I woke early this morning – maybe 5 o’clock – to a sense of being worn out and remember the phrase care worn – worn out by caring – the slow work of love, of caring for others, that gradual erosion of the outer layers until only some sort of essence remains: a skeleton of self. Work completed we slip along the darkening track that leads to death.
I get up and sit for twenty minutes and then return to bed and sleep some more and dream of my sister collapsing in the street, a thin stream of vomit issuing from her mouth. I rush towards her and wake from that image.
Later I read in the Guardian a piece by George Monbiot about his touring the country talking to audiences about loneliness and mental health. How do we care for each other? He invites people to turn to a stranger and say hello. In a few minutes it is difficult for the platform to regain the attention of the audience who are chatting away to each other.
Geoff Dyer, in Zona, reflects on the central theme of the Room being a place in which one’s deepest wishes can be met. He confesses to his own desire to have sex with two women but amazingly (to me) he doesn’t identify (my assumption) that our deepest desire is to love and to be loved.
In the current horror of the American presidential election campaign battle we have the bewildering sight of two brands of liars making their bids for power: one, the professional politician smoothly squaring any circle that is presented to her and the other a lying, cheating, abusive example from the business community, the entrepreneur, who doesn’t even attempt to refer to any tangible reality, merely fires off in all directions, pushing the buttons of all those who have been failed and feel cheated by the established political elite.
