The Wider World

                             “The mind is a dangerous place, don’t go in alone”. Christiane Northrup.

I suppose that over the last 18 months or so, we have been worried about two things in particular, climate change and disease.  And with regards to the above quotation there are many people, particularly in care homes who have been faced with loneliness and for some that is more frightening than any physical disease or any weather phenomena. So I have been thinking about social events and the socialisation process recently.

 I heard a story when I was in Australia a few years ago from a wonderful teacher and rugby coach called Peter Foley. One year he coached a school rugby team. They were a team of characters, they always had a smile on their faces, they loved practices, they loved playing the games. The only trouble was that they could not play rugby. Try as they might, passes would be dropped, tackles would be missed, kicks would go awry. Just as all that needed to happen was that final pass needed to be caught and a score was inevitable, it did not go to hand, the player slipped, a foot went out of bounds and their coach, ever encouraging, ever supportive did his best to be positive, mustered the courage to be upbeat and forced a smile but when it came to the end of the season the statistics read something like:-

Played 16    Won 0   Lost 16,  Points for:- 3   Points against:- 499.

So before they handed their kit and uniforms back there was the formality of the team photograph. As usual with school sports photographs, the coach stands either to the side or at the back. Peter Foley was persuaded to stand at the back. They all posed, they folded their arms in the back row, the seated ones at the front had their hands on their knees. The photographer was happy and they were allowed to go. Their coach was asked to come to one side by a couple of his players so that he was not a witness to that which had been happening secretly and behind his back. When the photographs were delivered to the staff room prior to being given out to the teams, Peter was enjoying a cup of coffee and a sandwich lunch while being sat with his mates. He opened up his copy and could not contain himself, his smile broadened as he showed his fellow teachers. There was his rugby team, grinning from ear-to-ear and in front of them on the floor of the gym was all the silverware and trophies from the display cabinet. It looked that his team had won every competition that they had entered, every game that they had played; they had swept the board with individual and team awards.

That to me is the sort of stuff that this pandemic has caused us to miss.

In the 1970s when the world was younger and more carefree, I played a lot of rugby. I would like to say that every team I ever played for was filled with supermen. Wonderfully coordinated, muscled athletes, who could run quickly for a long time and never shirked their duties on the field. In truth I played with a colour blind policeman who could not distinguish who was on his team and who was not unless he saw the whites of their eyes. He was more a danger to his  mates than to the opposition. Then there was the Lincolnshire farmer, Richard, with whom one did not want to drive there and back on away games because he would look at the fields and exclaim that Farmer Giles had planted his rape seed too early, that he was surprised that so and so had already harvested his sugar beets and many more tales of local arable faults and follies. Driving with this ‘Farmers’ Almanac’ was hardly a fascinating car ride. Then there was the angst ridden rugby player who talked to himself and to others about his actions.

“Maybe I shall pass, maybe I’ll take him on the outside, maybe I’ll hold onto the ball” while all the time confusing his team mates with movements which made little sense to anybody else on the field including the opposition. Then there is the little hamlet called ‘Swallow’ in Lincolnshire where without signal or suggestion from anybody in the car, we all made a gulping swallow as we passed the sign that told us where we were.

 This is the stuff of humanity that this pandemic has caused us to miss.

There is the clubhouse in South Shields in the post-industrial landscape of the North East of England. We had never played this particular team before so we did not know the area. After the game we were socialising with the opposition in their clubhouse. One of our group asked if there were any Indian restaurants in the area because later in the evening we would like to go for a curry. One fellow asked us to follow him so a group of us walked across the car park to an entrance to a street, he spread his arms wide and showed us. There was a very, very long street absolutely jam packed with Indian restaurants as far as the eye could see.

This is the sort of bonhomie that this pandemic has caused us to miss.

There was that moment only a couple of years ago when I was camping in a camp site in Glen Affric in the North of Scotland. I was sat in the recreation room on my own, reading my book and charging my phone when a group of 4 guys came in. They were on a long distance bike trip, had been out for dinner at the village pub and were just keen to finish the day gently with a couple of beers and a few wee nips of whisky.  There were two brothers amongst the four but whatever the relationship it was obvious that they had known each other for a long time and were very comfortable with each other’s company. I, whose phone was nearly fully charged, was getting ready to return to my tent and carry on with my book when I was offered a beer and very soon was a part of three hours of laughter and stories and acceptance. I shall likely never see those guys again.

This is the sort of encounter that this pandemic has caused us to miss.

I hope, Dear Reader, that you will understand that I cannot remember the school at which Peter Foley coached nor the result of the Collingwood School rugby team against his team on that day, nor do I have any idea of the results of any of those other games of which I write. Nor do I remember where it was and how far I had hiked when I met those Scottish cyclists. On those occasions if my mind was indeed a dangerous place, I definitely, most emphatically, ineluctably, inevitably did not go in alone. Alone is a fine place for us if we choose to be there; if we occasionally need to step back from a busy situation; if we need to walk away to think and to solve and to create. If ‘alone’ is a choice then it can be a wonderful destination but human beings are not meant to be alone all the time, are we?

This is the sort of choice that this pandemic has caused us to miss.

Very recently a friend of mine showed me the balloons that he had bought for his mother-in-law’s 90^th birthday. He had not checked the label on the packet so he and I were amused when they were blown up ready to go and had messages on them like “Congratulations it’s a boy” and so forth. This mother and grandmother was going to leave her Care Home for the first time in 18 months to celebrate her birthday. They ordered her a “Handy Dart” pick up which took her to the sea front at Ambleside Beach. There she felt the sand between her toes, the sun on her back, sensed the breeze on her face and heard and saw the crash of waves on the strand. She saw the smiles of her daughters, the laughter of her newly graduated grand-son, she felt the joy of social humanity.

All of the instances in this blog, Dear Reader, are often but moments in a long life, short glimpses of what was, so it was uplifting to hear about the balloon mistake and the much loved parent finally escaping from her four walls to be where we all need to be at some point in our daily lives. Out and about with others is a destination in itself is it not, Dear Readers.

“The mind is a dangerous place, don’t go in alone”. Christiane Northrup.

Enjoy the remains of August, friends.