You are where you are

Where I am at the moment is uncertainty and transition. Not, very thankfully, in any major areas of my life apart from one of literal dislocation from repossessed house to new flat. But we're both having to take a few days off work to pack up and organize ourselves for the move. This in itself feels pressurising as neither of us really wants to have time off work at this juncture and my marking pile is hardly diminishing although a major deadline is looming next week.

Nevertheless, we are at work here. A large quantity of flat cardboard boxes arrived first thing this morning and I set to making them three dimensional with the brown tape and scissors. I have a strange pocket of satisfaction constructing things from flat - a new skill set I largely discovered some years ago when putting together all the flat pack Argos furniture I'd bought for my Norwich flat - I was on my own in those days.

It's still strange and stressful though, even though we are doing our best to keep strong and steady. So I did what I often do in order to siphon off anxiety: turned on the TV. There wasn't much on of note first thing on a Tuesday morning (funny that) so I reverted (on 'Watch Again') to the excellent first series of Life On Mars. I'm one of the loyal viewers who think the whole project, including all of Ashes to Ashes, is just great - sometimes more for the enjoyable eighties cultural references (and that fashion!) but often for the plot lines and conceptual depth as well. The first episodes back in 2006 just fascinated me with their odd tangential comments on reality and dream; creativity and one's sense of the world. And what a rich strand of postmodern cop fiction it all developed into, especially when considering how one of the very, very worst of 'flat' conclusions one can tack onto any kind of story is the 'it was all a dream' one. Or so they say.

It was never that simple with Life On Mars, even if the final resolution of the narrative mysteries was (although it might yet be challenged by the conclusion of its sequel show, still running and hopefully up for another season after this one) 'it was all a coma'. It took that 'flat'/ flat-pack plot formula and punched it into new dramatic resonances - more than just the three dimensional, as its alternative reality is flush with energy, with interpersonal and intrapersonal drama, in contrast with and counterpoint to the grey, damaging place we experience with our apparently corporal selves and call real life.

Here's my favorite phrase from the series. Not the many macho-comic utterances from Gene Hunt, but one of the more enigmatic phrases from Nelson, Mancunian-Jamaican bartender of the Railway Arms. Sam Tyler has 'arrived' in 1973 and even at this early stage suspects he might be lying in a twenty-first century coma. He's fallen out with his seventies cop colleagues and has a murder case to solve which may or may not impinge on his 'present day' situation. In despair and bewilderment he stands at the bar and downs a scotch. 'I'm lost, Nelson,' says Sam. And Nelson (who may or may not be a psychological construct of Sam's damaged, dreaming mind) replies in a confidential whisper: 'you're not lost, pal. You are where you are - you've just got to make the best of it. It's all you can do.'

I could not begin to count the number of times I have repeated this quote to myself. I'd consider myself a bit silly, but remember still a lecturer at the university where I studied for my PhD recounting an anecdote about Mother Mary Clare, a past formidable, and reputed mystic, Mother Superior of Anglican contemplative convent Fairacres in Oxford. An anxious soul seeking spiritual consolation sought an audience with Mother Mary Clare (they're a silent order, so you wouldn't be able to have a casual chat with any of them, especially not in the 1970s, possibly earlier). The visitor asked for help by way of a mantra, a phrase to repeat in order to focus the mind, calm the heart. Anything that Mother Mary Clare could recommend. The august nun apparently considered for a moment, and then confided that the best mantra she knew was directly from Dad's Army's Captain Mannering: Don't Panic!. I don't recall my supervisor saying how the eager devotee received this advice, but it sounds like a sterling suggestion to me. Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide obviously thought the same.

So, a spiritual precedent established. And this week too will pass. Meanwhile lots to do and not much time to be bewildered. You are where you are.