A benevolent tonal Buddha*

From 1977 to 2019 Frog (my late husband) was connected with Exeter University’s student radio station. He looked after the equipment and gave continuity and advice to the ever-changing student members. He also presented his own programme, The Frog Prog, on which he played his unique choice of music, both popular and classical, from all eras, and passed on his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things musical.

Last June, past members of the radio station put together a tribute programme for Frog

https://www.mixcloud.com/XpressionShowcase/john-frog-whitworth-memorial-show/

and I’ve been crying my way through it. Sometimes they really catch his character and talents and it’s given me a whole new appreciation of him.

I’ve been doing a lot of crying lately. Since November in fact when I acquired a bad back. The pain then went to my legs where it has stuck ever since. It’s terrified me because, now I’m on my own, I have to manage. I can’t be ill or incapacitated. I have a dog to mind.

Ellie at one year old. She's now twelve and a half.

But what I realised this morning is that the pain has made me get in touch with my feelings. It’s lowered my defences and let the grief come to the surface. It’s given me time. I haven’t been able to rush around clearing Frog’s stuff, forging a ‘new life’ and being brave. I’ve spent a lot of time alone, in my dressing-gown, writing in my Notebooks (a sort of diary), using up tissues.

In a funny sort of way, I think that realisation may help me to throw off the pain. It may be a sort of turning point. I hope so, anyway.

And at the risk of sounding crass, I thought I might link all that to the slow emergence of spring, another turning point, as evidenced by the following pictures.

Rooks' nests by the canal

The weeping willow over the lane below the house, always the first tree to burst into leaf

Ivy berries, like bunches of grapes, important food for birds at this time of year

Beech flowers

I've never noticed beech flowers before (in all my 70 years), which shocks me. How much else is there that I just don't see? Putting that in a more positive way (and I do try to be positive in everything), it shows that nature is always there to surprise and delight us - if we keep open to the possibility.

*This is how one ex-student described Frog in the tribute programme (at least, I think that's what he said)

Wild daffodils

Since Frog died a year and a bit ago, I’ve not watched or listened to The News. (I only followed it when he was alive because he did.) It’s too depressing and I think it’s designed to keep us scared and grateful. Those in charge (at the moment) don’t want us to be happy because then we might start thinking for ourselves and discover that we don’t need them after all.

Recently I’ve found myself less and less inclined to venture out and meet The World. I want to stay in my nice safe house and garden or, even better, cocooned in my duvet. A couple of days ago I realised that this is because I’m frightened. I have this idea of the world and I don’t like it. I’ve lost Frog, my buffer between me and the world. I’m ‘alone and naked in the dark’ as Frodo said on his way to Mordor.

So then I thought, well, this idea I have of  the world is only an idea. Somehow that horrible mainstream view has seeped into to me in spite of my best efforts. So why don’t I change it? Why don’t I start imagining the world as I want it to be? As I really see it?

And I began to put together a different picture of the world. My picture. And it went something like this.
 
 
My world
 -A place of kindness
-A place of meaning
-Somewhere I have a future (even female and at the age of nearly 70)
-Nature (not humans)
-Eternity
-Somewhere I belong and matter and have a place.
 
I might elaborate on those points in the future, but I hope each of them makes enough sense for the moment.
 
None of them accords with the mainstream view or that put across by the media, and you might think I’m deluded or flaky or worse. But what the hell? If I can’t stick my neck out at nearly 70, when can I? If it helps, why not believe?
 

A couple of days ago I was driving to fetch my sister off the train from London. She was coming to stay with me for a few days. I thought I’d left plenty of time but after a long diversion around a new housing estate in the process of being built and the discovery that my shortcut across country was closed (no reason given), I began to feel slightly panicky.
 
I had no proper map, I didn’t want to go miles round to get to the station and I haven’t yet got the hang of the sat nav (which was Frog’s baby). That panic is becoming rather too familiar. It happens every time I have to do something that Frog used to do.
 
Anyway, I headed across country by a different route, with no clear idea of where I was going except a couple of village names, my not unreasonable sense of direction and a compass.
 
According to my new world view, I thought, there would be no need for panic. I would be going this way for a reason. And if I kept my eyes and ears open, I would discover what it was.
 
And then I saw it. A bank of wild daffodils stretching as far as I could see alongside the road.
 
I haven’t seen wild daffodils in Devon since the 1970s, when there used to be meadows of them. They’re different from the cultivated ones you see growing wild - smaller and paler and much more subtle. They’re what Wordsworth saw. And when you see them, you just know they’re special.
 
I stopped in the middle of the lane, hoping some monstrous farm vehicle wouldn’t charge round the corner (as they do) and slam into the back of me, put my hazard flashers on, and took some pictures out of the car window.
 
And here they are. My proof.
 

 
And, yes, I did make it to the station in time. The shortcut proved every bit as good as my usual one. I might take it again.

The lonely duck

Since Frog died just over a year ago, my life has been non-stop. A few days ago, however, I decided that I just had to step off the treadmill. I was exhausted. I’d had back and leg pain since November which stopped me sleeping. I couldn’t go on any longer. I would take March off.

On Saturday, I awoke after a good night’s sleep and decided that the dog and I would go out for the day, even though I had no one to go out with. Like rest, being on my own was part of the process, part of my experiment.

We arrived early. It was cloudy and still. There was hardly anyone else about.

Our first encounter was this cat, who taunted Ellie from the other side of the canal. She knew Ellie couldn’t get at her, and Ellie knew that too, but it didn’t stop barking at it for a good five minutes – as if that would encourage the cat to cross the canal and let Ellie attack it. (She does that with squirrels too, standing at the bottom of trees, and with rabbits, sticking her nose down the entrances to their warrens.)

 

Then we saw this duck. I think it’s a Muscovy, perhaps a young one as the pictures on Google showed black and white feathers not the grey and white ones here. The red cheek is very distinctive however, as are the flat flappy feet, the colour and texture of autumn leaves.

 

I felt sorry for it. It wasn’t frightened of me when I took a photograph and it seemed to be looking for company.

We passed this sign and I wondered if I should have one in my garden. It’s such a good excuse.

 

I walked on and because my mind was empty, because I’d ‘taken March off’, because this was a day out, not only did I notice things but ideas – mainly about writing – flooded in.

That’s the lovely thing about a canal. It’s hypnotic and soothing. You don’t have to negotiate ups and downs. You don’t have to worry about where you’re going. The path stretches out in front of you, unmistakable, as does the water.

After an hour so, we turned back and, with sun and wind now behind us, everything was different. A lovely view confronted me, a medley of soft greens, blues and pinks. For a moment, I thought I was in the Mediterranean.

 

Spot the dog

This mallard pair, almost invisible on the opposite bank, stood motionless above their reflections as Ellie and I walked by. I’ve seen them there before, on their log.

 

We came across the duck again, further up the canal, trying to make friends with another mallard pair. It looked so sad. I really hoped for the best for it. Maybe next time I visited the canal it would have found others of its kind.