the Fludde

Le déluge here yesterday, positively Biblical - lashing winds and chilly rain, darkness all day long. Very worrying, in an old house given to flooding - I sat straining to hear the beloved sump pump in the basement, please, gracious lord, keep it working. Union Station flooded, I saw on the news, and poor commuters had to get busses because trains and the subway were shut down. But the basement here, so far touch wood - not a drop.

Not so the ceiling in my bedroom, however, where I knew there was a problem and have been waiting for the roofer. When I went to bed last night, large droplets were splattering my bed, which was drenched. I put a bucket underneath and slept in the spare room. The roofer was supposed to be here at 8 a.m. and it's now 9; perhaps it's still too damp and threatening to work. The bucket is half full.

Because of the disruption or just because it's life, I spent a very restless night and at 3.30 a.m. was immersed in a flood of anxieties and resentments. You see the sunny side, here; my public persona focusses on all that is well. The other side who's scared and angry, petty and confused, you don't see so much. That side often involves other people whom I won't drag into this public forum. But the hurts and angers are there, despite the just-begun meditation practice which urges me to sit beside my worries and then let them go; despite years of yoga and psychoanalysis and my own marvellously serene and loving nature. More work to be done before perfection is achieved. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, my friend Richard the Royalist is in full-on orgasmic mode with the Jubilee, royals royals everywhere. Though I could not care less about the fuss, the Queen, it's true, is a grand old bird. I watched "The Iron Lady" yesterday, which made me impatient - luckily it was rented so I could fast-forward through many indulgent shots of Meryl Streep tottering around earning her Oscar. The film couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to say about the grocer's daughter who eviscerated Britain. A friend of mine was teaching in a poor section of Liverpool when Thatcher, just after being elected, immediately cancelled the free milk distributed to schools. Overnight, my friend's charges were left hungry. How sad that the first woman elected to lead a Western nation should be blind and heartless.

It's really dark out there at 9.15 a.m. Last week it was mid-summer, 34 degrees, sweltering in tank tops. Now, 11 degrees and ready to pour. We need an Ark. And I decide who gets on. The roofer will be allowed on, if he appears.

5 p.m. He does not get on. No roofer, and the drips continue.

Cancel the moaning; it was just a misunderstanding and my stupid mind, making much of nothing in the middle of the night. When will I learn? Shut off that neurotic brain, woman, stop wasting your valuable, limited time, and go back to sleep.