Loss

I've lost a bracelet of no great value except that it was my mother's. And this household lost five hours of work on a spreadsheet last week due to a technological hitch. Time and possessions, awful to lose. But it's about more than just not being able to get things back, surely, it's about something deeper - a lack of control, and I have a feeling is associated with an abrupt encounter with our human frailty. I use these moments remorselessly in writing - it's the only way I feel any better. How can you make it better when something is gone for good? By acknowledging just that, and grieving, and understanding how little anything matters to do with material, passing stuff.

And these are small losses, but they remind me of far greater, this slippage away of people and time. And all on the loveliest day of the year so far. Have been reading a biog of Vivien Eliot. Now I know why TS Eliot thought April was the cruellest month (according to this biog) because he associated with the death of a dear friend. There you go...