LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 21 – Palm Sunday 5th APRIL

Where do you start with ‘irony’ in the sort of build up to Easter that we are having this virus-infected year?

     Our next door neighbours are showing their piety on Palm Sunday by defying restrictions and working flat out in constructing and installing the new kitchen in the house that is either going to be their new home or is going to fetch them a pretty penny when it is sold.  Or perhaps both.  What there isn’t, is respect for the day religiously, politically or healthily!

     The churches have been closed.  The KKK-like religious processions have been cancelled in Spain.  The pope spoke in a wet and empty St Peter’s Square.  In all the coverage of the pandemic, I have heard little from religious leaders, and little to nothing of God.  Even Trump’s fanatic fundamentalist base has not vaunted god above science.  Just as Capitalism turns to Socialism in times of crisis, for government to do what Capitalism cannot or rather, will not do, so Religion turns to Science to cure what it cannot.

     To be fair, most of mainstream religion sees no conflict between religious belief and trust in science.  Nowadays.  Those battles, since the time of Galileo, have been fought and lost; and what Churches now rely on faith rather than Insurance Policies to keep their institutions ‘safe’?

     It is, of course, easy to spin the Holy Week Story to fit the narrative of the virus; metaphor is a willing façade.  Today, in the Christian calendar is a day of triumph when Christ rode into Jerusalem in glory – though riding on an ass: tempered triumph - and that triumph soon to be translated into abject defeat which in turn transmogrifies into the ultimate triumph of the empty tomb.

     Pandemics do concentrate the mind.  A highly technological society brought low - so much for civilization and medical expertise!  All our bright and glittering technology unable to stop the virus from killing tens of thousands and infecting, god knows how many.  Our society has been literally brought to a standstill: achievement brought low, but resurrection is a vital concept and all of us sequestered in our homes and looking forward to, no, expecting a triumph of medical science to deliver the vaccine that will release us all and allow a continuation of the old way of life, our own social resurrection.

     The Holy Week story is one in which you can find triumph, deception, hypocrisy, populism, testing, faith, hope, death, defeat, disloyalty, fear, despair, community, faction, belief, confidence, loss and fulfillment – and those words only scratch at the surface of the complexity of the narrative so it is hardly surprising that it fits the present situation.

     At the end of this pandemic, will churches be filled with people giving thanks for deliverance, or shunned by people who didn’t give god a thought during the crisis?  I will wait to see.

Castelldefels has just been on the afternoon television news informing us that the Red Cross has been going to closed schools’ kitchens and ‘liberating’ the food which can be used to feed those in need rather than staying in the fridges and eventually becoming unusable.  This seems like a self-evidently good idea and I wonder in how many other places this is being put into operation.  There must also be restaurants and the like that are never going to be able to use their food supplies in time?  Something to think about, especially as governments like the one in the UK is already distributing food parcels to those who need them, surely there must be systems already in place to take advantage of any extra supplies?

Today is the start of my annual Holy Week Poem Writing Stint.  And yes, I do know that Palm Sunday is not the official start of Holy Week, but I make the rules here.

     I am well aware that this choice of poetry-writing period is an odd one for an avowed atheist to take as a key time for production, but it has become something of a tradition and I look forward to it each year – just to see what I produce!  As I have said elsewhere, "I read myself in writing"!

     I aim to get the idea for a poem each day, and then to write it up to the level of a rough draft.  Each day, until Easter Sunday, I will try and get the draft downloaded to my poetry blog at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.  I must emphasise that my ‘daily’ work will only be a draft and I reserve the right to work on the poem after Holy Week to get it to a more polished state.

     I welcome your company on this annual journey.  The best way to follow my poems is probably ‘the morning after’ when there should be something to see from the previous day!

It all comes back to education!

There are always choices to be made in writing.  One of them is ‘topic’.  What do you choose to write about?

I have a couple of options.  The first would be the fact that I am, at present, eating my way through the most delicious raw cauliflower that I have ever tasted.  I bought it in Aldi, mainly I have to admit, because it was small and would therefore be consumed before I left for the UK on Wednesday.  I brought it home, cut off the stalks and broke the head down into bite-sized florets.  And I ate one.  A revelation!  I have always liked raw vegetables, but this lowly cauliflower took crudité to new levels of lusciousness.  And the cauliflower was something that I wouldn’t even consider eating when I was young.  Though that was always when it was cooked, after suffering the disgusting smell that accompanied its production.  And, though I don’t hold it against her (why should I, I never ate any of it) my mother boiled cauliflower until it was soft and always added a pinch of bicarb. to do . . . what?  Precisely?  Take away all of the vitamin content!  But even then, I loved to eat cauliflower raw.  For me, cooking al dente was perfection: an amalgam of the rawness that I loved with the fact that it was technically ‘cooked’!  Perfect.  Even my mum began to cook things al dente.  Who could ask for more?

Or I could talk about the article that I read in the digital edition of the Guardian that allowed survivors of religious extreme cults who had lost their faith to tell we readers how they now viewed the world – and the world that they had lost.  And that got me thinking about my own lost faith.

I don’t think, to be fair that ‘lapsed Anglican’ is ever going to raise enough interest to get the Guardian to open its pages to the searing stories of how, having lost their faith, the ex-Anglican were treated so very . . . um . . . reasonably by those who kept theirs!

Lapsed Anglicans do not write revealing fiction about how they trail guilt feelings instilled in them by fanatical Church in Wales preachers who . . . it simply isn’t like that.

One Anglican bishop to whom I explained that I was an “Anglican atheist” said, “Yes, well, there are a lot of you around!”  Not really the stuff that produces hard-hitting revelations about how the ingrained guilt of Anglicanism haunted me throughout my non-Anglican life!

Through Holy Week this year, I used the period as a time to write a poem for each day.  Not necessarily an overtly religious poem, but a poem, nevertheless, influenced in some ways by the week that I was in.  I did the same thing last year and I found the process strangely rewarding.

I have now published a very slim volume of nine poems: I count Holy Week as starting on Palm Sunday and I wrote two poems for Easter Sunday, hence the number.  The titles are: Assumption, Dress, Anticipation, Daddy Agonistes, Penultimate, Locked, Waiting, Set up and Offer.  There is a sort of poem in the succession of titles, but let it pass – I’ve ‘written’ two ‘found’ poems recently and that is more than enough!

My point, which I haven’t made, is that I get a great deal of satisfaction out of writing poems at such a time.  Whether there is the same satisfaction in reading them only time and an audience will tell!  But there is something produced and that gives me pleasure.

But there is an internal on-going conversation with myself about why I should find this week significant and why I should bother writing poetry during it.  The poems themselves, only go so far in getting towards an explanation.

There is a simple explanation of course, and that is that I am still basically an Anglican at heart, and the loose chains of a liberal faith are, in their way, even more difficult to break than those of a much more authoritarian one.  And that one day I will ‘return to the faith’ – indeed one of my friends tells me this with that voice of weary resignation that suggests that it is so obvious that it need not be stressed.  I think he’s wrong, but, time will tell.

So, on balance, I don’t think that I will write about cauliflower or faith – I will write about the Open University.

Today, I finished writing the last Tutor Marked Assignment that I needed to do in the last course of my degree.  Admittedly I now have to complete the long essay that accounts for 50% of the marks, but my last TMA has been written.

And perhaps I am still writing about cauliflowers and faith, because the Open University is an addictive sort of institution, with zealous (I use the word advisedly) adherents who suck knowledge out of courses with the same fanaticism with which I ate the vegetable.  Two people have already said to me, when I told them that I was getting towards the final end of my degree, “Of course, you’ll do another, won’t you?”

And, do you know, I just might!

Hard slog works

Poems in Holy Week

With the third poem written, I think that I can claim that there is a sequence growing along this particular theme.  I like the discipline of having to produce a poem a day I further like the self-imposed necessity of trying to develop a sense of questioning that I think the Week itself demands.

            The latest poem called Life (there’s a title as a hostage to fortune!) can be found at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and I welcome comments on the poem itself and on the developing theme – if there is one!

            Thanks to Ceri for his comments via email: I found them challenging, encouraging and stimulating.  Who can ask for more?  Me.

            I both dread and welcome tomorrow, as I am duty bound to write another poem.  At this moment I have no idea about what I might write – which is exactly the state of worried anticipation that I like!

Sun

I was able to lie out in the sun for a few short minutes.  It was probably longer than that, but the greed with which I view the sun also means that I worry about each ‘wasted’ minute that I am not out in it.  I am always trying to gain minutes to hold in reserve against those ‘brightly dull’ days that I find so antagonizing.

            It cannot be gainsaid that we are moving towards summer.  This is an article of faith for me and I echo the fatal words at the end of Ibsen’s Ghosts, ‘Mother, give me the sun!’ though I hasten to add that I say them in an altogether happier state of mind than the unfortunate young man in Scandinavia!

            I am, at present, a sickly pale colour (for me) and I look forward with glee to increasing my supply of vitamin D!

Logic

This is a week of holiday.  I know that not everyone, or even the majority of the population is able to down tools and enjoy, but it is an official holiday period.  People, as it were, go on holiday.  They visit cities, world famous cities, like, for example Barcelona.

            Then, why is it that the rate for a room just off the Ramblas in the centre of the city of Barcelona costs less than it has done for the last six months?  Where, pray, is the logic in that price?

            When, as far as I could tell, little or nothing was going on to bring people to the city, the price of the room that I usually have for the opera suddenly shot up to over sixty euros!  Now, it is twenty-five – including breakfast!

            In a similar way, when I cycled back from my swim (see Poems in Holy Week above) I had to thread my way through a system of cones which blocked roads to the beach because today, during a week of holidays when people might thing about coming to the beach, the powers that be decided to refresh the paint on the road markings.  Today?  Why today and not last week, when there were no, for example, holidays to complicate traffic flow?

            And finally and most crushingly, why do people vote for PP in Spain when it has been shown that they are demonstrably corrupt and criminal and inept?

            Perhaps the answers to these conundrums are to be found in the fact that mere logic is not enough and that we need poets to explain the world to the world!

Food, reasonably priced food!

At long last we have tried the menu del dia in my local swimming pool restaurant.  I am not sure that Toni has added it to his blog yet, but it will be there in the next few days.  Visit http://catalunyaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es as Toni is constantly updating his blog and making it more and more exhaustive.  We still have a long, long was to go before we eat our way through the restaurants of Castelldefels, but we are enjoying doing the fieldwork.

            We are also looking forward to the ruta de tapa, when 40 or more restaurants compete to produce the best tapa in the city.  For a cost of about €3 you get the tapa and a drink of your choice.  We will have to plan this eatathon with military precision if we are to visit all the establishments.

Barcelona

Tomorrow another horrible bus ride to the city to make the meeting with my fellow members of the Barcelona Poetry Group all the more pleasant.  I must remember to take my computer with me if I am to keep up my poem-a-day approach to this week.

Small pleasures

Family wisdom

For reasons best known to my unconscious, I have, this morning, been thinking of the advice which has been handed down to me by family members.

Great-grandfather: “Never refuse a good offer!”

            This piece of double-edged advice (it has been used against me by people with whom I have shared it!) has been handed down like a precious heirloom.  Of all the words of wisdom this has been the most used, as it often does provide a short cut to a clear decision and, when this is reached, it is so much more satisfying when you can append a saying to justify what often appears to be pure selfishness!

Grandfather: “Fair play’s bonny play.”

            This is a flexible saying which can be used to justify past action, to allow an element of wriggle-room in a difficult situation and to claim space to exercise your rights.

Father: “Anything is better than nothing.”

            Rather like the famous inscription in the ring demanded by the emperor who said he wanted to see something which, if he was sad would make him happy and if he were happy would make him thoughtful – this saying is something which can push you forward when everything seems against you and can make you think a little when things are going well.  It is also plain wrong some of the time.  Oh, “This too will pass” was the inscription that made it to the circle of gold.

Mother: “You can never have too many tea-towels”

            This is also true for teaspoons.  And is true.  And I have expanded this saying to include watches and cameras.  And books.  And gadgets.  And more books.

Possibly I have not been very fair to my relatives here, there was a lot else that they told me that has sunk into my bones, but, goodness knows I have fallen back on these sayings more times than I can conveniently remember.

            As I have been writing I have been remembering other things that they said, but some wisdom is best kept close and not shared too widely especially that sort of knowledge that shows up too much of your character!

Kids and other humans

The curse of the retired classes has returned: holidays.  Children openly stalk the streets and Barcelona has decamped to Castelldefels.

In spite of knowing the date of Easter for once, I was still surprised by the arrival of Palm Sunday and newly shocked (again) by the ostentatious showiness of the ‘palms’ that kids were waving around for seconds before they were discarded and dropped into the ever-accommodating hands of their parents. 

Surprised I might have been, but with notebook to the forefront, I was able to jot down some observations and they were able to prompt a poem, POEMS IN HOLY WEEK  i. A girl skips by, which can now be seen at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ 

I have, rather grandly, set myself the task of writing a poem a day for the rest of this week.

            Apart from Good Friday and Easter Sunday there is no obvious daily focus, so finding a connecting subject matter (without resorting to the book of daily prayer and the gospel readings) is going to be testing.

            What I produce may be a sequence or there may be individual poems worth salvaging.  Or it might not happen, of course.  But I think that it will be a good discipline for me, and I am hoping that there will be a knock on effect of studiousness prompting me to get a move on with the next essay for the OU course.

Competition

Toni’s blog on restaurants in Castelldefels http://catalunyaplacetoeat.blogspot.com.es/ is rapidly gaining a steady readership and the pageviews are, even more rapidly gaining parity with the sophisticates that patronize http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/  

I am relying on my Holy Week Poetic Effort to redress some of the balance – though why I should think that I am competing for the same viewers is difficult to understand!

We are told that if you have something to sell then capturing an almost infinitesimal percentage of the Chinese market will make your fortune several times over.  The digital on-line ‘market’ is much, much larger so, I tell myself, there is an audience for my poetry out there, it is simply a matter of reaching it!

United Nations Day 2015

EasyJet flights are now open for this momentous day and beyond and so travel arrangements for the occasion are able to be finalised.

            I am looking forward to The Day itself and also to the publication of Flesh Can Be Bright with which it coincides!

            I have been fairly strict with myself and have not started the final editing as I do have one or two other academic preoccupations to fill up my time before I can turn my attention to the fiddly bits before publication.

            I am still waiting on the efforts of others and I am hoping that they are working away to keep to the deadlines.  I think it might be politic to send gentle emails to find out exactly what is or is not going on.

            I am running out of letters of the alphabet to cope with the various ‘plans’ I have had to accommodate the final shape of the book, but this is one time where my ability to speculate endlessly comes in useful!

            Whatever happens there will be, there is at the moment, a final version of what I originally planned.  If any of the collaborations come off then the book will be able to gain from whatever I get.  My grandiose vision may not be able to be realised, but I am sure that shreds of it will make it between the covers.

Barcelona bound

That sub-heading is more appropriate than I meant, but this afternoon will see me battling the kamikaze scooters to get to the centre of Barcelona for a medical test.

            Interestingly, this test has been outsourced by my medical centre to a private organization in the city.  Our local hospital is a few kilometres away, but no, I have to go into the centre and, horror or horrors, find a parking space.

            I think this approach is one which our present criminal government (I use the adjective fairly I think as most of the government and the ruling party has been accused of multiple abuses of power) seems keen to privatize the health service, diverting vast sums of public money into the private hands of their backers.  Sound familiar?  Plus ça change!  Doesn’t matter what country you are in, the Conservatives always try the same tactics!

Canine Chorus

Other people wake up to the sound of birds singing – not us.  We have dogs in the same way that medieval Britain had rats – they are everywhere.  At least the rats were quieter.

            I speak as a dog person (at least as long as they are yellow Labrador bitches) but I can’t help feeling if I was given a flame thrower and allowed free rein at dawn then there would be a smell of burning dog flesh in our neighbourhood!

And now the long day’s fast begins as my test has demanded that eating ends six hours before.  At least I am allowed water.  Cheers!