"Hiding in my room, safe within my womb......."

Simon & Garfunkel

It’s Thursday morning, I’m sitting in my office and rain is running down the window pain as I look out onto the street.  It’s a gloomy autumn day -  just the sort of day I like! Pat and I have already been out for a walk – before breakfast - picking up some shopping and the newspapers on the way back. So, now that the rain has set in I don’t feel any obligation to go out again. Pat may well decide to stretch her legs this afternoon – she’s just like her mother, always ready to go out!

I love days like this. I’m quite happy to keep busy in the house but feel no inclination or desire to go out, exercise, meet people or whatever. In the words of one of my favourite the Simon and Garfunkel songs “I am a Rock”: 

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armour,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

“Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me.” I’ve always been a bit of a loner – and always put it down to the fact that I was an only child. My parents were not terribly gregarious creatures, either, so I suppose that I grew up not really experiencing lots of social interaction. Certainly, I’ve always preferred my own company and never felt at ease in big gatherings. Parties and the like are a nightmare for me. Often in my life I have commented that I could exist very well on a desert island and Pat frequently tells me that I’m very independent – I don’t ask for help and am very independently minded. I think that’s a euphemism for awkward but I think she has a point! Without doubt I don’t need other people. My idea of heaven is to shut the front door and snuggle down with a good book or piece of music. If the door bell rings halfway through the evening I’m already grumpy by the time I get to the door! It has always been thus; as a child or teenager when mother and dad went off to work and it was the school holidays nothing gave me greater pleasure than to settle down with a book rather than being out with the lads.

I may be wrong, but as well as my own predisposition to a quiet life, I’ve often felt that having spent forty years in the classroom I was always glad of a bit of “space”. Being in a classroom all day surrounded by 30 or 40 demanding children meant that by the time I came home at night I was looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet. Other people maybe would have wanted a lot of adult company – I didn’t.

Card players at play

As I sit writing this, the house is not, however, silent. In the front room I can hear Pat and her three friends having a morning playing cards. They meet at each other’s houses every week or so and have an afternoon or morning enjoying a game of cards. For Pat, I think, it’s important – she enjoys playing cards (I’m an unwilling player) but she equally enjoys the chatting as they play. Pat is also a keen member of the local U3A (for those not familiar this is the University of the Third Age – a national network of groups who organise activities, lectures and the like for people over fifty). Although I’m a member I am very much a “sleeping partner” doing the publicity etc. for the local group rather than an active participant in some of the many groups and activities. This morning for example I’ve just sent out an e-mail to the four or five hundred local members to advise them of upcoming events: a music group, a movie group and a walking group. Pat takes part in lots of the activities – cards,  French conversation, movies, helping to run a computer group for older people learning computer skills etc. Again, she enjoys not only the event but the social aspect as well. But for me, I’m quite happy sending out newsletters, talking to people via e-mail and being, as it says on the song, “safe within my womb”.

Maybe I’m a bit odd but I’ve always preferred my own company. In years past I would occasionally pop out for a quiet beer at the local pub – my idea of heaven was a quiet beer, sitting in the corner with my Guardian newspaper. The prospect of standing round the bar with the crush of revellers filled me with horror! When I was at work I became increasingly irritated at the “assumptions” that were made. For example, when Christmas came along and a staff outing was discussed, the assumption was always that everyone wanted to be part of a big loud “bash”. One Christmas when the staff were discussing what to do and where to go on the Christmas staff outing I suggested (in all seriousness) that we go to a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass which happened to be on in Nottingham. My idea got short shrift, indeed a couple of the staff laughed at it – which I felt proved my point about assumptions being made. It seemed to me that everyone assumed that everybody enjoys big groups, lots of social interaction and the like but my suspicion is that I'm not alone in my liking of the quieter things in life and my own company. I've got this secret theory that there are more around like me but they are just harangued by "the madding crowd" into grudgingly taking part!

Having said that, I am also very aware that, since I retired I have got worse. When I retired I had visions of my having the time, the opportunity and the inclination to get out and about, to be a bit more of a social animal. Not to be a party goer – that would have been one step too far - but at least to happily go off to concerts and the theatre; to have friends round for a drink or whatever. In the event it hasn't really happened – and I have to admit it’s down to me. I am very conscious that as I get older I could happily live in a more or less silent world – devoid of much conversation or social interaction. Only the music of Bach would enter my world!

I do have to work hard to make myself join in, book concert tickets, go out on  a social occasion.  I am very aware that I should not cut myself off. I am also very aware that I must not do this – Pat, although being a quiet person herself, loves the company of others and to occasionally go out. She does need other people and just as she puts up with my solitary outlook on life she too needs me to be a bit more outgoing. At one level I console myself by believing that to a degree this is a “man thing” – that men tend not to “do” the social interaction thing that women seem to do. This was brought home to me a few years ago when I was in hospital. There were five or six blokes in my cardiac ward and we would often never speak apart from a nod of acknowledgement or a word of thanks when we shared a newspaper. I well remember one day when a nurse entered the ward -  she had just left the parallel women’s cardiac ward – and when she got to my bed commented “what is it with men? – it’s always silent in here, nobody talks, in the women’s ward they are all sitting chatting, discussing their families their illness, their plans and laughing. The men’s wards are so quiet and miserable!”  I know that she was right. I read an article a year or two ago which suggested that men who are left as widowers often find it far more difficult than women left as widows since the men don’t get out and about to share their loneliness.  Women walk to the shops, they stop for a chat with someone they know, they talk to the shopkeeper. Men just go down to the shop, get what they want and come home – back to themselves. I don’t know if that is true but I suspect it is – it would certainly be true for me.

John Donne

The words of Simon and Garfunkel’s song not only reflect many of my feelings but also maybe point to some truths that I also feel. There is a huge safety mechanism involved I am sure. I feel secure in my own world “I touch no one and no one touches me”. I think even from childhood I felt that. But, of course, whatever my feelings  we are social animals and we do need each other. So in making my world secure when  “I touch no-one” and I am “safe within my womb” I also impinge on the world of others – in my case, most obviously, my wife Pat. I know as well that as I become older I will increasingly need the help of others. In short I cannot remain an “island”.  So, although I'm comfortable with my outlook on life it brings anxieties – I know that I must not become a recluse, inhabiting my own little world. – Other people, as Pat occasionally reminds me, in some small way need me. And, without any doubt, I am going to need others.

As the metaphysical poet and thinker John Donne reminded the world in 1624 ".......No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....". If no lesser person than John Donne advises this then I suppose must follow his advice! I must keep trying to widen my horizons, be part of the "maine" and be involved with people – no matter how “painful” it is! Perhaps I should make this my New Year resolution! I’ll give it some thought as I sit here feeling snug, secure and cosy and gaze at the running rain puddles rather than the  “freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.” envisaged by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel! Watch this space!