Recently I have become convinced in this way that I suffer from ADHD - that is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - and, for good measure, Hypothyroidism. I suspect I actually suffer from neither of these as you can’t be hyperactive with an underactive thyroid, can you? Though in the small print they do say that even if you are not hyperactive you may still have an attention deficit and that is, I fear the case with me. My attention wanders all too easily. After about ten years I become bored and need to move on to something else.
I am now totally bored by politics, for instance, despite in my heyday having been a Parliamentary Candidate and having written umpteen policy papers, the contents of at least some of which my fellow politicians have inflicted on us, though naturally enough without acknowledgement. Well, there are many others in the same game; one can’t be proprietorial. But the business of politics, though clearly as important as ever, seems now to me to have become ever more shabby and worthless. We know only too clearly what the outcome will be of their efforts to improve our lives, which is that the mess will get worse and we shall be left to clear it up ourselves with less money than we had before they started. Look at the latest scandals; indeed, at the latest legislation on gay marriage which, while I have nothing against it, does make me think that the Government, like Nero is fiddling mightily while Rome burns. I rather identify with the sign that allegedly greets you at the Canadian Border: ‘We don’t care who you marry so long as you both watch hockey.’
But we shall muddle through, I suppose, until one day the system collapses. My grandchildren I fear will have a harder life than mine has been. I still get emails from my former political friends, flattering me and soliciting money and help, but the spirit is no longer willing and neither is the flesh. My attention deficit disorder has moved me on and my hypothyroidism means I can’t be bothered anyway. Though maybe of course I’m not suffering from these at all but something else that I haven’t discovered as yet. It’s the one good thing about being a hypochondriac: you can always find something else that is wrong with you.
If I appear in a sombre mood it is because the Mill down in the Auvergne belonging to Rosie and Jim’s son, where we have passed so many happy days in recent years, is sold. They are down there even at this moment collecting up bits and pieces ready for the new owner to move in. I doubt I shall see it again, which is really most sad for, with the sun shining, it presented with its trees and meadows and river and hills, the most perfect combination of atmosphere and environment that a human could wish for. On sunny days busy insects buzzed endlessly and you could almost hear the wildflowers growing, and the apples, peaches and walnuts swelling further with each shower of rain. The river and millrace chuckled endlessly, the swish and clatter of water, while deep in the woods the wild boar rooted, the deer skipped and martens went about their deadly hunt. Nearer the house, the great walnut trees provided shade under which flourished a whole encyclopaedia of minor wildlife. And beyond the boundaries, in all the many villages round about, flourished the most beautiful stone architecture in the whole of France.
On my last day there last summer I took a deckchair and a book and some chilled white wine and sat at the bottom of the lawn under the walnut trees where the forested hillside begins its steep climb to the village, looking back at the house and imagining that I was Logan Mountstuart, the protagonist of William Boyd’s great book ‘Any Human Heart.’ Logan does something very similar in a not very distant though fictional part of France at the age of 85 and unfortunately suffers a heart attack while leaving his book to investigate a bunch of thistles. I didn’t have any thistles to investigate at the Mill, nor am I 85; maybe that is why I am still here, but next time I am on a health website I shall read up about heart attacks. You never know.
12 comments:
I don’t think you have ADHD attention deficit disorder – I think as one matures and has lead an interesting life one tends to get bored at seeing the same things over and over again, or the same political speeches. There is a French proverb which says “Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse.” It’s not so musical in English as the words don’t end the same way – it means everything passes, everything breaks and everything gets to be boring/tiring. I think Ernest Hemingway used part of that sentence in Green Hills of Africa but I could not find it in English (I have to find my book somewhere) but I found it in French, it is “Tout passe et tout lasse, les nations, les individus qui les composent, autant en emporte le vent. Il ne reste que la beaute, transmise par les artistes.” You can translate it – car je suis lasse.
Fennie, you've paid a fine tribute to the Mill. How fortunate you are to have spent so many days and nights there.
Perhaps the new owners will soon begin to collect their own fond memories.
Do you recall the Beatles tune's lyric, "there are places I remember, all my life...." Whenever I hear that tune on the radio or in my own head, there usually comes I time when I feel tears come into my eyes.
xo
Vagabonde - yes, indeed. I know that sense of ennui. Life is a battle, isn't it between the boredom and laziness. However tired we may feel we have to move on, or we break and die, too. There's a lovely line in Lelouch's film Bonne Annee when the heroine who is supposed to be waiting for her man to get out of jail takes a lover. Her man of course is upset but she excuses herself by saying saying 'c'etait mas facon de rester vivante.' We all need to find things that keep us alive.
Francs - Yes, I recall the song well, though it's not really one of my favourite Beatles tunes (Hey Jude! is my best loved track). As I say above we have to move on; we cannot look back. I must search out a new Mill, not hanker after the old one. And travelling hopefully is almost as good as arriving.
I can so identify with what you say Fennie re ADHD, me too. A friend once told me that I think too deeply, she then went on to say think of Jonathan Miller and the remains of unfulfillment and worried by regrets, the lines in his face. I am a rose in bloom but periods of 'there must be more, doing other things, moving on.
A lovely tribute to The Mill, Fennie, know you have spent some wonderful moments there.
I always enjoyed yours and Rosie's posts on The Mill - what a lovely place it seemed. As hard as it is to turn away from it, I believe that another place, another state of mind, will come to fill the space left by the end of the era of The Mill.
Ooops - that comment published before I was finished.
ADHD - you? Not from what I saw during the afternoon we spent together in September!
re the supposed sign at the Canadian border - it could well be! We are a fairly tolerant lot, and believe something quite like the famous English quotation 'we don't care what people do as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses'.
Camilla, Yes, thinking too deeply is the ruin of all of us. And as you say look at Jonathan Miller.
Pondside - You musn't take me too seriously! And I do hope something else takes the place of the Mill!
I am so with you on politics. For years and years I was seriously interested and gave short shrift to those who did not vote. I read manifestos even and watched newsnight and listened to Radio 4 and thought it all mattered. For the last few years I have become increasingly bored with the whole thing and now rarely bother to do anything other than vote, which I do on a whim. Plaid Cymru last time. So sorry that you have to see the Mill go. It has always seemed like the land of dreams in your writing about it over the years.
Elizabeth, thanks. It's nice to know that I am not alone.
Oh, you make me laugh. Every ten years or so, you're ready to move on? Yes, clearly you need some Ritalin to help you focus.
Lovely, lovely is the writing you do.
Do you know I am exactly the same, in fact I cannot even look at such websites as they just scare me and I imagine all sorts of ailments afflicting me. You conjure up such a lovely image of the mill, the chilled white wine at the bottom of the garden...sigh...it sounds perfect, so sad when properties are sold... I miss all of the homes that I spent happy childhood days in....
simply dropping by to say hey
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