The Truth is out there!

There is such a thing as objective truth, but we have to remove all the subjective factors, and to know a great deal about everything surrounding the truth to get to it.   That is today's epiphany.

I rather like it - but like so many of these things it will probably turn out to be untrue.  I like it because I have always felt that there were real true things - not in the sense of Platonic Ideals - but actual facts which were True... opinions and interpretations could fluctuate, but there will always be a truth.

I am not talking about religious truth - but truth about people's behaviour, motivations.  Even if one's own opinions fluctuate, if one could remove all the interpretative material, somewhere underneath it all there would be a truth about why one did what one did.  

Schumacher Schadenfreude...

This is not about Michael Schumacher - but about one's responses to people in public life.  Alot of people associate very positively with certain celebrities... and some have a great revulsion for others. MS was one of those for whom I felt a mild distaste: he was highly competitive - which is appropriate in a racing driver, and on several occasions he behaved in an "over-competitive" manner, i.e. driving to endanger others, and coming close to cheating.  Unpleasant therefore - so my associations with him  were largely negative.  

I should say that I am not a furiously competitive person, that gene has evaded me, I am interested in stuff, my work, and so on, but I don't want to win.  I occasionally argue with people because I think they are misinformed or misguided, but I don't argue to "win".   (I think).   So obviously Schumacher is not someone I admire or sympathise with much.  Like many risk-averse types I think this sort of behaviour is mad, unnecessary, and liable to bring sorrow to one's family and friends.  My first thought when I heard about his skiing accident was "typical" - i.e. a type A, risk-taking, competitive man goes a bit OTT while skiing and has a ghastly accident and is in a coma.  I didn't quite think "serves him right" but it was more an acknowledgement that people who are risk takers will be more likely to have accidents than people who don't, ergo it had a sort of poetic justice to it.

Schadenfreude is of course an unseemly pleasure in others' misfortunes - and I don't think I'm enjoying his accident, but more that sort of rightness - the poetic justice of it, the "those who live by the sword, die by the sword" feeling.  It is curious - a sense that all is right with the world, because rash behaviour has met its expected outcome.  Yet I am sure this is a feeling that is only common to "sensibles", us poor, white-collar livers of undistinguished lives who find the Schumachers of this world incomprehensible.  Most people perhaps would not see this as just deserts - just bloody bad luck.

The only interesting thing I have learned is that Schadenfreude isn't necessarily about the person... it can be about the wider idea/lesson - about the outcomes that can result from this sort of behaviour.  Not an ad hominem argument at all.   Obviously it is partly to do with a confirmation of our prejudices, we are pleased when the world conforms to our norms, which in my case seem to be dictated by an Inner Nanny... endlessly telling us to "be careful."

My own experience of skiing may also be a factor in my resonses, but that's another story.

A really lovely Christmas

Oh, that sounds rather sentimental and silly - but true.  The cooking all seemed to go really smoothly - the cakes were done and looked ok - and even the cake we kept for ourselves (the runt of the litter) was really nice and not overcooked.  Christmas Eve was great - we had blinis and gravadlax, then ajada which was interesting, and orange creme caramel... some problems with the cooking since we were visited by our neighbour J who is a nice man but completely insensitive to the needs of host - sits down and talks at you until he's finished.  I found this distracting - and was impatient for him to leave - this impatience transferred itself to the cooking.

We picked C up and went to St Augustine's nice carol service - we sang 5 verses of "Oh come, oh come Emmanuel" (one of the Great O Antiphons!!!)  I remember one of our neighbours in London saying she thought it was a dirge...perhaps the organist's fault - nothing dirge like about this.  Then the high Mass began with the blessing of the crib - in English, after that it was Latin all the way (apart from the epistle and the sermmon).  The Gospel was chanted in Latin - I stained my ears to understand: et pannis involvitur she wrapped him in swaddling bands - is really "she rolled him in cloths" and then we had it read in English. There were lashings of incense (the thurifers must have been on overtime)   The Victoria Consort sang Palestrina's Mass for Pope Marcellus (a three week pope... wonder who he'd upset?) and it was all fab.   Then we went home, dropping Ned off at the Chapel in Broadstairs - it was late, nearly time to go to MN's Reveillon... but still time to wrap the last present.  Everything felt very unhassled.

The Reveillon was nice - MN had prepared a nice fishetarian table... I nibbled a few things, gorgeous mince pies... almonds in the pastry.  I felt a bit shy, I didn't know many of the people there - but I began to talk to C - a man with a reputation for being boring.  I discovered he wasn't actually boring - but he doesn't take any interest in his interlocutor and is happy to talk ceaselessly about his own experiences and impressions - perhaps that is the definition of boring - but he was talking about Beijing and the Catholic Church and one or two other interesting topics.  We came home at about 2 am and slept in until 10 - we had stockings, coffee, then breakfast in the dining room.  Then I did the usual preparations on the turkey etc. and we went down to the beach.  It was a lovely sunny day and a large tranche of Ramsgate was there - I saw a number of my particular friends - Ann, Kirstie, Anette, Sue - from afar - as well as others whom I like but know less well - Jacqui, Ruth R, plus all the associated husbands and partners.  I also spotted Clifford the rabbi strolling on the strands - so went to say Happy Christmas to him - not sure if that was taking ecumenism too far... returned home slightly tipsy (terrible parking!) and then finished preparations - we opened our very lovely and much appreciated pressies: Finn had bought me a book and a CD I had asked for, while Ned had chosen me a very nice cotton multicoloured scarf... "from a hippy shop" in Norwich.  Mark had found a cut glass bowl in a charity shop - which was v nice - as well as a cardigan and some chocolates.   His originality this year ran to some make-up from TK Maxx in my christmas stocking - white eye shadow, blue mascara and a rather tawny blusher (I have never owned or used blusher before, since I have naturally rather pink - red cheeks.)

Christmas dinner was rather delicious and the fridge door crisis was dealt with calmly and smoothly.  Ned and Finn were both helpful and co-operative and did lots of little things nicely.  We all enjoyed the Lamingtons although I feel they are not mega enough to be Christmas pudding... Ned said he would have preferred sticky toffee pudding - so perhaps I will oblige later in the hols - for New Year Day perhaps.

We watched telly by the fire and ate chocs.

On Boxing Day we got up - did chores and at 3 went for a short walk at Pegwell Bay.  The sun was setting, there were flocks of lapwings on the shoreline and we could see some seals' heads bobbing about at the mouth of the Stour... very beautiful - until 4 mini-hovercrafts came roaring across the bay and up the river creating a great deal of noise for about 5 minutes.  There were huge flat topped clouds in the S-West - heading for us.   In the night a great storm blew up - it was very windy - and still is, but they say it will calm down soon.  We have been less badly effected than some people.   Another storm is expected next week.

All in all we have had rather a good Christmas - today is a day of chores and then my family will descend like vultures.  So far we have been getting on well, and doing what's expected of us and it has been unusually harmonious.

The Luxury of Hope

Hope is a very widespread, commonly available commodity - it's cheap - cheap as words, or any other cheap thing.   It's widely considered to be a good - it's a cardinal virtue after all.  Christian hope is fine - it's a religious/spiritual thing - the hope of the life to come - and it doesn't damage our everyday lives.  If, God forbid, our hope for the life to come is going to be disappointed, well, it will be too late to do anything about it.

However, I am not talking about the religious aspects.  Obama called one of his books "The Audacity of Hope" - and that suggests a certain amount of courage is required to hope in the material world.   A different type of hope entirely really.   When I think of all the things I hoped for as a teenager/young woman - political things, changes in society that have come about - greater gender equality, acceptance of homosexual relationships, greater racial integration, various changes in attitudes - these have all come to pass.  There are plenty of other things I hoped for - a greater awareness of and action on the environment, an unbending of the Catholic church (that may be happening now - but...), greater social equality, better education for the less aspirational members of society - these are things that have not come to pass - we continue to argue for them and campaign for them with varying degrees of enthusiasm.   The disappointment of those hopes does give some heartache (especially the Church weirdly - because it concerns me more personally I suppose).

I remember coming across the line in the Bible "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick" when I was about 30-31 - I was in the terrible depression that followed my divorce and it struck me as terribly, immediately true.  So much hope had had to be deferred - chiefly any hopes of a new relationship.  I began to think about it again this year, when the endless disappointments of the novel piled up.   I had been justified in hoping, I had had a "good agent" interested in my work - it felt like what I ought to have, it felt "right" - but I was wrong.  Was I wrong - or was it the faculty of hope within me that had mislead me.  A rational response might have been to find the statistics, work out the likelihood of being taken on, getting publiished etc.   - and yet, I couldn't.   I also need to point out to myself that within a couple of years of finding that quote from Proverbs, I had a new meaningful relationship, and was on my way to marriage and family life.  I can only hope (???) that a similar pattern is involved in the current situation.

At this time of year it's traditional to think about one's hopes for the new year, as if a change in the dates will bring some sort of change in one's existence...But with the prospects not very different is it worth it?  I have had plenty of hopes deferred (or for all I know, completely smashed) and my heart is, fundamentally, pretty sick.   And that's the thing about these hopes - have they just been deferred - or have they actually been destroyed?   Adam Phillips says that sometimes you can want something too long.  That has certainly happened with one or two things I have hoped for.  But one can't tell, unless one has destroyed one's own hopes, whether one's hopes are now completely futile.  Of course, when it comes to a relationship, or a career prospect one can go on hoping and it's not always obvious that one is basically fucked.

My life will probably get better - it's just the cyclical nature of life - the wheel of Fortune... there are certain (financial) expectations that will probably be realised eventually - when my father dies (unless we spend it all on nursing homes!), ditto M's mother.  But as for the creative/emotional aspirations - who can say?  I think given my slightly wavery mental state, I cannot currently indulge in the luxury of hope since I cannot afford the consequences of disappointment.  I am therefore striving towards a steady state policy in the new year: keep on keepin' on - we can grind on with little bits of dosh here and there - the major debts are paid and we can just cope for a while.  I will write as hard as I can, and submit as hard as I can - and perhaps the square wheel can finally be pushed over to its next side.

Christmas - so far..

Well, the season to be jolly has been jolly hard work this year.  Our fiscal preoccupations have somewhat suppressed our inclination to sparkle just now.  The first party was on 7th December, I went reluctantly, having felt very gloomy that day.  I stayed and drank for hours and saw two or three close friends and mostly talked to them... so it was nice, but I failed to be completely on "party mode" until I had drunk rather a lot.  I came home and the next thing I knew it was morning - and I was wasting Sunday with a hangover!  Ah well, I got up eventually and life went on.

We have had some relief since my father has lent me some money, Mark has been selling things on E-bay, I have done some babysitting, some shopkeeping and some care home work and made a massive £60 - plus nearly £50 for cakes and puddings... so trickles of money keep coming in thank God.

Yesterday was M's birthday - so we had the traditional feast - a bit down on last year's grandeur... due to illness our only guest was Stella - my birthday pres to M was not to respond to her provocations.  I did fairly well. I notice she is having real trouble with her memory for words - quite a number seem to evade her - it was very noticable and worrying.  She is talking about moving to Cardiff... she also said her will divides everything equally, which is a relief...if she moved to Cardiff we'd be unlikely to see her, but she does prefer Flora's girly family to our boy-based unit.  She is puzzled by Finn's surliness - would like to see him smile.  She approves of Ned, but chiefly we heard about how great the Jay boys were.  Not difficult to be great when you have so much affluence and freedom in your life.  Not fair to compare Finn with them, he's 16 and difficult - they are all over 20.    The other factor is that they both know she's been unpleasant to me and are taking sides.  Obviously it's nice to have one's children on one's side - but not if they are being unfair to someone else.

I seem to remember that last summer she was a bit unpleasant to me - but I'm not bothered now. M and the boys are still cross on my behalf.  I think I said I would never entertain her again, but of course I couldn't do that.  It would be cruel to keep an increasingly frail 88 year old away from her grandchildren - but you do understand how these rifts occur in families.  All it needs is one person to be mildly offensive and one person to take deep offence - a magical, and frequently found combination.  So I suppose I can say that my contribution to the Christmas spirit is the hospitality I'm giving her.

I had quite a long chat to her last night about nothing in particular.  She has few interests outside her family - and unfortunately I don't share that interest - I like to hear about various people such as Minna, and Dora - and I am curious about the developments, but the showing-off elements repel me.  Last night she was bragging about her brother John, who died of alcoholism basically.  She is frantically trying to re-write history - death due to hospital malfeasance is her preferred version.  He was very glamorous and I "would have loved him" - I said I probably wouldn't have, since I didn't really like action men, I preferred thoughtful, academically inclined men.  Then she said "he married a dreadfully dull parson's daughter" - actually the daughter of a cathedral cannon, but the urge to put down is never far away!  "Parson" being a particularly subtle haute-bourgeois insult - it means "Low Church" and therefore v.v. ungrand - not a gentleman.   And clearly untrue... sigh!   Despite her devotion to his memory she has very little devotion to his children - claiming the daughter "got out of coming to the funeral" because she "claimed to be looking after her mother" - she couldn't come to our Tom Taylor fest either for the same reason.  Stella also repeats the canard that John's son is not really his... despite his remarkable family resemblance to various people.  I really like him, he's a nice chap, and his wife is lovely too.  S is also rather proud of her family's apparent commitment to rudeness and disdain.

So, when I say I have committed myself to the Christmas Spirit - it hasn't been totally easy... but I have done my best, and now I have undone it all again by moaning about her.

Next items on the agenda: a drink (I hope) with Jane, when she comes to collect her cake - and then we're all (the 4 of us) going to see the Hobbit film.  Pizza tonight - and then tomorrow two parties - an hour or so at the care home (Sheree is carefully organising it) - and then over to S&K's.  We were also invited to drinks at A's - it is his birthday - but we can't do that too...so perhaps he will come and eat with us on Monday.  

I am looking forward to Christmas Eve this year - we are going to go to carols and the Latin Mass at St. Pugin's - then later go to the Reveillon at MN's - a nice group of chums and a few post-church drinks and snacks.  Lovely idea - can't stay out too late though!

Births, marriages & deaths...

This is a bit misleading, I'm not really including the whole gamut - there has been a birth recently, S & L's grand-daughter, which is lovely.  Not many marriages either - middle age precludes that.  But deaths, yes, plenty of those.   There used to be a column in The Oldie which reviewed memorial services, until Ned Sherrin, the reviewer lui-meme died.  I can imagine that a blog of funeral reviews might be a goer!  Book offers come tumbling in!  Perhaps I should start going to some more, purely in a critical capacity.

On Friday I took my father to my 2nd cousin A's funeral in Nottinghamshire.  My father loves seeing his family - but he does have some outdated notions about family: he asked me "So, who is the head of the family now?"  I suppose that was the person he felt he ought to address his condolences to.  His memory is appalling... I reminded him who A was - that we'd been to her wedding, she'd been to my first wedding etc. etc., daughter of his cousin N etc.   I was a bit worried as he didn't seem to be taking it in.  However, during the homily in which the vicar discussed A's life and achievements, my pa suddenly realised who she was actually - the person she had  been,  whom he had known and liked, which was a relief.

I am making him a chart of all the cousins we know on that side of the family, which he can keep by the phone for the next funeral phone call.

This was a lovely funeral, because although A's death was sad, and she hadn't quite made the three score years and ten, she had chosen treatment which would end her suffering rapidly - when it was clear that the cancer treatment hadn't worked.  As someone said "Who needs to go to Switzerland really?!"  So there was a feeling that it had been her choice - and that was calming and satisfying in its way.   But I don't wish to suggest it was as dry-eyed as Edward's funeral.  There had been no stupid efforts to diminish the emotional content.  A hymn like Abide with me is full of emotion - and there was a reading which the reader had to control themselves to read, a slightly broken tribute from a son-in-law - one-liners from the grandchildren.

The most moving thing was that the coffin was carried by family members, her brother, her son and son-in-law and I think a nephew.  It was not a smooth performance but it was terribly touching, the sense of the last kindly act that one can do for someone.  It was a very "proper" funeral - allowing one all the catharsis one needed, the sense of the fragility of life, and each generation passing away, and a new generation rising to follow them - to consider how one would be remembered, for what, and for how long.  All these are very fundamental human questions - and tend to lead one towards melancholy - if not down right misery!

There was a considerable amount of sobbing from one of A's  much younger work colleagues.  I was interested, I spoke to her parents later, but didn't get any insight.

After the funeral service the close family (there are a lot of them) went to the crematorium - we went with everyone else to the deli/cafe in a former theatre - we sat and had coffees and teas until we were urged to eat by the staff.   It made me smile, this always seems to be a feature of cremations - the family disappear to the crematorium, down winding country lanes, while the friends sit wondering at what point it will be permissible to descend on the ham sandwiches without looking like a complete gannet.  The first people to eat were rather apologetic, but we joined the queue and I pointed out that if we all waited until the family came back there would be an unseemly rush to the buffet as low blood-sugared ravenous monsters squabbled over the quiches.

Obviously the social side of the funeral was important, we got to sit with a nice group of people and had some great conversations, and then later I saw various cousins who we haven't seen for ages.  I talked to A's sister M for a long time - she's really nice, and I enjoyed hearing about her work - she has done various things, but I was especially interested in the psycho-sexual conselling she'd done... and how satisfying it was to see people change and the energy get unleashed.  Oh dear, perhaps I should try and unleash some of my energy... maybe that's the answer.  M said she would invite us to the next summer garden party - it's great that she's doing that.  We also agreed rather grimly that we would probably be seeing more of each other at funerals in the not too distant future.   Oh dear.