Refill
Dishwashing liquid and other ephemera
Dear tepocates,
I know some of you would have been delighted in the +30º heatwave and I am happy for you, but happier still that it has passed. I am tropical from the mountains; I don’t do heat very well.
The way I do heat well is to move as little as possible and save the tasks for the respite of the evening. This is a very effective way to run out of stuff because shops close whilst we are still baking.
I get into my car and the window is fuzzy with pollen and dust. There is also the odd caked starling or pigeon souvenir, the downside of parking under the shade of a tree. It is unfortunate that the very dishwashing liquid I would use to deal with bird poo has run out and is the reason I am driving to the other side of town, with four empty bottles of different sizes to refill. I will feel triumphant about keeping these bits of plastic in use and not free range to go torment some sea creature or other. By far the easiest thing would have been to walk to coop and get a new bottle. The real reason I am driving is to avoid working on the book I am sharing with my editor early next month, which is technically next week. Probably the same reason I am writing this post.
So I get into my filthy but reliable old car and drive to Romsey. We used to live there. It was my first neighbourhood in England. A small part of me fits right in. That small part does not include the car. There is nowhere to park. So I walk a good way round the old terraced neighbourhood where things are recognisably not not what they were twenty years ago. This scenic urban walk with empty dishwashing bottles on tow is a lot longer on the way back. There wasn’t enough refill to fill all our bottles but thankfully enough to make this trip unnecessary for a while.
I am sweaty and annoyed by the time I get back to my car. I am confronted with bits of bird poo I had not seen from the inside and I consider perhaps mine is the filthiest car on the road. This is not my own annoyance, mind, it is more my father’s, who in life was a car fanatic and would probably rather die again rather than be seen with bird poo on his bonnet.
I drive back home with car washing intentions through Elizabeth Bridge. I approach the speed camera feeling unnecessarily guilty as I feel every time I drive past a speed camera, or walk next to a police officer. A part of me would really like to floor it just to see the flashing light. To be guilty and not just feel it. Thankfully that part of me is neither my right nor my left foot, so pedals remain unfloored and the car moves along innocently and well behind the cars in front. At the roundabout most of the cars go straight or right and it is only when I turn left that I notice the car in front of me is a hearse, a smart vehicle constantly refilling.
I am now driving ever so slowly in the heat, in a filthy car, behind an immaculate hearse
It is a Volvo, it is black, it has tall shiny windows all the way round; a dry moving fishbowl. Every single surface is clean, gleaming, spotless. Everything is reflecting on the curved surfaces of the hearse, as if reality has been liquified and it is slipping off the back window slowly and smoothly, uninterrupted by even a single speck of dust, dripping in whole images: a serene river of blue sky, tree canopies, traffic lights, lamp posts, white vans, a dirty blue car.
At Mitcham’s Corner the hearse is unexpectedly on the middle lane, so I ease next to it to turn right. The driver and the assistant are both wearing dark uniforms with little shinny buckles, black caps and gloves. I wonder what it is like to work in ceremony every day, to polish every surface to make it special for the departed or the family of the departed; to operate everyday in precise pristine predictable ritual. Every material in the hearse could be new. Brass handles on a walnut coffin held in place by adjustable chrome brackets. Unlike other work vehicles, I don’t reckon this one is ever doing weekend runs to Ikea. A hearse must have a very limited range of trips. From the morgue to the crematorium or cemetery via perhaps a place of worship and then back to base to get clean and polished some more for the next passenger. A moving container, for the wood containers of the no longer contained.
The hearse driver has realised that they are in the wrong lane and is now signalling right. I do wonder, as I let it in front of me again, how undertakers operate in a kind of different time. I have the opportunity to go in front, I know that driving behind the hearse will mean driving at hearse speed, but it just doesn’t feel right to overtake a person in a coffin. We are all going where they are going.
Do I really need to get anywhere fast?
As I drive behind them on Victoria Avenue, I can see the coffin is of standard size (or what I imagine to be standard size). I could easily fit in there. At the traffic light I can see the chrome brackets have a lot of room between them. In death you can be a lot wider but perhaps not much taller. Sometimes there are big garlands of flowers next to the coffin spelling grandad, or mum or the person’s name. This time a smart simple spread of red roses and white flowers and foliage cover about half of the coffin with nothing on the sides. There are two hand written notes on top of the flowers, one of them is pink. I can almost make words on the notes, were it not for my middle-aged eyesight, pollen on the windscreen and that I really shouldn’t .
Just as I can’t overtake the hearse, we can’t overtake death. We can’t really plan for it, not beyond certain paperwork and logistics. Death will come one day for each and every one of us, grief hitting our loved ones as brand new, tailor made trucks. I briefly fantasise about putting together a video to be played at my own funeral. But A) I hate making videos and B) my funeral will not be about me. It may feature some interpretation of who I was according to whoever organises it and those present. I can already tell the celebrant will make a mess out of my name despite their good efforts. That is, if I get to have a funeral and anyone who knew me comes. Having missed both my parents’ I perhaps see funerals as more cathartic than they may be. But I do know that letting ritual take over is quite useful.
Huntingdon Road is the way home and also the way to the crematorium. It is not uncommon for us to be slowed down by a hearse on the road. Annoyance dissolves on the face of death. Usually when traffic is slower still, there is also a convoy of mourners on cars behind. I look all around and I can not make out the mourners of the person under the flowers. I am the driver immediately behind the hearse and unearned sympathy comes my way. I am a stranger to the person in the coffin and my car is a disgrace. I wish I could do better for this stranger but all I can give them is the solemnity of a slow drive.
As the hearse progresses up the long straight road a certain quiet envelops it.
A bubble of silence moves with it. Just as I can’t overtake, cars around us slow down, some pedestrians bow their heads or simply stop and glance, the majority gets on with their day: rivers past rocks. It is not customary here to pay so much attention to Death. When its right next to you, and it’s undeniably there, you haven’t got much choice but to acknowledge it, riding its shiny car. It is not until Death touches you close that you can feel just how uncointained it is.
Following the chaotic pointless battle to avoid it, post death social rituals are planned, choreographed practiced , evolved, perfected to give a dignified send off, riding a hearse, inside an unused box. But none of this prepares those loved ones for facing the next private chapter: the sorting of the redundant, the inconceivable glut of choices: keep, give away, sell, for every single item that belonged to someone who no longer is, in order to make space available for refill.
As the hearse now continues up the road I turn right for home. There will be some shampoo left over in what used to be my bathroom one day. Some of my shampoo will outlive me. One day I will buy shampoo that will see me through and not the other way around. I don’t know why this hits me as I park: someone is going to have to deal with my unused shampoo one day. I would be horrified to think someone will just bin it considering how much I pay for it. It is lovely it has a subtle hint of coconut and a refill last me a whole year.
A year used to feel like a long time.
I hope when it is my turn to ride in a box in a clean and shiny black car, I have had the good sense to get rid of most of those things that are useful to no one (are they useful even now?). But I guess some things must remain as clues of who we were, for those who need those clues then. As I go into my house I see my daughter and her boyfriend with recently washed hair and I give my daughter a big kiss. I am so happy it is now. They have made a mess out of the kitchen and something is smelling wonderful. I am refilled.
I may wash the car another day.
topical or tropical?
Here is a little snippet of work I am avoiding…
book bits…
As I recover my reading from the clutches of screen time and techno capitalism I would like to share favourite lines, paragraphs or bits that speak to me from books I am currently reading or re-reading or even re-re-re-reading!
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, Victor Gollancz Ltd (Orion)1992
p.234
I loved this book which my son started reading to me on a long drive to Scotland. He’s an exceptional reader and I was hooked by the story of the great but small god Om in their most vulnerable turtle-ness.
There was a C. N. Mitcham’s Shop for menswear, offering shirts flannels raincoats which traded from 1909 to 1977 which gave Mitcham’s Corner its name. A shop may be just a moment in time held together by the commitment and passion of shopkeepers and customers but their legacy can endure way past their last day of trading.
Let’s support our local shops. No online monopoly is inevitable. Choose a local taxpaying shops for every purchase!
Window painting
Let’s make an event out of your shop window!
Do you have a window shop in need of some life? I’m offering window illustration for bookshops, coffeeshops, hardware stores etc… I would love to communicate the passion you have for your shop.
Why is this called Frogs in a Teacup?
If you enjoyed this and can think of some other living human who might do too, please share!
Ribbit! xx
Thank you for joining the frogs.
My hope is that I will add something valuable to your day, something that will reconnect you with your own curiosities, or be a bridge to another thought that leads you where you want to go, or makes you smile. Please do let me know what you think
Enjoy the tea, and please mind the legs.
