Sunday 13th November

I am still trying to take it all in.  The Election of Donald Trump; against all expectations, but as the dust settles it seems all too obvious.  And the death of a ladies man – Leonard Cohen.

Firstly the Donald – who we all took at first as some sort of a joke, then as a threat and now as a complete unknown.  The more we heard from him the less coherent he sounded, constantly contradicting himself, finger pointing and accusatory one minute and conciliatory the next.  The man himself is eminently un-likeable, especially to European sensibilities; I have never before seen such condemnation and revulsion, from both panel and audience as on Thursday night’s Question Time.  But we must be pragmatic; we will have to deal with him.  We must also not rush to judgement, despite a despicable campaign – we have to wait and see what he actually does.  We also have to understand just why he succeeded, despite his obvious shortcomings.  There has been a quiet revolution going on, the election of Syriza in Greece, Brexit and now Trump.  Their voters almost don’t care what they do or do not do; they represent change, a tearing down of the old establishment.  What will happen when even these mavericks disappoint will be the real point.  We have to wait and see.

And then the death of my mentor and most adored poet and friend (yes, friend  -though we never met – we were best of friends).  Ever since I first heard Suzanne and Marianne I was in love with the words, the poetry and the voice.  I have been reading so many tributes and emotions of sadness on facebook.  They are wrong.  We must rejoice, as Leonard would wish us to.  He is finally released from his suffering.  But his songs and his words will live on.  He revealed so much about Love and Religion and Healing and the wonder of how to overcome everything life throws at us; I will forever be grateful.  And he has achieved what so few of us do, immortality – his words and songs will never die, they have taken on a life of their own.  So rejoice, don’t cry.  There is a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.