The Sadness that Belongs to the World.

I just sent this Janet Frame quote to Dorothy of South Island:

"I remember a gray day when I stood by the gate and listened to the wind in the telegraph wires.  I had my first conscious feeling of an outside sadness, or it seemed to come from outside, from the sound of the wind moaning in the wires. I looked up and down the white dusty road and saw no-one. 'the wind was blowing from place to place past us, and I was there, in between, listening. I felt a burden of sadness and loneliness as if something had happened or begun and I knew about it.  I don't think I had yet thought of myself as a person looking out at the world; until then, I felt I was the world. In listening to the wind and its sad song, I knew I was listening to a sadness that had no relation to me, which belonged to the world."

Janet also said this:

"The aunts were there, still talking of Up Central and Middlemarch... and the uncles with their shy Frame look and the particular set of the lips that said, "Everything should be perfect. Why isn't it?""

("To the Is-Land")

Everything should be perfect.  Why isn't it?

I wondered for so many years about "the sadness that belongs to the world".    But it wasn't till two Jehovah's Witnesses called on me many years ago, and spent 20 minutes talking to me about the Bible that I began to understand - and to find out that a rescue from sadness is on the way.

I visited Maggie this afternoon - courtesy of Captain Butterfly who chauffered me through the monsoon.  My right hand is very painful and I hope i am not in for another arthritis flare up. Did not sleep well last night as it hurt.

Jean and I had a very good Tuesday morning out on the work - another in the Saga:  "I drove to Angmering".

One of my nephews is very very ill in hospital... in a medically induced coma. We are all just waiting for them to wake him...  if they can.