Illness is like visiting relatives. One of thoise things. Like visiting relatives you barely know. Very uncomfortable. The spaces that are never quite crossed. Spaces between that are never bridged. Illness like that.
It being impossible to tie down and tolerate. It always changing. Fluctuating. Becoming more then less. Like visiting distant relatives and spending all day. Not to become closer but to build the illusions more complex. more intricacy. To hide the facts. To conceal the life revealing only the best of the willow-pattern china in a mutually agreed mutual deception. Why not come round for lunch on Sunday and lie about your children. Cloying and honey. Why is there never honey on the table it would be so right for this. Perhaps you can't serve it decorously. It won't come out of the jar tidily. It drapes itself over the tablecloth. Trails and banners float in the air. It begins to look as though everybody has a party hat on, even though they haven't. Being ill, like visiting relatives. People you barely know. People who barely know you. People who can be relied upon to swallow your illusions about your life without question. I doubt I will see many of my relatives outside my immediate family. I doubt I will see many of them again. I doubt that will ever matter much to me. It is like illness. I think I can do quite well without it. Cloying like honey.
I took the lawnmower down to Penry for its sporadic check up, mostly because it won't start. So I took it again to Penryn to be attended to. David who will mend whatever it is he decides is wrong with it has only just arrived. He says he thinks everybody he knows has been in bed over the weekend with a stomach bug that has been going around. So perhaps that is what it was after all. I thought it was just the sudden cold but perhaps if I blame the stomach bug I can forget about it more easily. Soimewhere along the line I took an aspirin and that undoubtedly helped. I had a headache and then I didn't. A pity I took it, I don't really like to, but it did stop the headache. Anyway David says it was a stomach bug and he's a mechanic so I suppose he should know.
All the sinister things that once took place only in the mind now take place on the television. It has all become externalised. It has been taken away from us. Gone the warm feeling of a really unique sin. Instead there is only channel 4. Depersonalisation of it all. Somebody else's everything. Nobody really commits their own sins today. They wait for the repeats. The worst crimes still seem to occur in countries with little adequate television. There hasn't been a religeous massacre in the United States since the advent ot televised religion. There has hardly been a political thought in the United Kingdom since the advent of political coverage on television. The more it is repeated the less it interests. Why work for yourself if the television can give it to you for nothing. One of the saddest and most exhilarating things of thinking things through is meeting people who have come to the same conclusions. I heard a relaxation tape of Bob's long ago that had that in it. The words I would not have chosen but all the thought was there. Now it is all on television. Now it is all externalised. Now it is all remote. Remote control. Pass me the remote. Externalisation. Fear, hate, guilt and Channel 4. All the sinister things that once went on in the mind now only take place on television. It is all superficial. Do. Do without. Do without noticing.
It is warm. Lying in the bath it is warm. Lying in the bath is curiously isolated. Comforting and isolated. Curious combination for a human mind. It couldn't last long. The water gets cold. Lying in the bath. Slowly it all comes back Tetrastigma. The glory of Tetrastigma. Those faded dreams. So real so long ago. Where were they hidden those faded dreams. Why were they put away Who did they suit? Given away. Given away for what? For who. Those people. those stupid people. No I don't think I like you much today. Alan came this morning. I was half expecting him. Just one of the people who faded the dreams. Eroded by the drips of constant people. Here in the bath. Here where they cannot reach me. It started weeks ago with orchid plants again. I should not contend. Instead I make the nursery smaller to keep them all in place. Here in the bath they cannot reach me steam like tendrils of Tetrastigma curl the fantastic air back into my heart where they all belong. Welcome back faint dream. welcome back.