“Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.”

Voltaire – Candide 

I’ve been mulling this post for ages and it goes to the heart of why I write this blog. It’s not so much for the sheer quantity of readers which, let’s face it, is low – though I am sure that they are of the finest quality –  or that I expect anyone to read my thoughts, it’s more a case of writing for the record, for posterity. Maybe one day someone will stumble across these thoughts and be interested enoughto mull them, much as we do when we find personal letters, I suppose. This is, after all a personal blog, and includes my thoughts about places and things. Why should it not include my thoughts about me? Perhaps I’m bashful about exposing my inner workings. I’ve always been quite modest and inhibited, and it goes against my nature to impose myself on anyone. You read, you choose, I suppose.

I shall be coming home to Beckenham this week ostensibly to sing the Mozart Requiem, my favourite choral piece, with my beloved choir and then the Sea Symphony later in the month if I can learn it by then. That has been the plan since May. However, events have taken a turn.

As I write, we are still faced with the prospect of falling off the edge of the Brexit cliff – excuse that tired cliche but I think the analogy is a good one – on Thursday. Political machinations pile up, confuse and outsmart in Parliament but surely I’m not the only one exhausted by all the arcane gamesmanship? We are talking about people’s lives here. My rage and resentment at how 26% of the population were manipulated – let themselves be manipulated – into voting for catastrophe on the basis of a crooked and fatally flawed decision, have rattled around constantly in my brain eroding my wellbeing for all that time, undiminished. Here we are on the edge. Again.

One of my closest friends lies recovering from cancer surgery. I am only glad that she managed to have the surgery last week. Another few days and i worried that she might have to contend with shortages of drugs, power and clean water in addition to her cancer. But now what? Our access to drugs is threatened, and radioactive isotopes for scanners with short half lives will be delayed at ports and potentially rendered useless. This is not Project Fear. It is the reality of the stupid decision taken in ignorance by the slimmest of majorities of misinformed, mislead, people. It will happen and yet I’ve been so incredibly dismayed at the denial from people who are sure that “they” won’t let that happen. The people who maintain that they voted to Remain but seem to place their faith in The Johnson dismay me more though, in their smug belief that all will remain fine for them. I seem to know a lot of these people.

My stockpiling of food has caused some amusement, I’m sure, but we only have to think about the chaos a couple of days of petrol strikes or even snow have caused to our supply chains in the past. How I long for everything to be all right and to be proved wrong! In the meantime, I have a child in the UK to protect, though goodness knows how I’d get stuff  to Edinburgh if petrol supplies ran low. I’m not planning any trips to meet friends outside the immediate vicinity of home this time: if petrol and power ran low any visits simply couldn’t happen and why set oneself for more disappointment? My hermetic existence for the next few weeks will be based around the music scores I have to learn for my imminent concerts and trying to support my friends, even for a couple of weeks.

Laugh and sneer if you like. I am in turmoil. I am trying to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. I think that’s better than pretending that a problem doesn’t exist or relying on someone else (undefined) to sort it out. In any case, to my dying breath I shall oppose Brexit. How was stripping people of their established rights under the pretext of a deeply flawed, unlawful, referendum poisoned by lies, and relying on people’s unspoken bigotry and ignorance,  which excluded from the vote many of those who will be the worst affected, ever going to be right? How will leaving the EU make anyone’s life any better? No-one has ever been able to come up with a concrete answer to either of these questions. Instead they hurl abuse which does not stand up to any logical scrutiny. Ironically we Remainers are fighting to protect the very people who insult us as well as ourselves. We can’t call out the ignorance because that would be called bullying. Meanwhile, the Leavers enjoy their illusory win to the full.

The main reason why I’m prevaricating, however, is because my beloved James is flying to a new life in Canada on Tuesday. Now, while I can’t blame him for his decision not to spend the rest of his life in a minimum wage-ish job in Orpington, it irks me that he appears to be washing his hands of all ties in the UK. The feeling of rejection is strong and it’s a tussle between my rational and my emotional selves.

Why do I feel like this? It was me, after all, who pushed so hard to provide him with a world-class education exactly in order to be able to hold his head up in a world of technocrats. Why would he not take advantage of it? It’s absolutely gut-wrenching watching him fly to the other side of the world, with a 12 hour time difference between us under such unhappy circumstances. There are other, more personal, reasons for my doubts but I don’t wish to go into them here. So, while I wish him well, watching the family that I cultivated with such care all going their separate ways is a long, slow heartbreak and, speaking to others in a similar position renders me more or less inconsolable. Something is broken that cannot be fixed. As it is we try and keep in touch electronically, but if you’ve ever tried to maintain any relationship under those conditions, you’ll know just how stilted a conversation  becomes. Things are left unsaid. People brood over misunderstandings and tones of voice. Skype is no substitute for a hug.

That is the place in which I find myself today. There are no answers to things over which I have no control.

“Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”