going places

There is a certain freedom in a full tank of petrol. When I have filled the tank and see the dial swing to full and the display tell me I have 336 miles before the car will come to a quiet halt of its own accord, I wonder how far that would take me (geography's not my strong point) and if one day I might just take the opportunity to drive off the forecourt and keep going until that happens. Ignore the red light springing up around the 50 mile mark and keep going until I find myself wilfully stranded and work out what to do from there.

A lot of people would hate to be in that position but, like a significant minority, I feel the opposite. I like the possibilities to stretch out in front of me in all directions; it makes me jittery to see things mapped out too clearly, speed cameras and service stations marked along the way. I have had to admit the usefulness of a sat-nav device in the car but loved my old method of getting around by following road signs and buying a map in the local area when I get there; it took me a while to get over my reluctance to tech up. To be fair, I used to get lost and late and it probably wasn't terribly efficient but it was educative, a mini adventure and, when there were no external time pressures, it could be quite exhilarating. Perhaps for the same reason, on filling in my tax return today I find I am unlikely to owe Moira Stewart much cash. Time to give in to the clutches of the 9 to 5? Or keep getting lost and seeing where it takes me.

the politics of indecision

I can never understand how people find politics obvious, or easy; for me it's a struggle. Every time I read a news article from either side I have to sift through so many layers to find the place I think it has come from and from there my response to it. By the time I get to that point I am never sure whether my opinion has been in some way clouded by a moral or other subjective judgement. Am I making the decision based on a true instinct, on what I want to believe, or intellectual and objective observation?
I would love to have the passion to believe in a cause, to take something at face value without cynicism or my default reaction of trying to see the alternative viewpoint. It's painful having to spend so much time sitting on a fence. I wish I could march through the streets with absolute conviction in the slogans I am shouting, to adopt a radical lifestyle or to change my appearance to reflect my allegiances. But here I am, the ultimate woolly liberal, keen to believe in anything that brings people happiness. Immigration, gay marriage, free sweets for all. Unsurprisingly, the hardest extreme for me to relate to is right-wing hysteria, the Mail/Express philosophy that health and safety has gone mad and Diana would solve political correctness. Yet I can't buy into the hippy, communist ideology either, no soft-soaping of reality (and no ethnic skirts). My views have bits of both and bits of neither. Earnestness is equal to humourlessness and even those with opinions close to mine, if given with no hint of a smile, can make me itch to bat for the other side. Lazy sexism can sharpen my feminist polemic but reading a po-faced article in Guardian Women can turn me into a laid-back ladette. I become Newton's Law of Motion, trying to ask unanswerable questions, move goalposts, widen viewpoints. Or, as my parents would have said, argue back. It is instinctive, not premeditated or superior, although it is hard to explain or dissect without appearing that way. I suppose we each believe our own understanding of the world to hold more truth than others. Perhaps my understanding of the world is 'it's not as simple as you think'.

stop press

People keep asking why we are still talking about the snow, why it is headline news. Part of me agrees but at the same time it is so there, all over the country; rarely is a news story so relevant and directly visible to everyone. It is there on my street, no gritters here. It provides endless possibilities for skidding and sliding and crunching and crashing. Snow, the beautifier, the silent, the sinister aggressor. It is there in the park, draining my energy and straining my muscles to keep balanced while dog-walking (or dog-skiing, as I have come to call it). Falling can be a comedy pratfall or a sudden blow to the head.
The trouble is, there is no news. Nothing new to say. No-one really wants to hear politicians argue about whose fault it is. The occasional human interest story of devastation grabs us by the head and dunks us into cold water but trickles away as we move on to pictures of snowmen and sledging children.
I was reading The Day of the Triffids recently (balm after watching the ghastly TV adapatation) and a scene of the book that really appeals to me is the apocalyptic vision of London just a few years on from its being abandoned. It seems to me that snow is one of the few times, the few weathers, when we can see how quickly the natural world can overwhelm us. It reminds us that our intrastructure is based on a daily fight against nature, the weeds in the driveway, the cracks in the pavement. That given a short space of time, undiscouraged, nature would return things as it found them.
I am no fan of 'what if' news stories. We haven't run out of grit, or gas, yet. A man did not get further than the runway, did not have explosives and was not there on the same day as the Queen (yeah that's an old news story but it still grates). However, I think the snow story is current and its prevalence forgivable. To paraphrase an esteemed friend, it awakens something primal in us (often the urge to hibernate). It feels like the whole country is under siege (not under neige). We can't get to where we want to be, wear what we want to wear, we have bumps and bruises and red noses and pink skin. It burns us and freezes us. We want to play with it, fight with it, feel it on our nose and eyelashes. People talk to each other in the street, or exchange news of snow days on Facebook. We get to enjoy it AND complain about it (and complain about complaining about it); what can be more satisfying than that?

overheard

The sound is sharp, an icicle in the air.

‘YEAH, WELL. I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE’.

A face-off, squaring up to each other. Think headlines, knives. But these boys are dressed in neat uniforms with football rucksacks crammed with files and socks. Children trying on their teenage selves for size. But there’s no pushing, no tightened fists. Confusion, mostly.

‘But we always walk home together’

‘Well not any more’

‘I thought you were my friend’ (now where have I heard that before)

There are three on each side. One of the three larger boys has, for some reason, disowned one of the smaller. He wants to hurt him, cut him. Win. The other boy wants to walk away but senses somehow that bravado is what is expected of him in some bigger picture he can’t see. At the moment the situation resembles the type of falling-out he will come to believe that only girls have: men are say things to each other’s faces rather than behind closed doors; fight it out rather than mysteriously ditch a mate. For now, he has no context to put it in, just feels an unfamiliar hurt and sense of public humiliation, he has realised he is naked.

Obviously, I am trying not to watch, for social and moral reasons and also for self-preservation; but I am also trying to watch, because it is an unfamiliar situation for me to witness. I wonder what it must be like to be a twelve-year-old boy, utterly confusing I imagine (just like being a twelve-year-old girl) but really, what is it actually like? To go to a boys’ school and be boys amongst boys. You can imagine the stereotype of pressure against girliness (perhaps more so at that age than later when you realise girls like a bit of sensitivity?), ‘gay’ as a euphemism for anything outside of certain parameters (sport, computer games), but that can’t be the whole picture. There must be enough poets and painters and scientists among them to create a balance. Or maybe the poets and painters have to take it until they find their own ways out, maybe they even need it as an impetus. How would you feel if you were gay, or thought you might be, and had to defend yourself against it as an accusation for totally unrelated behaviour several times a day?

The boys are still clumsily battling it out, the two other small ones have an air of ‘leave it, mate, he’s not worth it’. The rejected friend is trying to think of something clever to say, something that will make him seem clever and uncaring and that will hurt the other’s feelings. He can’t, though.

‘I never wanted to be friends with you anyway’

The factions separate, the bigger child with his big new friends. Is he feeling victorious or just as confused and hurt as his ex-bff seemed? The smaller boys go a different way, the two bystanders more confident and less self-conscious as they head up the road and kick a few leaves. The third looks dazed, he wants to look back but he doesn’t and runs ahead to catch up the others.

I wonder if he’ll remember it in days or weeks or years to come, or if it will melt into an awful or happy childhood, depending on how his counsellor encourages him to recall it. I reach the top of the road a minute later (still walking slowly) and they are gone.

2010

It's been pretty sunny so far.