“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful”.

There are days when time seems to lose its edges. Nothing especially wrong, nothing dramatic, no bad news, no crisis, yet by late afternoon one has the distinct impression that the day has somehow passed without ever properly declaring itself. A few essentials done, several not done, and no particular conviction that tomorrow will differ very much.

“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops”.

Pausing on a bench today with the dog, I found myself thinking that Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot remains one of the more accurate descriptions of a certain “advanced” stage of life. Not because one is literally waiting for anything identifiable, but because there are moments when existence acquires that same suspended quality, as if something ought to happen, or begin, or clarify itself, but never quite does. The days arrive, occupy their allotted space, then withdraw again with very little to distinguish one from another.

The dog, of course, has no interest in any of this. She regards the bench as an entirely successful arrangement. There are smells to catalogue, passing people to monitor, occasional birds to consider, and the comforting certainty that I remain nearby. She has none of the human tendency to ask whether a day has justified itself.

Perhaps that is why dogs are often better company than people when one is in a certain mood. They ask for presence and little else. No account of oneself, no explanation, no pretence of enthusiasm. No requirement to appear purposeful.

What becomes more noticeable with age is not loneliness in the melodramatic sense, but a gradual social fading that modern life seems to encourage. One does not disappear exactly, but one becomes easier to overlook. The world remains busy with itself. Families are occupied, younger people are constructing lives, institutions have little use for those no longer driving some part of the machinery. One can go several days with the uncomfortable sense of having become almost entirely incidental to the general movement of things.

“Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now?”

That may sound darker than it is intended. It is more observation than complaint. From a distance, no doubt, I looked perfectly content enough sitting there, a man with his dog in no apparent hurry, while other people passed by carrying whatever private concerns they happened to be carrying. Which is perhaps the point. Most of us move through public space looking more coherent than we feel.

“To every man his little cross. Til he dies. And is forgotten”.

After a while the dog stood up, stretched, and gave me the familiar look which means that whatever philosophical conclusions I may have reached, it was time to move on.

And she was probably right.

“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more”.