’s making sense. Everyone else gone off the rails. She’s working in a school. There are three pupils, the off-spring of essential workers. Where are all the others? The off-spring of essential workers, I mean. There must be more than three in a large secondary school.  And she’s making head-bands for NHS workers. Somehow she’s got a sewing machine. She’s never used a sewing machine before.

Val could be running things up for the NHS.

I sense a low point. Jolly little WhatsApp groups established at the outset are fading away. Nobody phones. I don’t phone anybody either. Too much effort. There’s nothing to say. Apart from the Gay Mother – and she’s got somebody she knows on a ventilator, but in Sweden. It’s a long story. Really you just can’t believe it.

I suppose Heaven will be a bit like this when we get there. Nothing to do, or if things to do, there’s always tomorrow, one day exactly like another, stretching out into eternity. Infinite time to write a novel. So nothing gets done. But it’s not just that. You can’t keep the din from outside out. . All kinds of schemes are urged. Why not flower as an artist? Or at least acquire hobbies. You’re free. Now’s your chance.

But the agony of negative capability for the artist, the impossible struggle to exclude and absorb which must be made possible. No proper artist could forge on through this, ignoring.

Outside, life is draining away, quite literally. TV is drying up, because they can’t gather to make programmes. What’s happening to people?  Did you notice the bizarre general assumption prevalent from the beginning of all this – that solitary isolation and being glued up with your Loved Ones were the same terrible fate? In fact on the whole being glued with LOs marginally worse.   Everybody in the same boat more or less. So we learn an irony. Empathy as normally understood depends on difference. Once everybody’s experience is the same, something very strange starts to happen.

Dismaying State of Washing Up Brushes after Five Weeks of Isolation

Dismaying State of Washing Up Brushes after Five Weeks of Isolation

 

Posted Sunday, April 19, 2020 under Adrian Edge day by day.

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