Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry

 

I was feeling lazy and wasn’t going to post any excerpts from my latest book read, Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry, Margaret Kennedy’s account of life in England between May and September 1940 when, it seems, all of England was expecting the Germans to invade pretty much any day. It was an interesting read, though what I’d really like to see is her actual, not-edited-for-publication-in-the-US-in-1940 diary, because there’s no doubt this was published as useful propaganda. 

 But The Captive Reader, whose review I've linked to in my books list, helpfully quoted a nice little self-contained and amusing bit so I'm copying and pasting that bit of text here. It's the exchange Ms Kennedy had with the local doctor about getting “a bromide,” aka sleeping pills:

I still cannot sleep so I went to Dr Middleton to ask for a bromide.  He used to attend all our family in the old days.  He asked:

“Are ye worrying about anything?”

When I said I was worrying about Hitler coming, he said, “He won’t,” so firmly that I almost believed him.  He looked me up and down very crossly and said:

“I suppose ye’ve been reading the newspapers?”

I pleaded guilty.

“What d’ye want to do that for?”

“I like to know what is happening.”

“Aw!  The newspapers don’t know.”

He said if I must read a newspaper I should stick to The Times because I would find there any news there was, put in a way that would send me to sleep instead of keeping me awake.  He said that when a war broke out once in the Balkans and there were scare headlines in all the streets, The Times headline said: ACTIVITY IN EUROPE.

He asked me how often I listened to the wireless.

“Four times a day.”

“And that’s three times too often.  I’m sure I wish that infernal contrivance had never been invented.  When I think of all the insanity that’s poured out over the ether every minute of the day, I wonder the whole human race isn’t in a lunatic asylum.  And what good does it do ye to know what’s happening?  Ye aren’t responsible.  Ye don’t like it.  Ye can’t stop it.  Why think about it?  Go home and fly kites with your children.”

“How many other patients have you said all this to?”

“You’re only the twenty-seventh this week.

--pp 72 - 73 of the new Handheld Press edition of Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry

 

 

Bike bunny update

Bunny at roughly 12:45 p.m.

 

West Seattle has seen a serious jump in the wild rabbit population over the last few years, and Scott has noticed that our front yard is increasingly popular with the adorable little no-longer-rodents-but-rather-Lagomorpha-because-they-got-a-good-publicist. This morning I very carefully crept out to get a photo of this particularly attractive creature, using the long lens on my Canon which so rarely gets out any more. Then we decided it was a good day for a bike ride to Fresh Flours so Scott shifted the bikes out of the garage, not far from where this rabbit was sitting. The above isn't the very careful long-shot photo; it was taken with my cell phone on a slight zoom setting while in the driveway. 

 We biked to Fresh Flours. We sat on their lovely patio and had pastry and hot drinks and admired the frolicking house sparrows who, for the most part, were enjoying a natural diet of blown Spanish lavender and whatever they could kick up in the leaves. We biked home again, stopping en route at an alley sale where I picked up a juicer large enough for grapefruit and a vintage butter keeper though it seems doubtful we will ever have vintage butter. It was a delightful way to idle away an increasingly sunny Saturday afternoon.

Yes, I just gave away several boxes of kitchen clutter; what of it?

The total ride was just over ten miles, bringing my yearly total to still a bit under 1,200 miles.

 

Hey,"transport trips" has replaced "calories burned." Interesting.

 

What with one thing and another, we were away for close to three hours. But what did I see as I glanced over while coasting down the driveway?

Rabbit, turned around but pretty much in the same spot as earlier.

The rabbits seem uninterested in the carrots and other vegetables growing in the bed just behind where this one is resting in the shade so we are happy to have them in place of last year's wasps.

Some excerpts from Scrapbook of a Year and a Day

Karen Molenaar Terrell's Scrapbook of a Year and a Day is, essentially, a compilation of Facebook posts written between January 19, 2020 and January 20, 2021. If I were to collect my FB posts, it would be very, very dull indeed, but Karen eliminated the silly cat videos, if she ever posted any, and has instead put together a moving and coherent account of the tumultuous year we all lived through and her personal experience of the year following the death of her father, Dee Molenaar. What I particularly love about Karen--and this book--is her perspective on things and her constant striving to live up to her ideals.

I'm really not a dog-earrer--I find it a vile habit--and yet I folded down the corners on several pages. For example:

August 25, 2020
Please do not tell me what I believe, feel, and think.
-Do not assume because I am a progressive and tend to vote for Democrats that I don't believe in God, "hate the Bible," and want to kill babies and take away your guns.
--Do not assume because I believe in God that I am anti-science, believe the earth is flat and the world was, literally, created in seven days.
--Do not assume that because I'm white, middle-aged and named "Karen" I am racist and want to talk to your manager.
--Do not assume because I identify as "Christian" I am conservative, opposed to LGBTQ rights, opposed to women's rights, travel heavily armed, and am voting for you-know-who.

I think that if we see each other in terms of stereotypes we miss out on some beautiful friendships and kinships with our fellow humans.

My biggest challenge right now is myself. I guess that's always my biggest challenge, isn't it? Stay kind, Karen. Stay true. Keep loving. Look for ways to bring humor to those in desperate need of a good laugh. Don't hate. Never hate. Be wise--but don't be cynical. Be discerning--but don't be cruel.

Love, help me be what you need me to be.
Amen.

October 17, 2020
{A lot of anecdote, involving buying shoes for a guy on the street, deleted here because there's only so much typing I'm willing to do. But it's a beautiful story.}

People WANT to do right by each other, don't they?

I felt like I was walking on holy ground today. I think . . . I think it all balances out, you know? --Good disperses itself throughout the cosmos--and I know that I'll always have what I need--there's no lack--there's no competition--there's no need to go through life clutching and afraid and feeling like Good is limited and finite, and if someone else has enough then I won't have enough.

Solace at the Cemetery
In these panicked times
In these fretful, frenzied, frantic times
I have found solace at the cemetery.
The shells of those who've lived
here and moved on
to whatever comes beyond
no longer need to distance themselves
from anyone, from me.
I find peace with them--the chrysalises
of my friends--Mike, Rachael, and Debby.

I wander amid the tombstones, snapping
photos of them, and the spinning wheels--
the bright spinners are the only movement
in the cemetery and I feel
drawn to the movement of their rainbow
spinning, faster and faster as I approach,
in a show just for me.

I'm allowed to be here. In the sunshine.
In the peace of the cemetery.
And no one disturbs me as I wander
through the final beds
for the shells of those who
are no longer scared of what lies ahead.

I'm not saying it's a flawless book--there are a lot of commas I'm itching to add to these excerpts--but it's a truly beautiful book, full of genuine goodness and kindness. These days, I'll really, really take that.

To have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others

I really can't say why this bit from Lolly Willowes appeals to me so, but it does. The book, by Sylvia Townsend Warner, recently reissued by NYRB, is an odd thing. It's a pretty standard Viragoesque novel for the first 150 pages or so, and then the protaganist realizes that the inhabitants of the village she has moved to attend regular Satanic Sabbaths (which seem to consist primarily of dancing). It's the sort of odd development that might annoy me, but in this case it's a bit like the prim English version of the final bit of The Master and Margarita. And it allows the title character to deliver this bit of social commentary:

It’s like this. When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, and as unregarded. I see them, wives and sisters of respectable men, chapel members, and blacksmiths, and small farmers, and Puritans. In places seen from the train. You know. Well, there they were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on currant bushes; and for diversion each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. And all the time being thrust further down into dullness when the one thing all women hate is to be thought dull. And on Sunday they put on plain stuff gowns and starched white coverings on their heads and necks—the Puritan ones did—and walked across the fields to chapel, and listened to the sermon. Sin and Grace, and God and the –” (she stopped herself just in time), “and St. Paul. All men’s things, like politics, or mathematics. And on the way back they listened to more talk. Talk about the sermon, or war, or cock-fighting, and when they got back, there were the potatoes to be cooked for dinner. I t sounds very petty to complain about, but I tell you, that sort of thing settles down on one like a fine dust, and by and by the dust is age, settling down. Settling down! You never die, do you? No doubt that’s far worse, but there is a dreadful kind of dreary immortality about being settled down on by one day after another. And they think about how they were young once, and they see new young women, just like what they were, and yet as surprising as if it had never happened before, like trees in spring. But they are like trees towards the end of summer, heavy and dusty, and no one finds their leaves surprising, or notices them till they fall off. If they could be passive and unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must be active, and still not be noticed. Doing, doing, doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a housewife, and rouses them up—when they might sit in their doorways and think—to be doing still!”
. . .
“Respectable women keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care. But the witch keeps her cloak of darkness, her dress embroidered with signs and planets; that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers. Her soul—when no one else would give a look at her body even! And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox? Her old one is nearly worn out.’ But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch out your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’ That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and –what is it?—‘blight the genial bed.’ Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defense, or just out of playfulness. But it’s a poor twopenny house-wifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run around being harmful, or to run around being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It’s to escape all that—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life. As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led.”

-Lolly Willowes’ describes a woman’s lot to Satan Pages 211 – 215 of Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

As of August 1

 Today's piddly 2.04-mile roundtrip to the Farmers Market got me to my latest meaningless goal one day later than I'd hoped:

though I did, a least, get past 4,500 "lifetime" miles yesterday, thanks to some errands downtown to which we added a dozen miles or so in West Seattle looping back home with an assist from the water taxi. 

 

I love the way my mind registers that orange oblong thing as my water bottle.

For whatever reason, I'm compelled to note that I've been recording my miles on love-to-ride for only a few years now--and actually recording every ride for less than three--so the lifetime in question is probably that of my current front light, and certainly not Bessie's lifetime (she's been old enough to drink for years now).