Valley Creatures

Days pass. Not much wayfaring and not much writing.

The two are connected. I had promised to dedicate a post to Lady in Red, who writes “I love it when you describe the places you walk through, bringing it alive for those of us who can only imagine both the countryside and the industrial areas around you.” And about those industrial areas, a friend writes “Remember that you live in a tough district of a tough town” as if it excused anything. Living here was my choice & I couldn’t wish for better. What is life, but to enter into a relationship with one’s immediate environment and to survive — physically of course, but emotionally too? To live alongside manual workers, and be one myself—this is what I want, whilst I have the strength. Each day I make choices, according to my feeling. I sit here at the keyboard a little, reading my regular list of blogs, commenting on them sometimes. I write things too, draft out blog posts—that’s my highest literary ambition—and usually abandon them incomplete. Something is missing and I can’t fake it. So I give priority to the manual work. I can always complete that, even when a project takes days or weeks. I do things on my own house: a succession of jobs which make a real difference. Currently it’s to freshen up the bathroom, to deal with mould on the ceiling and between the tiles, caused by condensation and inappropriate materials used during the last refurbishment. Other projects are to assist elderly people, who can still fend for themselves in their own homes with a bit of extra help. There are stories I could tell, but confidentiality forbids. One customer questions everything I do, treats me like a servant. She has lots of money but counts every penny; so, though it’s not businesslike, I undercharge her, knowing she’ll appreciate it. She hasn’t long to live, and though she can be rude, is my favourite client: so little time and seemingly so far from peace. Who would have thought that working as a handyman could be a meditation on death?

So my wayfaring is mainly to visit the timber yard for wood and the ironmonger’s for nails, grout and tools. They’re within easy walking distance and on the street I pass people from Zimbabwe, Poland, Nigeria, South Africa, St Vincent, Jamaica, Philippines, Pakistan, Kashmir, China, Thailand, the USA (two Mormons who carry out their missionary work on the street). Survival is everyone’s game, and being at the bottom of the heap concentrates the mind. It’s easy to spot those who don’t work. There’s a middle-aged trio who meet each morning and shuffle through the town, raggedly dressed. I don’t know what disabilities they have, but you can see they are enjoying every minute and need no one’s pity. The UK has a universal benefits system. If you can’t or won’t work, you get handouts (as Americans would call them) and you can live in whatever style suits you. It reduces crime and misery: surely it’s worth every penny. Some are drunks or junkies; others are dealers — I saw one of them being questioned by two young policewomen, humiliated when one of them searched his pockets. I didn’t want to make it worse by watching, but heard his loud mutterings as he walked away after the ordeal. Another man was the main dealer in these parts a few years ago but was jailed after a police raid on his “International Club”. Now he’s released and back in the same premises, selling old furniture and bric-a-brac. He still has the gold chains round his neck but the arrogance has gone. His trading skills have risen like Phoenix from the fire. His business flourishes, the premises are neat and he employs various down-and-outs—all legal. I have my sources of information on the latter.

Out of my study window, or when I hang out clothes on the line, wildlife parades before me. Little birds come to get seeds from the feeder. A Red Admiral butterfly took advantage of today’s sunshine and fluttered by, though at first I took it for a fallen leaf fluttering from a tree. A woodpecker tapped out its rhythm on a tall tree in the playground the other side of my fence.

These days, I write to investigate my writer’s block, to see what lies behind it. I attempt nothing more than to capture the essence of the present moment. That’s what makes it so difficult. The unfinished notes have to be thrown away. They go stale faster than bread. My sleeping gets disordered: I take naps in the day from the hard physical work, then wake in the night determined to write.

Night is a different world. It’s astonishing that every twenty-four hours a vast drama is enacted: never the same, but always consisting of four acts: Dawn, Day, Dusk, Night. And within them, the various scenes: getting dressed, eating and so on. We could be forgiven for thinking birth, life and death is a similar repeating cycle, but how can we be sure? Oblivion wipes the memories clean. I have no hope for life after death. Let me live for the joy of this moment, in “Eternity’s sunrise”, as Blake says. Then I may face my own death without regret.