On a wonderful day like today, I look out from my back door and it feels like all’s right with the world. Above, bright blue skies, with just the odd candy floss cloud drifting by and barely a breath of wind, the absence of the latter meaning that the middle distance swish from the three motorways which surround us doesn’t reach us. Imagine all the people, living for today. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. And so it goes.
My moods soar and dive, often without warning or apparent reason. But when the sun shines, as it is doing today, however good or bad I am feeling, I am more good and less bad. While the black cloud of depression is always there and when I look inwards I can almost touch it, the light puts up a decent fight. Today is a better day. But that’s just my world.
I know really that the problems of the world have not gone away. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine bring more devastation to innocent people, at home Britain remains a place where everything is broken and nothing works. People are still living miserable lives, in poverty or waiting to be treated by our ailing NHS, many cannot afford to eat, many more are homeless; the list, like the road, goes on forever.
I carry around with me some hate and a little anger and both, broadly speaking, are aimed at the same people. Despite my many limitations and frequent lapses, I take seriously a journey I am on to be kind. It is hard to feel anything other than hatred towards those who seek to divide us, with their lies and distortions, the endless gaslighting and trolling. The likes of pint-sized loser Rishi Sunak, the media tycoons like Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere who get richer still publishing endless lies, Stephen Yaxley Lennon’s toytown fascists marching through London and the like may speak for many, but I cannot believe they speak for anything other than a minority, albeit a significant minority.
The bad people hog the limelight while good acts remain unseen. The charity walkers and runners, people who get shopping for their elderly and disabled neighbours, the food bank volunteers (mainly me, obviously) and the litter-pickers (me again) who do good things because they want to, need to, want to be kind. (I’m just kidding when I big up my supposedly heroic voluntary efforts, obviously, because I know many, many people do a lot more than I do.)
Today’s beautifully sunshiney day does make you better, or less worse. It’s easy for me, I know, because I am not in immediate danger of being unable to put food on the table and I totally get the benefits of the sun will not apply to everyone. Maybe, by being more kind, then one day it will.
Even little things like my use of social media matter to me. No longer will I give running commentaries of my holidays, announcing what a great time I am having when I know that many won’t be, for reasons of health, wealth or unhappiness, or a combination of all three. This is, in all likelihood, just me saying how I feel, that I was more of a decadent person than I am today. I could show off like the best of them, although it didn’t occur to me before that showing off was what I was doing. But I was and when memories come to light on social media, I rarely share them, for fear of rubbing people’s noses in it. I know what it’s like to have nothing, or even next to nothing. I was never jealous of the haves when we were have nots. It’s just how I feel today. The odd nice photo, perhaps, but no trashy photo dumps.
Roy Wood always wanted it to be Christmas every day. Part of me wants it to be like this every day, although I probably don’t really because if it was England would be a desert. The sun does make me want to do things, even though my increasing levels of decrepitude are beginning to narrow my options. Today, some music, a decent book and a few pints in a pub garden will have to do.
Sunshine’s better, sang John Martyn. It is for me. I hope it is for you, too. Enjoy the sun and be kind. You know it makes sense. It certainly is for me when I’m lookin’ out my back door.