I think I will add a bit more because it is an indication of how one lives these days.
The perceived caring role on leaving employment never materialised even beyond a double heart bypass operation in the case of my mother and the loss of verbal coherence in my father. Society is not sympathetic. It applauds, as I do to an extent, what appears to be the ballsy way of still unnecessarily getting on buses into Croydon (without it having the accompanying worry or indeed hearing the "I can't manage this anymore" comments behind doors where suggestions that it doesn't need to be done are met with utter dismissal). Nor does it hear in neighbourhood groups where everyone talks and rarely listens the extent of loss of nouns or if it does it gently (inappropriately?) teases (as indeed does my father's brother). It is unaware, when a frail looking gentleman can hardly push his lawn mower on the grass and his son looks like an ogre for letting him do it, of the hundreds of offers in private to do that very thing which have been verbally and even physically opposed. Additionally, as food is brought round and notes are shoved through the letterbox, it appears that the man on his own who merely says "good morning" rather than being inside others' houses is the one with the strange philosophy while the married couple have no such traits.
But elsewhere it is me who the residents' association come to when wishing to express disgruntlement that no one in the road has opposed adverse local developments. They do so knowing that I will collect letters, walk them round, speak to people about actual issues rather than engaging in small talk and then anticipate that while I am formally responding everyone else will still do nothing until the time comes. Then they will stand on a pavement and moan about whatever has transpired. New housing, yellow lines, gradient signs......it happens every time. As for the grit bin behind which a local elderly man with mental illness dumps things having raided a range of dustbins in the neighbourhood, yes, it was me who removed it all to the vocalized appreciation of the people on the corner ("Oh how kind") although they themselves also do nothing in that or any other regard. This was what I eventually assumed my true role was intended to be by society at large on being made redundant - something between a local application of civil servant skills - free - and a dustman or one who picks up after adults who are not wholly unlike children. The political councillors, the wide community groups - it's all good for them, to have such an outpost, and my normality in those scenarios is never questioned. It isn't charity. It helps me and it is also hoped somewhat forlornly that such efforts will help to keep for my parents what are not disruptive neighbours. I am, though, told by my parents to stop being, quote, "the neighbourhood policeman" and when I explain what is taking place it is usually brushed aside.
Early this week, I was advised by them that five actual police officers were on the corner of this road. One neighbour spotted them. There was a local gathering. People gossiped. People speculated. People did not look into the reasons why at all. But they decided as communities do that they thought they had seen them looking into the grit bin. Well, perhaps not looking into the grit bin. No one was quite sure. But once they had looked into the grit bin, which they might have not looked into at all, they had found a suspect package. This was initially the version according to my mother. Consequently, the concern was that they might think erroneously that I had put that in there. After all, I clean up behind the bin. I am not to do so again because it could lead to difficulties. Essentially, I am not to do anything at all because it could lead to difficulties including getting my own food in. This led to huge amounts of personal trauma. It was the latest re-running of being dismissed by my employers because of their cost-cutting and once again it underpinned a societal insistence of dysfunction in me. I have never known anyone in my life for whom it seems so exclusively designed. It feels like a constant attack and yet it cannot be opposed because it comes at least from a few with good intentions. "Hold on.....I'll come to you" I said. The visit is to produce what can only be produced here which is an element of clarification. "Did you see it?" "No" "No? Who did?" "Well, I don't know - look I don't want an interrogation". "There is no interrogation" one replies. "we just need to establish some facts so we are clear".
After 20 minutes, the fact - singular - is that one person thought he saw five police officers on the corner. There is not necessarily any dimension involving a bin or a package and the man on the corner hearing the questions raised either thinks I am very strange for repeating them or is pretending not to know when it may have been something to do with him. Trust breaks down all round. One thinks he will have had enough of it soon and, exactly contrary to the objective, move. Even paranoia surfaces. Would those who disliked objection to their housing development plant something there to get their own back? Ludicrous - probably. "This is a nightmare" my mother says. Dad adds: "She's only trying to help you.....I don't know what it is about" although it transpires it might have been him who first mentioned a package but he is not sure. And this is the way things tend to be, not that society sees it. I stop doing anything because my head spins and I feel so threatened by what are others' "wild imaginings". They themselves are out the next day seven miles away to buy ready meals and on their return to have a good old normal sounding laugh with the neighbours. Who would have known among all the smiling that I had been sent to Coventry for 48 hours because I had mildly suggested it might in the accounting be "just a bit of old age". "That's it" I was told "just stick us in a home". They know it's never been on my agenda.
Two of them. One of me. An impossible situation. The aggro is perceived to be mine. I really don't think it is. Given the reduction to nothingness, I think I show considerable balance. The scary thing is that when I speak with them, I can hear Ian Fletcher of W1A in me with they and to a lesser extent the neighbours as the rest of the cast. So it isn't wholly about old age actually - it is about the wider system and how it works. It seems to have cast almost everyone in its modern image, similarly muddled and not at all what/who they were.
The perceived caring role on leaving employment never materialised even beyond a double heart bypass operation in the case of my mother and the loss of verbal coherence in my father. Society is not sympathetic. It applauds, as I do to an extent, what appears to be the ballsy way of still unnecessarily getting on buses into Croydon (without it having the accompanying worry or indeed hearing the "I can't manage this anymore" comments behind doors where suggestions that it doesn't need to be done are met with utter dismissal). Nor does it hear in neighbourhood groups where everyone talks and rarely listens the extent of loss of nouns or if it does it gently (inappropriately?) teases (as indeed does my father's brother). It is unaware, when a frail looking gentleman can hardly push his lawn mower on the grass and his son looks like an ogre for letting him do it, of the hundreds of offers in private to do that very thing which have been verbally and even physically opposed. Additionally, as food is brought round and notes are shoved through the letterbox, it appears that the man on his own who merely says "good morning" rather than being inside others' houses is the one with the strange philosophy while the married couple have no such traits.
But elsewhere it is me who the residents' association come to when wishing to express disgruntlement that no one in the road has opposed adverse local developments. They do so knowing that I will collect letters, walk them round, speak to people about actual issues rather than engaging in small talk and then anticipate that while I am formally responding everyone else will still do nothing until the time comes. Then they will stand on a pavement and moan about whatever has transpired. New housing, yellow lines, gradient signs......it happens every time. As for the grit bin behind which a local elderly man with mental illness dumps things having raided a range of dustbins in the neighbourhood, yes, it was me who removed it all to the vocalized appreciation of the people on the corner ("Oh how kind") although they themselves also do nothing in that or any other regard. This was what I eventually assumed my true role was intended to be by society at large on being made redundant - something between a local application of civil servant skills - free - and a dustman or one who picks up after adults who are not wholly unlike children. The political councillors, the wide community groups - it's all good for them, to have such an outpost, and my normality in those scenarios is never questioned. It isn't charity. It helps me and it is also hoped somewhat forlornly that such efforts will help to keep for my parents what are not disruptive neighbours. I am, though, told by my parents to stop being, quote, "the neighbourhood policeman" and when I explain what is taking place it is usually brushed aside.
Early this week, I was advised by them that five actual police officers were on the corner of this road. One neighbour spotted them. There was a local gathering. People gossiped. People speculated. People did not look into the reasons why at all. But they decided as communities do that they thought they had seen them looking into the grit bin. Well, perhaps not looking into the grit bin. No one was quite sure. But once they had looked into the grit bin, which they might have not looked into at all, they had found a suspect package. This was initially the version according to my mother. Consequently, the concern was that they might think erroneously that I had put that in there. After all, I clean up behind the bin. I am not to do so again because it could lead to difficulties. Essentially, I am not to do anything at all because it could lead to difficulties including getting my own food in. This led to huge amounts of personal trauma. It was the latest re-running of being dismissed by my employers because of their cost-cutting and once again it underpinned a societal insistence of dysfunction in me. I have never known anyone in my life for whom it seems so exclusively designed. It feels like a constant attack and yet it cannot be opposed because it comes at least from a few with good intentions. "Hold on.....I'll come to you" I said. The visit is to produce what can only be produced here which is an element of clarification. "Did you see it?" "No" "No? Who did?" "Well, I don't know - look I don't want an interrogation". "There is no interrogation" one replies. "we just need to establish some facts so we are clear".
After 20 minutes, the fact - singular - is that one person thought he saw five police officers on the corner. There is not necessarily any dimension involving a bin or a package and the man on the corner hearing the questions raised either thinks I am very strange for repeating them or is pretending not to know when it may have been something to do with him. Trust breaks down all round. One thinks he will have had enough of it soon and, exactly contrary to the objective, move. Even paranoia surfaces. Would those who disliked objection to their housing development plant something there to get their own back? Ludicrous - probably. "This is a nightmare" my mother says. Dad adds: "She's only trying to help you.....I don't know what it is about" although it transpires it might have been him who first mentioned a package but he is not sure. And this is the way things tend to be, not that society sees it. I stop doing anything because my head spins and I feel so threatened by what are others' "wild imaginings". They themselves are out the next day seven miles away to buy ready meals and on their return to have a good old normal sounding laugh with the neighbours. Who would have known among all the smiling that I had been sent to Coventry for 48 hours because I had mildly suggested it might in the accounting be "just a bit of old age". "That's it" I was told "just stick us in a home". They know it's never been on my agenda.
Two of them. One of me. An impossible situation. The aggro is perceived to be mine. I really don't think it is. Given the reduction to nothingness, I think I show considerable balance. The scary thing is that when I speak with them, I can hear Ian Fletcher of W1A in me with they and to a lesser extent the neighbours as the rest of the cast. So it isn't wholly about old age actually - it is about the wider system and how it works. It seems to have cast almost everyone in its modern image, similarly muddled and not at all what/who they were.
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