Rocket told me he was keeping a covid diary.
What does it say? I asked.
Day1. Woke up. went out. had breakfast. went to sleep, woke up, had a walk. went to sleep. had supper. went to sleep.
Day 2. Woke up. went out .........
But that's what you always do I said. What's different? He told me because I was now here all the time he couldn't do the exciting bits of his day which were digging up the lawn, chewing the cushions, digging up the plants and telling everyone that passed the gate he was a prisoner and being kept against his will.
But you can still roll in all that fox shit and badger poo and get snagged on the wire fence and have to go to the vet and eat the pig shit and chase the cyclists and nip our neighbour as she went running past.
I didn't he said.
You did I said.
I didn't he said.
Well let's face it there's no one else to argue with in our glorious isolation.
It's just him and me now. (not counting the cats or the ducks)
The one bit of social excitement was when the pigs escaped from the barn. It was such a glorious site and I wished they'd all just run away before the farmer saw them, finding their own way in the world, snuffling anti-biotic free acorns in the wild and empty woods.
By the end of all this we (oh I) there is no we at the moment - will have a lovely garden, because if you don't go out you can stay in and weed the garden and I know how lucky we(I) are/am to have a garden in the first place.
Pocket told me he thought it might cheer everyone up if he just posted all the bon mots he'd been telling us since July 2018. (I've had to put his sources incase he gets sued as he tells me he's going to get them published.)
"Who's going to publish them Pocket?" I asked. He muttered Furber and Furber - don't you mean Faber and Faber I asked but he'd already turned away and told me he'd signed a contract not to discuss it and he wished Rocket would stop carrying a 2 metre length stick around because it brushed his whiskers every time he ran past with it.
And wisdom is a butterfly and not a gloomy bird of prey. WB Yeats
Always be yourself unless you can be a wolf.
Then always be a wolf.
Then always be a wolf.
To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at. Monet
We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression Confucius
Scorn pain. Either it will go away or you will." Seneca
A la recherche du temps perdu Proust
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate." Chesterton
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." Kafka
It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak."Antoine de Saint-Exupery
When setting out on a journey, do not seek advice from those who have never left home. Rumi
Give me a small everyday event and I will make it a five act play." Gogol
Expectation is the root of all heartache." Shakespeare
write a little every day without hope and without despair." Karen Blixen
In time we hate that which we often fear. And I said Shakespeare said that. Anthony and Cleopatra Act 1 Scene 3.
It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar." Anais Nin
All your sorrows have been wasted on you if you have not yet learned how to be wretched," Seneca
"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." Emily Dickinson
There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to live, believe, do and mostly - live" Dalai Lama
What makes a Hero is to face simultaneously one's greatest suffering and one's highest hope. Nietzche
The tulips are coming out now and bring such pleasure with their beauty. I have so much time that I am endlessly photographing them and putting them on Instagram. (you can follow me - writercoggin)
The poem (Time)I wrote below is an indicator as to how things are in this household during these strange times.
Stay safe dear Readers.
Time
Time to do something
time to do nothing
need I clean the house if no on can visit?
shall I wear what I like if no one can see it?
have we been living our lives
through other people’s eyes
all this time?
breathing in other people’s air
filling our lungs with
other people’s contagion.
I might stay here until the cobwebs cover me
until the dust buries my fingers
until the household bills disintegrate
into tiny fragments of currency
that fly into the night air
like small bats
infecting the world with capitalism.
Only the cats and dog see and hear
the mewling of solitude.
I’ve tried involving them in my narrow life
but none are good at Scrabble.
The dog is rubbish at cards
and cheats at Monopoly.
Miaow miaow
the cat has cried for years
shut up Nancy we used to say
but she’s telling us the end of the world is nigh
we used to say
Miaow miaow
she goes
I’m listening to her now
this time
