Walking into the Shadows

Since my last post, I've been thinking about all the offices, concert halls and workplaces in London and around the world that are standing empty.  There are probably one or two facilities people checking in on them occasionally to make sure there are no leaks, or maybe a cleaner knocking some dust off the furniture.  The Shard, the Walkie Talkie building, the Royal Opera House, all the cafes and restaurants, all empty.  Rows of empty desks with blank monitors, water coolers with no-one chatting about last night's TV, chairs on tables, curtains drawn, windows with no one looking out at the views.  Ranks of velvet covered seats with no one flipping them upright to let someone pass.  Polished wood bars with beer taps that no one is pulling and rows of dangling glasses, gathering dust.

We speak in hallowed tones about the burgeoning wildlife, but I expect the mice, rats and cockroaches are having fun in these places too.

We rightly praise the NHS workers and key workers, but I think it might be time to say a thank-you to all those facilities staff, who are walking into dark and echoing buildings regularly to make sure they are ready to open up again when the time comes. 

Ode to my Colleagues during a Pandemic

The big, old building where I work is grand on the outside and a mix of grand and not-so-grand inside.

Panelled rooms, corniced ceilings, mirrored doors, a grand staircase and bevelled glass windows adorn the public areas.

At the back of the building there are staircases with uneven tread winding between myriad corridors. There are lots of doors to rooms that were once bedrooms or drawing rooms for grand people. Then there is a mish-mash of smaller rooms and cupboards.

Through the hall window I can see rain dripping off a broken gutter and splattering onto a slate roof beneath.

I love working in a building like this. It has soul. There aren’t enough plugs, there is no air conditioning and it can be cruelly cold in the winter. But there are views, and deep windows with wide sills you can sit on when no one is about.

Usually it is full of people clattering away on their keyboards, staring intently at screens or standing in the kitchen chatting while sipping tea and taking the lid off the biscuit tin to see if anything is worth plundering.

Sometimes I get to play the grand piano in the function hall, imagining an adoring audience and making flamboyant hand gestures as I hit the keys. Sometimes I play table tennis with friends there, laughing and scrabbling around for the pesky little balls that get trapped under the large radiators or roll into the corridor by the kitchen. Sometimes June opens the kitchen door and passes some refreshments out with a smile and friendly word.

It’s a building to love, full of people to love. It has its cranky moments, but so do those of us who inhabit it.

I miss the old place, working from home really isn’t the same.

I had to go in this week. I was looking forward to it. Going in a side entrance because the big front doors were locked, I went up the dark stairwell to the office on the top floor. The cleaner was pleased to see me. We had a chat from opposite ends of the corridor before she took her vacuum cleaner back down the stairs to clean another, unused room.

Every so often moving around the building, I would hear footsteps down the hall, part of a muffled conversation behind a door. Out of the window I could see down to the sunken lawn where an energetic man was throwing a ball for a lethargic dog.

Someone popped in to collect a computer, lots of smiles and hellos from the doorway, and then the floor went quiet again. Later, another cleaner put his head round the door, swabbed the handles and moved on.

It’s a place to reflect, with time to reflect.

I am a voice behind a door, I am the footsteps down the hall.

I am the person pleased to see you - I am the person pleased to be here.

Please be here with me again soon.

Sometimes it is worth getting out early and seeing the world in a different light.....

Pond in Home Park at dawn

Deer in ground mist

Beyond the White Noise

The current Coronavirus pandemic is creating the crackling static of white noise.  Live news feeds direct to your phone giving updates on the latest number of deaths, hospital over-crowding and the shortage of ventilators.  Grim-faced newsreaders telling us about sick politicians and failing businesses.  There is fake news and fake information spreading on social media.  We are given instructions to follow, and we are implored to do this, and do that.  Statutory measures tighten by the week and all we can do is sit at home and wait for the numbers to start changing for the better.  We suppress a growing knot of anxiety while washing our hands and washing our hands and washing our hands.

What seemed important two months/two days/two hours ago has changed.  There is a new focus for us. 

Listen beyond the white noise and something profound is happening.  We are being shown different ways to live our lives.  Lives of gratitude for the kindness of strangers, humility for the selfless actions of others, local lives of community helping our neighbours and a new awareness of the meaning of 'home'. 

What can we take forward when the six foot season ends so it has not all been in vain?

A Bee Shaped Void

There's a bee buzzing around in my head.  He won't go away.  He wants me to write this.

In a museum somewhere is a stingless bee, preserved in amber, from 80,000,000 years ago - from the time of the dinosaurs in fact.

He has orchid pollen on his body.

A snapshot of a day in the life of a small, seemingly insignificant insect.  Happily enjoying exploring a flower and stirring up puffs of pollen.  Things take a turn for the worse when he has the misfortune to get stuck in some gum on a tree.  Not such a good day after all. 

How we know about these moments in a day eons ago is something of a miracle. 

We can't crack open the amber nugget, as the preserved bee is but a shell inside.  All the more mysterious that it is only an echo that has bumped its way across millennia.

A tiny, empty space in a chunk of resin that accidentally found it's way into an afterlife.

Eighty million years, some pollen grains, and a bee shaped void.