We’ve started watching our box set of the BBC adaptation Lark Rise to Candleford for the umpteenth time for that half an hour wind-down before I go to bed. It is highly silly and schmaltzy but it is easy on the eye and there are moments of poignancy. Fisher Bloom and Laura Timmins have this thing that they say to each other. Shall I tell you one true thing? they say. Shall I tell you one true thing? Shall I? Well, the fact is I want to do an altruistic job. I want to do a kind thing, a caring thing. But at the moment I don’t know whether I have the energy. Oh, yes, there is my practice. My drawing, my writing, my sewing but it, they, isn’t/aren’t enough to make me feel that my life is worthy. You see it all too often comes back to how it makes me feel about myself. And if that is the case, is this really altruism? I don’t know. A philosopher we knew in Cambridge would say that there is no such thing. Perhaps not, but can’t I try to step out of my own needs and attempt to help another? I keep getting the emails. And I want to do it. Just as I wanted to be Samaritan. I thought I could help, and I think I did, a little but it took its toll. Would this too? He would say, yes. And I would upset all that we have put in place. And yet, I long to be a carer. I do. I want to sit with others in their trial and distress, to offer solace, kindness, care. Can I do it? Have I the strength? And is this weariness of body, this less than wellness a sign of an emptiness, of a feeling that I could do more? Be more?
