THESE BOOTS AND THE EDGE OF WONDER
Shock! Shock breaks into the bubble in which I have been living. It has smashed my window, cast a rock through my senses, shattered my asylum. I have recognized its threat in my head but it has been easy enough to live at a distance from it, solitude being not a problem. But now it has gripped my heart, clenched my gut in its fist. I can hear the note of hysteria in my voice; the fear that has lurked beneath has broken the surface, the fear that this thing might be bigger than I have allowed myself to believe. It is the fear I recognize in the voices of others on the phone. And Prime Minister Boris is in intensive care. Everyone is shocked by that. The death of a forty-five-year old husband and father of two of our school children has changed my perspective and I am distressed by what his wife has told me about his death, about the level of isolation that they are faced with. No one can go to console them and they cannot come out to seek consolation. We have never been faced...