Thank goodness that's over, now I can get back to writing.
However, it has absorbed my thinking. The implications, for myself and my family, are huge. We can't reverse this decision. It's not like an election; if we elect a bunch of tossers we can vote them out in another five years. We have to get this 'right'. (Today we find out what 'right' might look like).
Then came the murder of Jo Cox - there's nothing to add to the millions of words that have been written about this. But I can't have been the only one who never knew her but but still spent hours thinking about the senselessness of her death. Do I really live in a country where people kill other people who don't agree with them?
What's this got to do with writing?
Possibly not a lot. Because writing needs headspace. I have a Work-In-Progress lurking on my computer. I'm used to parking this in a corner of my mind when times are busy, knowing that it will talk to itself occasionally provided I give it a little attention (often in the form of a walk, when I allow myself to think about nothing else), and then it will re-emerge with solutions when I have time to get on with it.
But these last few weeks have been different. The combination of a full diary and political uncertainty has overwhelmed my capacity to contain the WIP in its safe corner. I've had to give up, admit that there is simply too much going on. I have given myself permission to let the writing go for a while, knowing that this will pass and I can pick up it again when things settle.
Today we get the results of the referendum and I shall be absorbing the implications. There will be no energy for writing - again. But you, can you put huge world events to one side and settle to writing? Or do you, like me, allow yourself to give up occasionally?
If you've got any headspace to think about writing today, you can find some on my website, www.jocarroll.co.uk
Comments
My very politically aware aunt says she doesn't think the government will actually leave the EU - the referendum is not legally binding.
We shall see - and Dennis, commiserations.
We are meant to have a representative democracy in this country, in which we elect people who actually understand the issues to make the decisions for us. It doesn't always work out well, but it's telling that the vast majority of elected MPs were throwing all their weight behind the Remain camp.
As were virtually all the economists, and virtually all the other relevant experts.
But Nigel Farage put up a poster showing a tide of brown-skinned people moving from somewhere to somewhere, and a bunch of middle-to-old aged people in leafy villages and retirement resorts decided they didn't want those people setting up a jungle camp on their newly mowed lawn, and so decided to 'take back the freedom' they never knew they didn't have.
I have never been as angry as this in my entire life. The nation has shot itself in both feet: leaving the union and putting the lunatic right-wing in charge. For God's sake, can people look at Nigel Farage's guffawing, sneering face in front of his loathsome poster and not realise that HE IS THE BAD GUY?
Forty-three years of bridge building, gone. Thank you, little England. Thank you so bloody much.