“Morning has broken, like the first morning; blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.”
What better way to start my new week than singing the uplifting inaugural lines of a traditional hymn….. Well, apart from perhaps fragrant Aussie actress Margot Robbie bringing me breakfast in bed. Which with all due respect to the refrain’s author, Eleanor Farjeon, would make my Monday reveille significantly more brio filled than warbling her words….. Oh, and if you’re reading this Margot, can you make sure the eggs are cooked sunny side up and over easy?!
Like those few hymn lyrics, the dawning of this new week bringing with it an injection of hope, renewal, existential rejuvenation, misguided sexism and a significant likelihood I’m gonna have to make my own bloody breakfast.
God, if he exists, affording me a fresh set of seven dawns in which to bring an upturn to my currently flagging mental health. A restorative period bequeathing yours truly opportunity to turn around well-documented disenchantment at my prevailing lot.
My metaphorical glass half-full bus leaving the station with the words “Come on, Gary. Stick with it; things are about to get better.” ringing in my ears.
Ignoring the stale redolence circulating around the said omnibus, I’m resolved to approach the new chapter (this week) in positive spirits…… Consoling myself with the thoughts that if it turns out to be the usual s***show at least the blackbird seems in decent spirits…. Which is nice….. For the avian anyhow.
That being said, do we really know for a fact from those first lines of Eleanor Farjeon’s 1931 hymn that the blackbird is feeling (or should that read ‘being’?) chirpy. After all, there’s no real inkling as to the avian’s mood within the lyric – All the author offers up is the feathered fella/lady (delete where applicable) has spoken.
For all we know he/she may’ve risen that particular morning in a right old mood. Paddying disconsolately to anyone who’d listen, which bearing in mind the noise they make could be a vast audience, “Bloody hell, not another week of having to find worms, avoiding pouncing cats and pretending I’m happy through the conduit of morn song.”
A diatribe highlighting we humans shouldn’t take it for granted that we are the only species prone to mental health issues. Our propensity for depression irrespective of us, unlike most of the animal kingdom, not having to worry about the daily jeopardy of being eaten by predators…. Well, unless we recklessly invade the space of a man-eating lion in the wild (or indeed climb into it’s cage). In which case we’d get what we deserved!
Later today, I’ve got a few days break planned in East Yorkshire. My destination a caravan park on the periphery of Hull where I intend to unwind from what’s been a fraught weekend carer wise.
That being said, thanks to my sister Helen’s sterling intervention, which’s resulted in increased outside carer intervention for our dementia afflicted mother, my levels of strain will forthwith diminish markedly. The vast majority of tasks I’d been previously undertaking, eg cooking, laundry and washing up, no longer my responsibility.
Helen’s intercession necessary after it’d become clear, after a severe degeneration in my relationship with my mum, that living with the matriarch was not a living arrangement that’d ever work out without confrontation.
I still love mum unconditionally. Yet with day to day domestic life becoming increasingly more confrontational, for the sake of my mental and physical wellbeing leaving the home which’s etched so many fond memories upon my live canvas became utterly unavoidable.
Now all I need is to sort out a new place to live, along with losing my ingrained guilt at failing to follow up on my death bed promise to my dad of looking after her, and the jobs a good ‘un!
“Praise for the singing; praise for the morning; praise for the springing fresh from the world.”
