We like being temperate in this country. Somewhere between the extremes we’re at our best, when it’s not ‘too’ anything. Too hot? We melt. Too cold? We shudder with horror. Too zany? We raise a disapproving eyebrow. Too reserved? We talk about ‘repressed emotion’ and the need to loosen up that ‘stiff upper lip’. Yeah, that’s it. Let your hair down. But not too much. Be nice to people. But not too nice. Be successful, be strong, be firm, be excellent, be confident, be brilliant... but for heaven’s sake, don’t get carried away.
I don’t think heaven is as bothered as we think it is, by the way. There is quite the shock awaiting us when the Brits get there.
Anyway, I’m thinking about all this today because I don’t know how to tell you all that I fell down the stairs this afternoon.
“Is he moaning again? What is wrong with him? Why does he write about this stuff?”
Fair questions. The reason I feel like I need to walk the temperate path (between understating it and going on about it) is that I’m very tired of complaining all the time, and I worry that me matter-of-factly relating how I can’t see, how I’ve had to have my head examined, how ill I feel at the moment, how exhausting the hospital was, how dreadful Saturdays are, how my mugs smashed, and how I slipped on the stairs and landed in a tangled pile by the front door... will actually alienate me from people who think I’m becoming a sinkhole for their kindness, their energy, and their love.
And that is the last thing I want to do.
This is how we end up telling everyone we’re fine when we’re not, isn’t it? This is what prevents us tweeting about the great stuff we achieved, the things we ought to be proud about. We like a temperate path where our trumpets are blown if at all, by someone, by anyone else, and our failings and weaknesses are hidden away in the recesses.
But I’m finding it hard to paint an accurate picture here, without careering off the path. So I try to present facts - things that are just true, unarguable and factual. Maybe you can read into them whatever you will. Maybe you can ask me.
I groaned to myself and untangled my feet, then rubbed my head where it had connected with the shoe rack. A pile of crumpled Midweek Chronicles and takeaway flyers crinkled beneath me as I stood up.
Is he moaning again? Probably. What is wrong with him? We don’t know. Why does he write about this stuff? Well perhaps it’s just a ham-fisted attempt to convey a thing that’s very hard to talk about in a land where no-one seems to want to be ‘too’ anything, yet silently feels the swing from heatwave to cold snap on a daily basis but slips very naturally into restraining from complaining because that’s exactly what everybody else is doing.
Maybe. Or maybe I just fell down the stairs and hit my head on the shoe rack on a dull Saturday afternoon. As you do. As you do.
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