Life at the End of the Tunnel

Boris Johnson is back. We have a Prime Minister again, who can paint pictures with words, give us hope and jolly us all along with a few cheery bon mots.

Whatever your political persuasion I think we can all agree that Boris Johnson is a very skilled writer. A writer is an artist that uses words to paint a picture in your mind. Having a Prime Minister with such skills can be quite manipulative and it will be interesting, when we have the benefit of history, to look back and see whether we were pushed in the right direction.

Before he came on the screen to lead the much anticipated daily briefing the news anchor said, “We hope that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, will discuss ending lockdown and at least give us some hope of  life at the end of the tunnel.”

Life?

I know we have become a nation obsessed with death but surely it’s meant to be light.

Light at the end of the tunnel!

I shouted at the TV.

The breaking news jingle cut my rant off and the holy trinity of medicine, patient and science appeared on the screen. Patient appeared breathless but that could have been excitement from the birth of his xth child.

He went on to paint a beautiful word picture. He transported us to one of those mountain tunnels in the Swiss Alps. We’ve been driving under the mountain very slowly and we have just gone past the peak. If we keep a steady pace then soon we will be close to the end of the tunnel. We will be able to see green grass, blue sky and little animals bouncing around at the ends.

Aha. There is life at the end of the tunnel!

I shouted at the TV again.

But, he continued painting, if we move too fast we will get to another mountain and we will have to use another tunnel.

I like climbing mountains. There’s life on mountains.

I know that’s irresponsible of me. Not everyone is capable of climbing a mountain. I might not be capable of climbing it but when you are talking about being stuck in a place with no life then mountaineering sounds like a challenge worth taking.

I had to take a step back and remember that there is life in the tunnel too. It might be smaller. No bunnies and deer frolicking on the grass verges but mice, rats, bats and several insects can be found in these places. (I hope)

Looking for these small signs of life is what has kept us going, so far, in lockdown.

Yesterday was the first day of the Japanese micro season of Peonies bloom (Botan Hana Saku)  and we have two goldfinches nesting in our garden.  There is life in the tunnel, you just have to look a bit harder for it.

Satta Mountain Pass by Shotei Takahashi

Wild Geese

Today marks the end of the Japanese micro season,  Kōgan kaeru (Wild geese fly north).  There are geese where I live. They are all over the place. 

When my parents got to the age I am now, they did the usual thing of make a bucket list. You get to about fifty and friends start to die. It makes you question your mortality and you think about all the things you haven’t done.  They started to travel to see the places they’d always wanted to go. They took one trip a month for a year and eventually got fed up of it. All they wanted to do was stay at home and not have to pack or unpack anything. I think it probably all started from my Mum’s childhood wish to be able to fly. 

I expect that with the lockdown in place, many people are dreaming where they’d like to go and developing their lists. When we walk, the Long Suffering Husband, not wishing to talk about virus maths or death any more, asks me to name five things. 

“So, your five favourite breakfast cereals?” he will ask.

“What about the five top children’s TV shows?”

“Best five places you’ve been.”

Before he asks the question he really wants to focus on, “What five places would you wish you’d been to if you died tomorrow?”

Unfortunately for him, I’m quite content. It keeps striking me that if I did die tomorrow then I would have no regrets. It’s been a pretty good life, so far. I’m not saying that I don’t want to go anywhere but many of my happiest times have been right here at home. In fact, this lockdown is quite blissful for me. I have my family around me but we have enough space to be apart.  It is the best time of year for walking. I live in a beautiful area with many country footpaths. Lockdown means that you can hear and see the birds, the streams are running clearer and the skies are bluer. There is no pressure to be anything more and there are plenty of things to keep me entertained. 

Like the geese, I will go if I have to but I’m more than happy to stay on my daily back-and-forth flight path. One of the things, closer to home Mum always wanted to do was see the geese fly overhead. She watched them fly over her garden every evening and had heard that in certain places you could have them almost buzz the top of your head. I was always confused about this because if you stand on the sea wall then this happens frequently. 

At the moment, the sea wall is too busy for me. It used to be my favourite place for social distancing but since the government has suggested that daily exercise is better for your brain that sitting in your underpants, eating chocolate, drinking gin and watching Netflix, people have flocked to the edge of the world. This has forced me to explore some of the footpaths and bridleways that the dog has been eyeing up for a while but I’ve refused to take because they seem to be heading out into the middle of nowhere.

We took a path and turned a corner and there was a huge goose staring at us.

“Did you know it’s the Japanese micro season of Wild Geese Fly North?” I asked the LSH. “He doesn’t look like he’s going to fly anywhere.”

“Is he wild?”

“Looks pretty cross to me.”

You see, with comedy like that, who needs to fly anywhere?

I’m here for the birds

Wasn’t the Queen lovely? It was a particularly nice broach, I thought and whoever wrote her speech was a genius. It had the perfect tone: not preachy but with enough Churchillian World War Two, we’re  all in this together, we’ll meet again references to keep the angry mob happy. It was genius because any psychologist will tell you that the best way to get people to comply is to point out the people doing what they should, rather than those that aren’t. Thanking us all for doing the right thing was perfect. The Daily Mail pictures and angry people on Social Media are actually making some people say, “Well, if they’re not going to do it, I don’t see why I should.”  It’s the same reason for why they don’t want us to stop and sit. If we see people doing it then it is human nature to do the same thing and people will inevitably share a bench without realising.

This morning, however, the Queen has become a nasty meme. The angry people are still angry, which I understand but hate. Anger is just a response to fear. This response to fear doesn’t help my anxiety and so I’m finding Social Media a fairly uncomfortable place to be.

However, there is a corner of anxious Twitter, where people like me have gathered for a while. It is a place where we tweet about tweets. We are only there for the birds. We share pictures of our bird tables and recordings of the birdsong we are hearing. When you are traumatised (and what is happening right now will feel like a trauma for many) it can help to focus on the small things. Watch the birds, have a pocket full of stones, take your camera out and use the macro setting. Stay small; stay safe; watch the birds.

The blue tit visits the mirror daily to engage the pretty tit in the mirror 

The Japanese are brilliant at this. They have 72 seasons, which help them to focus on the minutiae of life. We know about Sakura (the first Cherry Blossom season) but did you know that Tsubame kitaru is between the 5th and 9th of April? This is the season of the swallows return. It turns out that they are perfectly correct. Last night, I saw my first swallow of the season and so did my corner of social media. We were thrilled. We trilled. The Queen is lovely and the swallows are back.

Next time you feel the fear overwhelm you and the anger rising, I can thoroughly recommend taking a breath and being here for the birds.