Deliberating the Dangleberry

When I was younger I took a rather mocking approach to the activity reports of elderly relatives, who when asked about their day would cite as evident highlights putting out the bin, paying the milkman, or having a chat with the old boy across the road who has got to go in for a hernia. Now, being older myself, and retired, I can start to appreciate some of this, with the processes of expectation-minimisation and banality-elevation accelerated and exacerbated by the lockdown, as well as by age. Not going anywhere much, watching very little TV, not having any structure imposed upon my days, means not only that I’m unable to tell if it’s the weekend or a bank holiday, but that the formerly despised timetables of trivia have risen to the surface.

The basics of daily existence endure, and each one constitutes more of an event, as what formerly was background becomes foreground, as the infraordinary becomes the doorway to the potentially extraordinary, and as the mundane becomes mainstream. Each minor activity is transformed into something one can celebrate, is attended to more deliberately, nurtured more imaginatively, as though it was an artform, a happening, something to e-mail about at great length to someone half a world away, something to log as an achievement. In a crisis like this the overfamiliar comes to the fore. So if the weather’s fine, as it is at the moment, and speaking personally, breakfast will be taken outside. That’s a bit different from the norm, and represents a deliberate attempt at creating enjoyment and adding interest. Breakfast as an event, almost as a holiday  A feeling that one could be at the seaside even though that’s two hours or so away. Ah, maybe so, but see, the bananas are Boubas, from Cameroon. A Bouba can never be thin, ask any psychologist. Grow fat and happy. Chop one up and put it on your flakes. (No, not the psychologist). Black grapes from Brazil. The blueberries are … oh look, there’s a wasp.

The real fun sets in with elevenses, which advance ever earlier, currently starting at around 9.30, when rather than opting for a quick spoonful of the instant stuff, a “proper” coffee will be manufactured slowly and carefully, a decent mug will be selected, and one will feel that one is doing retirement properly. “Ah, this is the life”. “Sure beats being at the office”. “It’s Sunday, isn’t it?”. “Oh, oh, right”. Look, there’s another wasp. 

A proper coffee will be accompanied – according to whim  - by a pain au chocolat (a regular gift from a kind neighbour), a slice or two of only mildly burnt fruitloaf (toaster setting uncertain), or most frequently by white toast with butter and  an exotic marmalade, preferably one with rustic oo-arr credentials purchased pre-lockdown from an olde worlde garden centre with a coach park, space for 850 cars and a plastic tiger in reception. The jar we’re working through at the moment is labelled Mrs. Dangleberry’s Homemade Olde Englishe Stem Cell Ginger with Extra Dangleberries. It’s absolutely stunning. I could eat it till it came out of my orifices. By lunchtime, given the warm weather, something alcoholic will be calling.

You can see where this is going, can’t you. Yes. Cider. Given (a) the paucity of things to do and (b) the difficulty of finding anywhere interesting to exercise in, means that one’s diet suffers, at least in terms of being sensibly nutritious and under control, and one’s waistline expands. You may argue that these are small prices to pay for getting through this pandemic with a modicum of sanity, and I would have to agree with you. I mean, 14% extra dangleberries. 

Always, in this current situation,  one has to try and seek an upside, and preferably one actually available, one we can benefit from now, well before the dreaded lurgy is dreaded no more. Well, food, is an obvious upside, drink likewise. But seriously, the upside, as I see it, is that – regardless of, and because of, all the things one cannot do – one is forced to focus upon what one can do, and upon what is still accessible. Out of lack of alternatives one is compelled to look more closely and to appreciate more deeply. Much of what I’m referring to is yours anyway. It’s there, free of charge, always has been, no pre-booking necessary.

Rather like the prisoner who looks forward to the day when he’ll be allowed a shower and a change of clothes, we can concentrate on the everyday, the ordinary, the close by, and acquire pleasure and knowledge in the process. We just have to learn how to fiddle with the gestalt, how to twiddle the emphasis. We can explore places nearby which otherwise we’ve passed a thousand times and never thought to take a look at. We can take the time to observe properly, to examine, to stand and stare, to sniff and savour, even perhaps to learn properly (several of my friends are brushing up on their languages), to listen, to appreciate our loved ones, to practise – in the Frommian sense – being rather than having. When will we ever get a chance like this again? (Never, I hope).

At times like this you realise it’s not the fancy aspects of life that matter, not the expensive purchases or the air miles traversed in order to go on holiday or the exoticism of a complicated lifestyle. At times like this it’s things like “bin day is Tuesday” that matter, mid-morning marmalade that is important - like the one I referred to a moment or two ago. So let’s take up the advice and inspect more closely. Let’s have a look at the label on the back of the jar.  Mm, the print is rather small, but I can just make it out. “Dangleberry Genetic Technologies (UK), Swindon, Wilts., SN5 8VZ”. 

Quality of life. That’s what matters.