The 1st day of March has arrived and it’s sunny if cold where I live. Spring seems to be properly on its way at last and the doggy is old and big enough now to go for extended walks on a long lead in the nearby park where he can water the clumps of daffodils and encounter other dogs for a bit of rough and tumble. I suppose the lift in my own spirits is worth recording. Maybe that is to do with relief at having had the Oxford jab; by the ensuing weekend I should be in a good state of immunity though the second injection is still some way off.
I have to say though that a major factor in rising spirits for me has been to do with The Illustrated History of Flight. When we ordered 400 copies in December last year, I worried that trying to sell my book under pandemic conditions by dint of social media and a few hoped-for newspaper articles would prove inadequate. Now in a matter of two months, close on half of the 400 books have vanished from my cardboard boxes in the bedroom, most having been sold. That’s satisfying. And even more so is the fact that the relationship between me and the purchasers has been personal. People I haven’t met in decades have bought copies and old friendships have been cemented and new ones made.
For most of the people who bought and read the book the prose section has been the most commented on and I think that reflects the relative ease with which my autobiographic prose can be read and the wariness many people feel about modern verse, its allusiveness and its often cryptic language. In fact the poems came first and the prose piece was written to provide a context for the poetry and to enable the reader who doesn’t know much about the subject (the Ulster Protestant world of my youth) or indeed about my choice of style to find some co-ordinates for a happy exploration of the poetry.
Meanwhile my counselling journey continues; we had a deep look on the last training weekend at issues centred around addiction and around violence and human conflict. Also there has been adequate time set aside to practise counselling by undertaking sessions in which each of us gets a chance to be the client, the trainee therapist or an observer. Perhaps in my next blog I’ll try to unpack what Gestalt means for me, as the type of counselling on which we focus is indeed Gestalt.
On the other hand if it becomes possible to journey to the Lakes and see my sister and her husband in their new bungalow for the first time, it would be hard to resist a blog on that score. Especially in Spring.