An Abundance of Metaphors

I'm back, baby. Sort of.

Hello, hello, how lovely to be back. How have you been?

I’m currently wondering whether I’ve mentally “hit the wall” – I won’t say physically, because frankly I don’t think that ship was ever in the harbour, so really I can’t worry about it sailing. Perhaps in place of the “wall” metaphor, I could declare myself to be the years-old elastic band you find at the bottom of the desk drawer, waiting for the slightest provocation to simply disintegrate and crumble into the floorboards. You really should re-varnish those, by the way. They’re awfully scratched.

I turn thirty-three tomorrow. I have no particular emotional response to this, although it seems a slight shame to stumble past yet another milestone on the journey to the grave, but perhaps I’m being a little bit too negative. I am terribly grateful for the life I have and for my relative youth. One must never complain about ageing. There are children in Africa who are ninety-three, don’t you know?

I will admit to being slightly fatigued. 2024 was a difficult year for personal reasons; I believe my country is being shafted by nearly every authority and institution going; and my son has been rather poorly for the last two or so months. We’ve had trips to A&E, Urgent Care, and the GP for a series of fevers, coughs, and what seems to be a possible case of asthma in the making. Nowadays, they are not allowed to have asthma until they are at least four, so we call it “viral wheeze”.

Still, I am very glad to say that he is doing much better, he has been started on a preventative inhaler, and I have spent many weeks frantically deep-cleaning the house and throwing out all of our beautiful feather cushions. Comfort must, I am afraid, go and fuck itself. Feathers keep dust. If you don’t believe me, take any feather cushion you own out of its case, take it outside, and beat it with a stiff brush or broom handle. Position yourself so you can view any dust erupting from the cushion against a reasonably dark background – e.g. the lawn, a leafy tree, a shady spot of the garden. Observe the dust plumes, and recoil in horror. Feathers are now strictly verboten in the Haus of Frau McGraw.

During my son’s period of ill-health, I have been able to focus on nothing but the boy. The stress and anxiety has been indescribable. I don’t know how parents with more sickly children manage. I can only offer my prayers and undying respect to them. It was a wonderful relief to have the last doctor visit some days prior conclude with a delightful GP who confirmed that I was indeed, going mad, and that I had much less to worry about than I thought. Sometimes we just need a smiling stranger to tell us to stop being a nutter, but in doctor lingo.

As such, I harbour a tiny speck of hope that I can return to some level of respectable sanity, and possibly even take up some hobbies again, like eating 3 full meals a day, not sleeping on my son’s floor and overthinking all night, and even writing on Substack. I have also agreed to do various offline Civic Duty type things, which I heartily encourage anybody to take up. The wonderful thing about joining, say, a local committee or parish council, or helping to run some sort of community group, is that it is the ultimate exercise in touching grass.

It was a sincere pleasure to sit around a table of my neighbours and discuss plans for the new village hall and our upcoming local events. We talked about what type of energy, heating etc, should be used for the not-yet-built hall, and we were able to have a sensible conversation about fossil fuels, renewable energy, heat pumps, and so on, all without a scrap of ideological twaddle. Pragmatism reigned. People shared experience and ideas, offered concerns and possible solutions. Oh, it was beautiful. And the thing to remember is that if you don’t put yourself forward for these things, someone else will. That is perhaps a topic to go into more deeply another day, but if sane and reasonable people - and I know I stretch that definition when I wrap it around myself – don’t sit at these tables, the insane and unreasonable will take charge.

Put bluntly, the blusterers, the distractors, the unbearables of the world get to make the decisions that you don’t show up for. Plus, it is a great way to get to know people, forge mutually beneficial relationships, and find out about all the most exciting local blood-feuds. Plus, I got to learn the phrase: thermal envelope, which sounds like a polite way to describe digestive gas. Marvellous stuff.

The other foray into “civic duty type stuff” has been joining the roster for leading our church’s Sunday School. I took my first lesson today, and I think it went reasonably well. Nobody converted to Islam or asked me to explain the Schism of 1054, and they seemed to enjoy the colouring-in. When in doubt, get the felt-tips out. My class, for want of a better word, consisted of my 3-year-old son and three children roughly between the ages of 7 and 10. The 7-year-old’s mother decided to stay, as he was feeling shy. No problem, I thought, and introduced myself. Unfortunately, upon hearing, “That’s lovely, I’m Georgia, nice to meet you,” the lady heard, “I’m Bell-end, please spend the next 30 minutes interrogating me about my personal life, patronising the children, and just generally being more stress-inducing than my toddler. Yes, the one that has just climbed up the shelves and retrieved a box of scissors – HAMISH, GET DOWN FROM THERE NOW!”

Scissors retrieved and fingers all accounted for, I set the children off finding the plastic food items I had hidden, which were only very loosely linked the today’s reading. It would be the least relevant, least educational part of the session, but the idea was to get them moving, having fun, and generally warming up to the idea of spending their Sunday morning in a damp basement with Church Lady #26 (me). Immediately, Other Mother asked me where I had hidden the items in question. “Are they inside things? On things? Are they under things?” I told her that I couldn’t remember.

She asked the children where they attended school, and upon learning that my son has been going to pre-school for a whopping 5 weeks, she informed me that that must be why he can speak so clearly and confidently. It’s definitely nothing to do with our parenting or his home life, of course not. It must be the 5 weeks of part-time pre-school, some of which he has missed due to illness. Right.

Then she asked where I went to primary school. She was pleased to tell me that her husband attended the same school. “He’s forty-six,” she said. I waited for her to add, “so you wouldn’t have known him,” - she did not. I stared at her in disbelief.

“Yeah,” she continued, “he’s forty-six, soooooo….you...did you...are you...how old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Oh. I guess you probably didn’t know him.”

“No. I don’t suppose I did.”

My face, probably, while Other Mother casually destroyed me.

Later, Other Mother waited until my son was climbing up my dress and demanding his daddy, and another child was asking for help with her spelling, before asking what I did for a living. I told her that I had a part-time administrative role for a small company, and, as courtesy dictates, asked her what she did for a living.

“Nuclear submarines.”

Right. Well. Okay then. I waited for some further detail, perhaps a verb or two. After a short pause, she started to tell me about the many organisations involved with creating and maintaining nuclear submarines, which all sounded very complicated. She manages things, apparently. I gave my son some more scissors to try to create a distraction, but unfortunately he behaved perfectly and simply set about shredding paper into tiny ribbons with quiet glee.

The torment finally ended as we were summoned up to the main church, but just before I could leave the classroom, Other Mother decided to tell me that she often leads the Sunday School at our sister church, and that she loves to use Chat GPT to come up with really exciting lesson plans and activities. I said, “Oh, that’s nice,” for the ninety-second time that day. The children, at least, seemed happy enough with the lesson, even if I did not consult with the invisible computer demons beforehand.

I don’t think she meant to harangue me, belittle me, age me beyond my years, and just generally make me want to start drinking at 10.30am, but I have to say that it was an excellent exercise in patience and humility. I’m terribly grateful, really I am, and I managed not to open the wine until 1pm, so I’d say my spiritual journey is going quite well, actually. You should have seen me a few years ago.

Truly, I’m not just being facetious. By practising any skill, one can improve. I’m grateful that I can make myself a part of something in a way that stretches me. Perhaps with enough practice and prayer I can even become a half-way decent Christian who doesn’t bristle at female one-upmanship or nosiness. Perhaps I can have someone imply that I’m sixteen years older than I actually am without wanting to invite that person to step outside for a scrap in the graveyard. Or maybe I just need a week without any major stress. Who can say? All I can say, is I’m glad to be back. I hope to get back to writing a little more frequently, and perhaps with some meatier topics next time. Watch this space, if you’re so inclined.