MEDITATION 78

When I began my last meditation, a lone Parisian violin was playing in my mind. It was a poignant memory, if you remember, of a recent visit to Paris. As I light the candle beside me and begin this new meditation, another musical instrument is playing an equally poignant melody in my consciousness. It is a solo piano and the music is a nocturne by Chopin. A nocturne is a short night piece and meditative, so highly conducive to writing this reflection. I have the complete Chopin Nocturnes in my cd collection but I am not playing them at this present moment. The nocturne in my head is another memory from my recent visit to Paris.

The gentle tune takes me back to a morning visit to the Pere Lachaise cemetery in the heart of the city. I was standing in front of Chopin’s grave. Though he was Polish, he died in Paris in 1849, at the young age of 39 of tuberculosis, which he had suffered from for most of his adult life. As well as being a composer, he was also a great performer on the piano and of the stature of a rock star across Europe in his time.

A monument stood above his grave: a seated lady with a broken lyre in her lap looking down in grief. I have just discovered that the figure is of Euterpe, the muse of music. Behind the monument was a wall of trees, vibrantly green in the morning sunshine.

A small group of visitors stood in front of the grave. Some took a brief look at the monument then moved on. Other like me stood for a while to pay their respects.

People had left tributes to Chopin at the bottom of the monument: small plants, little posies of flowers, single roses and a few small Polish flags. One tribute caught my eye. It was a sheet of music of one of his compositions, though I could not make out the title clearly. It looked a little rumpled laying on the stone step in front of the monument as there had been rain the day before. A single flower lay across it.

As I stepped back from the grave, a piano began to play behind me. It was one of the nocturnes: delicate and sad. I turned round. A man standing in the group was playing the nocturne on his phone. Instead of listening to it himself, he had turned on the speaker so that we could all hear it. It was his tribute. We all stood still, looking towards the grave, as the tender notes floated on the spring breeze.

I wanted to cry. I am half – Polish after all. If you can’t cry in a cemetery, where can you cry. Poor Frederic so far from his homeland, I thought. Although his heart is buried in a church in Warsaw, in Poland, where his heart always was. And he lives on of course in his music. The nocturne finished, I gave a nod of thanks to the man with the phone and walked on. Short as it was, it was the most moving concert I have ever attended.

I have never visited the cemetery before. It is like a small town itself within the city. There are long avenues of trees between the sections of graves. It made for a peaceful walk in the spring sunshine. Despite having a map, the graves were rather difficult to find, however, as the map only indicated the section they are situated in and the sections are quite large. Also the graves are not in chronological order so recent ones are often laying side by side with ones over a hundred years old or earlier, as the cemetery opened in 1804. Well chronology has no meaning anymore for the dead in eternity.

There are many other famous people buried there and one of my reasons for visiting was to find the grave of Marcel Proust (1871-1922) the novelist. It is the centenary of his death this year and I have been reading his great seven volume novel: ‘In Search of Lost Time’, which I have mentioned in these meditations before. He was a great music lover and adored Chopin’s music, which is mentioned in his novel. I have also been reading several books about Proust himself. One included a map of the places where Proust lived in Paris. He spent most of his life there. With my patient friend Phil, I sought out these places the day before, most of which are near the Madeleine church. So, it was important to discover his final resting place, which is a simple grave of black marble with no monument.

This simplicity was unlike Oscar Wilde’s tomb, which I also visited, He had a simple grave at first having died a pauper in 1900 and was then buried outside Paris in Bagneux. However, he was transferred to Pere Lachaise in 1909 and then a grandiose sphinx – like monument (sculpted in 1911 by Sir Jacob Epstein) was placed there.

So many artists, musicians and writers are buried in the shady avenues of Pere Lachaise. We found some of them including: the composers Rossini and Cherubini, the novelists Balzac and Colette, the singer Edith Piaf and rock musician Jim Morrison from Doors, the actor Yves Montand, the composer Michel Le Grand and George Melies, one of the pioneers of the cinema. I would like to go back to find some others and revisit Frederic, Marcel, and Oscar of course.

Once outside the cemetery we found a good bistro for lunch. Opposite us were the opulent offices of several grand funeral directors. No doubt they provide opulent funerals over the road in the cemetery at a grand price. I began to think that it would be good to be buried in Pere Lachaise, when my time comes, though I doubt that I could afford it. I had this thought not because I would be buried among the cultural elite of the last two hundred years, or because of all the grand monuments, but because of the peaceful avenues of trees. Well who would visit my grave in Paris anyway? Although it would be as good an excuse as any for a Eurostar jaunt for my friends. Perhaps if I was buried there, one of my ex students might leave a few pages of one of my scripts on top of my grave with a flower across it. Perhaps not only as a tribute but also as an apology for the lines they never learnt properly!

The visit to Pere Lachaise was important to me to pay homage, to say thank you to some of those who have enriched my life. It is why I visit Shakespeare’s grave every time I go to Stratford- Upon-Avon.

You may have deduced from my meditations, that I something of a cultural tourist. Does that term exist or have I invented it? Well I am. It is easy for me to be reminded of my cultural tourism as I only have to look around the rooms in my house. Not only are there photos on display from my holidays but also pictures (I have two Rembrandts and a Da Vinci – but only copies of course!); framed posters (two Broadway productions I saw in New York for example) and on the shelves books I bought abroad, and cd’s, souvenirs posing as artefacts and of course my large collection of fridge magnets on display in the kitchen. Not to mention the thousands of photos on my I phone and laptop from my travels!

A photo encapsulates a memory, more than that, it evokes a memory if we look at it for long enough. Sadly these days we tend to snap away on our phones too quickly and look at the photos too quickly too, especially when we are scrolling through them to see which ones we want to delete. But do we really look at the ones that are left after our digital cull?

Along with the cultural souvenirs I have just listed, the photos can also be a trigger to our memory, if we stop and reflect, if we take a moment to remember.

Marcel Proust’s great novel ‘In Search of Lost Time’ is about memory. No-one describes how memories fade in and out of our consciousness as well as he does. He believed that as well as wanting to remember a memory, by looking at a photo for example or by trying to remember one, there is involuntary memory. This is when a memory comes to us clearly and concretely, unaided and unasked for, as a surprise, almost a revelation.

Like my lone Parisian violin and my piano nocturne.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 77

A wistful melody floats in my mind as I begin my latest meditation. It is the sound of a solo violin. As I fix my gaze on the candle beside me, the lilting tune seems to be curling around the flame itself, like a halo. The melody is a stately but sad, a sarabande from one of Bach’s cello suites and not originally written for the violin at all.

I am not playing one of the albums from my copious CD collection to soothe me as I write. The music is evoked by a memory of a recent short visit to Paris – a memory of my final night there. It was late, not long before midnight, but the summer’s evening twilight had extended so that the sky was still a deep indigo. A lone violinist, a thin, elegant busker, was playing a rock tune fused into an 18th Century gigue. He was a dancing shadow, gently swaying to and fro and gliding in and out of the light.

Although he was tall, he was dwarfed by his backdrop: the two towers of the facade of Notre Dame Cathedral, looming behind him and lit by floodlights. For he was playing his violin on the Parvis, the large square in front of the Cathedral. The shape of the great Rose window between the towers was still resplendent in the floodlights, even though, as its beautiful stained glass was not shot through by daylight, its face was blank.

Inevitably Victor Hugo’s novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ came to my mind as I stood there. The elegant busker might have been one of Esmeralda’s band of gypsies playing his fiddle in and out of the fire light while she danced round the campfire beside him. In the floodlights, the saints in their niches above the main door peered down oblivious to the busker’s performance and the gargoyles, high in the towers, were also deaf to his jaunty tune like Quasimodo himself.

I was eager to see Notre Dame on my visit. I wanted to see how the restoration was progressing after the tragic fire in April 2019. I was hoping that I could go inside and see some of the renovations as someone had told me that a part of the building was open. But that was not possible.

I have quite a connection with the Cathedral as, aside from being a Roman Catholic, I have written my own dramatisation of Victor Hugo’s novel. It has always been one of my favourite stories as is the 1939 film version with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. My friend Phil was with me on my little trip a few weeks ago and he and I had produced my dramatisation at the school in 2006. In fact my last visit to Paris was in the Autumn before with Phil and his wife Anna, when we explored the cathedral to get inspiration for the script and the production.

It was also my last production at the school and in Budapest in February 2020. It was the tragic fire a year earlier that had inspired me to revise the script and produce it again. I added a special prologue set in the present and centred on the fire. In the prologue was a chorus of people who had rushed to the scene when they heard the news that Notre Dame was in flames.

Notre Dame is still a building site after three years and looks like it is barricaded in for a siege. How long it will remain so, I do not know. The modern steel scaffolding looks incongruous against the ancient walls of the cathedral as do the boards in front of the great main door with their ‘No Entry’ signs, the high cranes arched over the roof and the engineers’ temporary offices and builders’ huts in containers in their own little yard on the Parvis. The cathedral is so tall that the boards barely reach to half way up the great doors above the staircase of the main entrance. The whole edifice is surrounded by scaffolding as if it cannot stand up without it, although most of the building is secure despite the fire damage.

The lone violinist finished his gigue and there was a pattering of applause from his little audience seated on the stone wall near him. Keening with his bow, he began the sad sarabande by Bach, etching an elegy into the still night air. The lingering drift of the music made me raise my eyes to the sky, which had darkened to black pitch now. Little lights blazed out on the boards like stars and on the steel ribs of scaffolding illumining the ancient arches like votive lamps.

As the sad tune floated in the night air, time stood still. It was a moment of time and yet not of time. Like Notre Dame itself: of time and yet not of time.

‘Elegy’ – did I write ‘elegy’? No: the violinist’s melody wasn’t an elegy. For Notre Dame is still with us, still standing strong as if eager to push away the scaffolding supporting it. No, not an elegy but a lament, a lament for the tragedy, three years ago. And for our world at war.

Despite the apparatus of reconstruction surrounding it, the Cathedral was still beautiful.

It gives a lie to the adage ‘You’ve got to stand on your own two feet.’ We all need support, to be shored up, like Notre Dame, at times. For a moment let others take the weight, however strong our frame may be. Let others help us to rebuild, to renew ourselves.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 61

As I sit here beside my customary candle, I am not in my lounge but in my kitchen at the table, looking out of the window onto a balmy summer’s evening. Now that we are hopefully approaching an end to lockdown, it is a time for looking out, as our vista is gradually widening. Soon we will once again be able to make some firm plans for the future instead of gingerly taking tentative steps for fear of disappointment.

As I look out into my little garden, twilight is approaching. It is my favourite time of day, especially in the summer months. It is the time when the garden is cool and still, the flowers quivering in the sultry breeze, their fragrance heightened in the evening air. I like to stand in my kitchen doorway and breathe in the subtle sweetness of the lavender at the edge of my little patio, which lays almost at my feet. It reminds me of twilights on Vancouver Island: there the lavender combines with the breeze from the Pacific Ocean creating a heady perfume.

I have once again begun to read Marcel Proust’s six volume novel, ‘In Search of Lost Time,’ first published a hundred years ago. Reading the great French novelist’s masterpiece is one of my retirement projects. I am reading it in translation I hasten to add! I do not think, my O Level French would cope with Marcel’s long lyrical sentences! Proust is a writer to be read slowly, a writer to savour. You have to enjoy good prose, like a good wine, to appreciate him. And good prose, like good wine, should be enjoyed slowly. I am hoping that reading him will slow my reading down and that I will overcome my habit of endless skim reading, as a result of becoming addicted to my iPhone.

The first volume begins with the narrator thinking back to when he was an adolescent, living in Paris but vacationing at his grandparents’ home in the fictional town of Combray. While staying there, he is invited to the house of a cultured widowed neighbour, M. Legrandin, and they dine on the terrace by moonlight. M. Legrandin comments, ‘My boy, there comes in all our lives a time, towards which you still have far to go, when the weary eyes can endure but one kind of light, the light which a fine evening like this prepares for us in the still room of darkness, when the ears can listen to no music save what the moonlight breathes through the flute of silence.’

I do not think I have reached that time of life yet. I am not yet in the late evening of my life, but have arrived at the twilight. Fortunately, I do enjoy twilight’s muted sounds and stillness. As twilight is my favourite time of day, I should be very happy and comfortable in my twilight years. I hope I will. At the very least, I am beginning to relax into retirement, now that the lockdown seems to be easing and there may be an end in sight.

I shall definitely feel more comfortable when I no longer have to wear a mask. I am sure we all will. Though I have got used to wearing one, I still find them obtrusive especially when wearing one for a length of time. My spectacles still get fogged up even after using a mask for over a year now. My brain gets fogged up too as, after a while, the mask leaves me light headed, because I am not breathing in fresh air. I have noticed this when I am in the supermarket. After a while I get all fuddled and end up putting the wrong items in my trolley, generally the more expensive ones. Perhaps this is a ploy of the supermarket. I have yet to sit in a cinema or theatre and wear a mask. I wonder how that will feel. But then I am used to sometimes being left bewildered or confused by a play or a movie, so I guess it won’t be a new experience.

There are so many different colours and designs of masks. I was amazed at how quickly companies produced them for sale last year. There are a plethora of different colours and shades and patterns available: everything from camouflage to polka dots. Then there is the ubiquitous, dependable dear old pale blue surgical disposable one, which I mostly use. We are all walking around as if we are auditioning for some medical drama like the BBC’s ‘Casualty’. I find the ones with an air filter rather sinister as they appear to cover a wider area of the face than the others. They would not be out of place in a science fiction movie and they magnify the wearer’s breathing so that he or she sounds like a Cyberman from ‘Doctor Who.’

Because a mask covers the lower half of a person’s face, it highlights the person’s eyes and potentially the emotions behind them. When I was teaching Drama, I was constantly underlining the importance of eye contact between actors and of the emotions behind the eyes, especially when the actor is reacting and not speaking. Of course this is virtually impossible to achieve if you are constantly looking at a script (as I constantly reminded my student thespians). I used to tell them not to just look at the other actor but to really look.

I have noticed when I have been on buses, trains, in shops or in the street that people are really looking at each other more and engaging in more eye contact because they are wearing masks. This leads them to be more aware of the feelings of the other person than would be usual, I suspect. I have also noticed that this has led to little acts of kindness.

I remember going into Kingston for essential shopping in April or May last year and noticing so many anxious faces. The masks seemed to accentuate the wearers’ fears. I remember standing outside Boots in the queue to enter. I was collecting my repeat prescription. The lady in front of me turned and looked at me with frightened eyes. ‘I am so scared,’ she said. I encouraged her by saying she would be OK if she stayed safe and followed the rules and that the pandemic would soon be over. Little did we know! Now, a year on, happily there are fewer fearful expressions on the streets and public transport. I do hope she is well. It has been heartening too to see strangers talking to each other during the pandemic ,especially in those early months of lockdown.

I have been trying to work out the difference between the face masks we are currently wearing and the masks worn in Venice at the famous carnival. The traditional Venetian face mask covers the upper face except that there are openings for the eyes of course. The lower part of the face and the mouth are visible. And yet both masks allow the eyes to be seen. But of course it is more difficult to discern the expression of the eyes in a Venetian masks as the forehead is completely covered. You have to look very closely at the face to see the eyes of the wearer clearly. Therefore there is an air of mystery about the Venetian mask; it is provocative and alluring, inviting a romantic assignation and has done so down the centuries I am sure. That is not to say that our ubiquitous pale blue disposable ones could not be equally as provocative, if our mask makes us look more closely at the other person. It could provide an opportunity for flirtation, a romance of the eyes. I wonder how many lockdown romances have begun because of masks.

However, it is also possible for the expression in the eyes to be misread. I was recently in Waterstones bookstore in Kingston. I had not been there for some time, not since before the long lockdown I think. I had gone in to browse as I had a voucher to spend from Christmas. But the deeper reason was because for me a bookstore is a place of normality. I imagine we have all been looking for places of normality recently, places that comfort us. Normality is comforting. Well one of my places is a bookstore. I feel comforted by being surrounded by books. I do not think a kindle or an Amazon website can provide the same comfort. In any case a website like Amazon agitates rather than soothes. A bookstore is like a blanket, a blanket of culture.

It is also a place of quiet, of hushed conversations. Even though Waterstones in Kingston is situated on the top floor of a shopping mall, above the Apple Store crèche of young people faffing around with the latest expensive gadgets, yet the second you enter, the quietness calms you. At least it calms me. I actually find it refreshing to walk into a bookstore. It revives me.

It is not a place of stillness, though, as obviously there are customers milling quietly about and this branch of Waterstones is quite busy. Neither was I still myself, on that afternoon. I was perusing the shelves to see what I might buy (as if I need any more books on my shelves at home). For a moment I stood in the centre of one of the rooms in the store. I don’t remember what I was looking for, if anything in particular. But I stood there in my mask and looked vacantly at an assistant who was passing by. Behind my mask, I was in need of some fresh air. My discomfort must have put a frown on my brow, because the assistant came up to me and asked me if I was ok and needed any help. He must have thought I looked lost, or was becoming ill. I smiled (behind my mask) and said, ‘No thank you. Very kind of you’ or something like that.

A little later, I went into another room and browsed in there. Then I stood still, struggling to find air behind my mask again and must have frowned again because this time another assistant, a studious looking girl, came up to me and asked the same thing. Well at least the assistants in Waterstones are kind and attentive, even if they sometimes misread the expression in a customer’s eyes. I was forgetting of course that I am an actor and have an expressive face. When I was teaching my students, I would always ‘overplay’ expressions to demonstrate to them. Perhaps I haven’t got out of the habit. I guess I need to make sure I ‘play neutral’ in future in public places. Heaven knows what trouble I could get into otherwise!

I have a feeling that, even after the lockdown ends, masks will be with us for a while. When we are able to finally get rid of our masks, I hope we will not get rid of being aware of others.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 60

I have been thinking about the stained glass window again, as I sit here by the steady flame of my candle. In my last meditation, I mentioned a visit to the beautiful church of St Pierre in Montmartre in Paris several years ago. I explained how the panes of different colours in a stained glass window which I saw there reminded me of all my friends and loved ones. The window also reminded me that I am not alone. Isn’t this one of the positive features of these long months of lockdown and uncertainty, that we have been reminded that we are not alone, and that we have all been working our way through this most difficult of times together?

However, as I reflect upon it now, that stained glass window has taken on another meaning. The window is me. It is myself in all the different facets of my life, including my relationships and friendships of course. I have also come to realise that at certain times in my life, I have been polishing one pane in that window at the expense of others.

This is certainly true of my career, enjoyable and fulfilling as it has been. Because I have had a long career in mainly one school (with only one year in another one!) and especially because for over two thirds of my thirty- seven years there, I ran my department on my own, I came to be defined by my career. There were times when work was in charge of me rather than the other away around. It is a common mistake if you are committed to your occupation to a high level: call it a vocation, if you will. Perhaps this was exacerbated by living alone, without a partner. In other words, I was polishing that one pane in the window until the glass was wearing thin, or rather I was. It was part of my mid-life crisis when I became 50 years old, and I am sure others have had a similar experience too.

At that time, during the crisis, I became aware of being too consumed by my career and then I began to polish a few more panes of glass in my window and to lead a more integrated life. I was able to develop this further in my final years at the school when I relinquished my role as head of department and became a part time member of staff and, as a result, had more spare time. Then, after my retirement, I continued directing and going into school as necessary with more spare time still.

Nevertheless, I still felt defined by my role in school. I was still polishing that pane of glass to some extent. I couldn’t stop myself. It was a habit with me. Moreover, it had become an image of myself. It is a difficult image to shake off. I did not realise how ingrained it was in my consciousness until I finally left the school last February.

I call it my ‘King Lear’ syndrome, after Shakespeare’s tragic hero, who though he gave up the throne, could not give up being King. ‘Aye, every inch a King’ he says in his madness on the heath in the storm. I do not think I am slipping into madness or have been guilty of his rages for that matter, but the problem remains: retirement can be tough if you are defined by your work role or become aware that you are and then try to divest yourself of it, to start a new life. A friend said to me, ‘It is difficult to live in the shadows, when you are used to the limelight!’

You may remember that the window I described in my last meditation was of a modern, abstract design. It was not dominated by a scene from the Bible or an incident from a saint’s life, as stained glass windows in churches normally are. There might be intricate foliage etched around the edges of the scene or in a bigger window, smaller scenes from the Bible or the saint’s life in squares or roundels might decorate the top and bottom of the main picture.

Perhaps my own personal window would also be dominated by one scene in the centre: Neil, with a large copy of Shakespeare in his hands and a group of totally attentive students at his feet. Or Neil, holding a script whilst directing a couple of eager students in a scene. It wouldn’t be a window of Saint Neil – I am definitely no saint. Neither would it be a stained glass window of a school production when I played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s ‘Importance of Being Earnest’!

But no: the window that impressed me was not dominated by one image. In fact there was no one image at all: it had an abstract pattern and the glass was multi-coloured and of different shapes and sizes. It was multi-faceted as we all are, if we really look at ourselves.

I have recently been enjoying a beautiful pink camellia shrub in my garden. It is near my kitchen window. The flowers tend to last for a month or so and are fading now. Their pale pink blooms will soon be gone for another year. So I have been savouring them in their delicate glory. I inherited the shrub when I first moved in, 27 years ago. The flowers look pink from a distance, but when I look at them more closely, some of the blooms are a hybrid of a lighter and a darker shade, so dark it is almost red. There was one flower this year that was completely dark pink.

I pick them and put them into tiny vases on my kitchen table, which gives me the opportunity to really examine them. Actually, the petals are not completely pink. They have a thin white border and, if you look really closely, behind the pink of each petal is a white membrane making an intricate variegated pattern. At the centre of the flower is a deep golden stamen. So they are not just pink at all.

Just as we are not just one thing as individuals. Hopefully this last year will have enabled us to sit back and reflect on ourselves a little and may have led us to appreciate that there are many different facets to our lives, other than the persistent drives that fuel our interior selves; that make us deaf and blind to the truth of ourselves in all its stained glass splendour.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 59

Marcus Aurelius is in my thoughts tonight as I write this meditation. Recently I had my first visit to the barbers since the long lockdown ended. When the barber had finished my haircut and beard trim, I checked my face in the reflection in the large mirror in front of me. It looked a little like Marcus himself. Reflected in the mirror, I seemed to look more like him than in my photo at the top of this blog.

At last, after nearly sixty meditations, it is time to explain the origin of that blog photo. I am going to come clean. The photo was not taken in the ruins of Rome, but in front of a black scenery flat in my Drama studio. I wasn’t wearing a Roman toga either but a white sheet draped over my shoulders to look like one. The inspiration for the pose was partly statues of Marcus himself, which I had seen on visits to Rome, but more specifically a bust of the emperor Hadrian, Marcus’ great-uncle. Several years earlier, I had been to an exhibition at the British Museum about Hadrian and brought home a postcard of a striking black and white photo of the marble profile of the emperor. The postcard gave me the inspiration for the image for my blog and it gave my photographer an idea of the image I wanted.

Our image of Marcus is somewhat idealised, coming from statues which were meant to flatter the Emperor. However, statues or busts of emperors were more realistic by his reign (161-180 CE) than those of the earliest Caesars. In all of the statues or busts I have seen of Marcus, his hair and beard are not as close cut as mine are. Recently a statue of him has been discovered in Ryedale in North Yorkshire. It looks quite primitive compared with the elegant ones I have seen in Rome and was probably carved by Roman settlers. However the beard and hair are unmistakable and there is writing underneath confirming that it is Marcus and not Hadrian, though it could be him as he ordered the building of the famous Wall that bears his name to mark the perimeter of the Roman province of Britannia. The Wall is situated further North from Ryedale,

I find it interesting that the lives of Marcus and myself are once again in some small way connected. I was born officially in North Yorkshire before the area where I was brought up became Teesside and then Cleveland. And now a statue of Marcus has been unearthed in North Yorkshire. He never visited there of course but he did stay in Pannonia, which is now Hungary, on his military campaigns. I have also spent time in Hungary leading my school Drama tours and I mentioned in a previous blog that coins bearing his image have been found in the Buda Hills on the outskirts of Budapest. I did not know any of this before launching this blog in Autumn 2018, with his Meditations as my inspiration. So the connections are quite uncanny. I would love to play him in a play or a movie. For the moment, however, I’ll settle for this blog. I definitely need to re-read him – another one for my retirement bucket list!

Perhaps when I was looking at my reflection in the barber’s chair the other day, I was idealising myself. Or was I seeing just a glimmer of Marcus in myself? I hope there is at least a glimmer of him in these meditations.

We sometimes have an image of ourselves in our mind’s eye, don’t we? Hopefully it is a positive rather than a negative one. This self-image can change depending upon the circumstances we find ourselves in. It will never be the whole truth about ourselves, but hopefully not completely false either. Moreover, to believe in a false image of oneself and try to live up to it could spell disaster, or would at least be a huge ego trip. I am sure we could name quite a few celebrities who have fallen into that trap (not least the last incumbent of the White House). We need our friends and family to shatter that false image, not bolster it. I have had those moments once or twice in my life and fortunately for me, close friends have coaxed me back to reality.

I have also had my delusions of grandeur when preparing productions. It is important to have expansive ideas when directing a play and some kind of creative vision for the production. These have usually come to me away from school (at home or on my travels or even sitting in a theatre). But the reality of being back in the drama studio, my classroom, would soon make me pare down some of my ideas to fit my young and inexperienced cast (and the small budget!). I remember a colleague, who had trained as an actress, once told me she was amazed at the number of productions we managed to stage over the academic year: usually three as well as re-staging of two on the Hungary Drama tour, the practical exams (which involved staging scenes) and the House Drama competition. She said that the department was like the National Theatre, staging one show after another. It was a great compliment. I must confess that there were a few moments when I thought I was running a mini-National Theatre and forgot about the rest of the school!

I have the impression that Marcus was above self image. In his ‘Meditations’ he describes himself as ‘a male, mature in years, a statesman, a Roman, a ruler.’ He does not mention his official title of Emperor. His ‘Meditations’ were no ego-trip, in fact the title of the first printed edition (in 1559) was ‘To Himself’. From his ‘Meditations’ we can see that he is looking at himself to see his faults and failings in an attempt to rectify them; and to reflect upon and use his experience of life to primarily teach himself. But of course, he is also teaching others who read his book, although whether he intended others to read his Meditations is unclear.

Marcus was very much aware of his friends and family (alive and dead) as is evident from the very first chapter, his first meditation if you like. There he gives a list of the family members, friends and tutors whom he admires and he also lists what he has learnt from them and would like to emulate in his own life: ‘From my grandfather, Verus, decency and a mild temper’ for example. I mentioned this in one of my own earliest meditations.

In that early blog I recalled that I was once in Paris (heaven knows when that will happen again) and having a miserable day, exploring the city or rather, my mid-life crisis at that time. I found myself in Montmartre and wandered into the medieval church of St Pierre de Montmartre. It is the oldest church in Montmartre and has been restored. Its ancient walls have been cleaned up so they are a pristine grey. I remember sitting in a quiet side chapel. At one end was a beautiful stained glass window of a modern abstract design. It stood out because it seemed incongruous in its medieval, Gothic setting. The window was a blaze of different colours as the sun shone through. Gazing at the window, I was reminded of my family and friends, each one a pane of glass, a different colour and shape, individual, yet somehow linked to me, just as each pane of glass is

essential to the overall design of the window. It was a great comfort to me then and as I recall it, it is now.

I could only appreciate the overall design of the window in its intricacy and vibrant colours because I was sitting at a distance from it, of course. A stained glass window is never seen at its best close-up. To some extent we have all been sitting at a distance from friends and loved ones because of the restrictions of the last year. At times we may have felt that physical distance acutely. It may have been palpable or, in our darkest thoughts, almost insurmountable. I am reminded of the old adage: absence makes the heart grow fonder. It is the physical distance of absence that helps us to appreciate others more and to realise how much they mean to us and how much we miss them. There have been occasions in this last year when I have been able to experience the ‘stained glass window’ effect in my moments of loneliness. Perhaps after a phone call or zoom or even just a text I have been able to see the other person as a bright colourful pane within the design of my own window. And there have been rare moments when I have seen in my mind’s eye the whole window itself in its intricate design and varied hues and have once again appreciated how essential my friends are in my life, different as they are.

I hope that you have experienced the ‘stained glass window’ effect too, in the last months, and, like me, will remember it, and carry it with you as we hopefully move on from lockdown.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neilus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 46

As I write this meditation, I am not gazing at the candle in front of me. I am writing on my kitchen table and looking at the array of magnets on the fridge in the corner. The surfaces of the fridge door, the freezer door under it and the side of the fridge opposite me are almost completely filled with magnets.

I have been collecting them on my travels for over fifteen years I think. Some are from museums or art galleries or historical buildings as I can’t resist gift shops in those places. I have a penchant for cultural souvenirs, you see.

Many of them are small oblong pieces of tin with a photo or art reproduction printed on them and some are encased in plastic squares or oblongs. There are those of places I have visited around the world. As might be expected not a few are from Hungary and my numerous visits there and from Vancouver Island where I usually visit every year too.

Others are from the exhibitions I mentioned. Indeed my fridge boasts its own miniature art gallery: there are a Van Gogh, a Vermeer, 2 Caravaggio’s, 3 Michelangelo’s (including the statue of David), a Toulouse Lautrec, part of the stained glass at the Church of Sainte Chapelle in Paris, a portrait of Anne Boleyn, 2 pictures by Emily Carr (from Vancouver Island -one of my favourite artists), an Atkinson Grimshaw (the 19th Century Yorkshire artist) and a view of Lake Keitele in Finland by Aksell Gellen-Kallela (one of my favourite pictures in London’s National Gallery) among others. You might argue that in the early days of lockdown, when movement was severely restricted, there was no need for me to visit a gallery anyway. All I had to do was look at my fridge!

There is also a photo of the head of a Greek Philosopher, (from Budapest’s National Gallery), a magnet which Marcus Aurelius would no doubt appreciate. Needless to say, he also graces the side of my fridge: in a photo of the impressive statue of him in Rome’s Capitoline Museum, arm uplifted and hailing his empire on his horse. I do not know how he would react to being reduced to an image of 2 inches by 3 inches on a fridge wall. It is so unlike the large statues of him around the empire or the huge column with its spiralling frescoes of his triumphs in the Piazza Colonna in Rome. Perhaps he would accept the reduction of his grandeur to a small picture with stoic humility.

Some of the magnets are ceramic or metal figures. There’s a mini Shakespeare memorial from Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church where he is buried; a gargoyle from Notre Dame in Paris, a bejewelled masked gentleman from the Venice carnival and a miniature plaque of the Renaissance King Mattyas of Hungary. Reflecting my love of movies, there’s an Oscar statuette, a mini movie clapperboard and an tiny enamel ruby slipper from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as well as long oblong posters of ‘Metropolis’ and ‘King Kong.’ There are several theatre posters too including one from Broadway.

One of my favourites is from Vancouver: a small wooden scene in dark and light brown and ivory wood showing a bear and a cub in the snow. The largest magnet is a mini upright piano with a lid which opens to reveal a tiny keyboard. I got this in Budapest when the Liszt 200th anniversary celebrations were on.

My literary interests are reflected in magnets of several quotes from Shakespeare and from Oscar Wilde and Dickens (as well as an illustration from ‘A Christmas Carol’) and my love of John Steinbeck’s ‘Cannery Row’ by a 1930’s advert for canned anchovies from Monterey in California. There’s also a mini library of books from the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

However, I have frequently found that a museum or gallery gift shop doesn’t stock a card or magnet of the picture I would most like a copy of. Some of the ones on my fridge are therefore second best!

I have almost forgotten to mention that several friends have brought me magnets from their own travels. Isn’t it lovely to be remembered by friends when they are on holiday?

As you may have already gathered, this plethora of magnets not only reflects my travels but also my interests. Like photographs, there are memories encased in them. I can remember where and when I bought most of them. With some of them, I have distinct memories of the complete day or afternoon when I purchased them: who I was with; where else I visited that day and other pictures or artefacts I looked at in the same place.

There are two magnets with 19th century American portraits on them, from a small exhibition in the tiny art gallery in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. I had dived in there as I wanted to escape the relentless crowds and overpowering noise of the main strip. It was blissfully quiet in the gallery I remember. There was an impressive exhibition of landscape photography there too (but no magnets!). I have rarely spent such a long time in such a small gallery – I was there for over an hour, partly just to get some peace and quiet. I told the assistant as I was leaving that it was the best $15 I had spent. She beamed at my compliment till I told her it was the only place where I could find peace and quiet in Las Vegas! Then she laughed and agreed with me and I sweetened my potentially acid comment with some genuine appreciation of the exhibits, especially the photographs. Although, I desisted from purchasing the glossy book of the photos at $150 a copy! I bought the magnets of the 19th Century portraits instead. I remember treating myself to a blueberry ice cream and coffee in the gelateria next door afterwards before braving the crowds again.

I am afraid Las Vegas and I didn’t get on. It is endlessly brash and loud; yes the word is ‘endless.’ It is like a loud uncontrollable class except in school the class will disappear when the bell goes. In Las Vegas, the class goes on 24/7! However, if asked, I would be delighted to headline there with my cabaret!

I found the fridge magnets were a comfort early in lockdown when I couldn’t go far, let alone travel to another country and when all the galleries and museums in London were closed. They reminded me that I have been very fortunate to travel abroad and so regularly and through my travels to make international friendships. I have also been fortunate to have seen so many wonderful works of art and historical buildings first hand and to share them with my friends who accompanied me and sometimes with yourself, dear reader, in this blog.

My life so far has been so rich, most of all in friendships. If I never travel again abroad or never enter another gallery, I haven’t done so badly out of life! I learnt in those early months of lockdown that it is important to be thankful for what we have and for what we have had. It is a way of being positive in these difficult times, which sadly continue.

It appears that the lockdown is tightening again, especially if people aren’t sensible and do not adhere to the new restrictions. Once again our horizons are potentially becoming narrower and in some areas of the U.K., this is already the case. We are being asked to accept and endure the situation again. Marcus, as a Stoic philosopher, would encourage us to do this. But ‘endure’ is a harsh word it is a difficult thing to do, as we have all learnt in the last six months or so. At least we have had some practice if another major lockdown comes.

Despite the ominous signs, nevertheless, I am hoping that next month I will be able to finally take my luxury trip to Puglia, in Southern Italy, which is my retirement present to myself. So by the end of October, hopefully another magnet (or two) will grace my fridge doors.

In these last months, I have learnt that ‘hope’ is a difficult thing too, even though the word is only one syllable and sounds lighter than ‘endure.’ It is difficult because it involves the future, which we have no control over. The more our plans for the future are scuppered, the less we feel like hoping. But hope we must, for it is a positive virtue and the best way to endure is to be positive.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

As I sit here watching the flickering flame of the candle beside me, the whole world seems to be a flickering flame in the face of the virus that has engulfed us. Not even emperors or the powerful of our own time are able to totally control it. It is a humbling corrective to their own towering self-confidence, should they possess it. Indeed it is a humbling corrective to us all, in our own little busy worlds, which have now perforce been interrupted in the most dramatic and sudden way.

In the wake of the week’s events in our own country, indeed across the world, it seems pointless, even crass and insulting to the suffering of others to write a meditation about anything else. I must admit to feeling numb and powerless myself, as indeed we all are, like someone standing stock still in the street when an accident happens, a neutral observer but unable to do little if anything to prevent it. Nevertheless, despite our fears and inherent panic at the spread of the virus and the sudden restrictions that have been imposed upon us, life must continue as far as possible. We must take up again our preoccupations and activities with calm determination and above all hope, hope for the future. The flame, though flickering, is not yet spent.

So with this in mind, I would like to share with you an exhibition I attended early last week before the closures at the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square. It was a display of David Hockey’s portraits. They included works from his teenage years in the 1950’s to the present day. The passage of time was very evident in the drawings, prints and paintings. This was because the portraits were of four particular sitters who are close to him: his muse Celia Birtwell, his mother Laura, his lover Gregory Evans, his print maker Maurice Payne as well as a series of portraits of himself.

They were executed in various locations around the world which gave the exhibition an exotic feel though being portraits there was equally an intimacy about them. Hockney is a fine draughtsman. His drawing skills are remarkable particularly in depicting the clothing of the sitters: the detailed prints of Celia’s numerous dresses for example. He is also an acute realist: these were not flattering portraits but carefully outlined the changes time had wrought on the sitter (including himself of course!). Yet though he accurately showed how the effects of age had changed the subject, the expression on their faces changed little and so their personality, their inner spirit seemed constant.

It was the self portraits that fascinated me. I have always been deeply moved by the realism in Rembrandt’s self-portraits (especially his ones painted in old age) and the realism in Hockey’s moved me too. It is Rembrandt’s eyes that draw you to him and they show you the ages of man: from quirky insecure youth to benign accepting old age. But in

Hockney’s portraits the eyes are always the same: they look startled, almost scared like a deer suddenly disturbed in a forest. I suppose this may be a trope that he uses for all of them and this startled stare even looks out at us from his first drawings as a teenager in his room in Bradford. This constant expression helps us to appreciate the different backgrounds and locations, the different clothes he wears over the years, the different media he uses at times and of course the changes in his face wrought by age.

But it is an odd expression. It is as if he has been caught in the act of painting, as if his art is reprehensible. The title for each one might be ‘The Guilty Artist’! That was certainly the cumulative effect they had on me. For a moment I wondered if it was something to do with his sexuality, with being afraid to be who he is, especially when gay men of his generation had to be closeted and furtive, when every expression of their sexuality had to be behind closed doors and there was always that fear of the door being suddenly opened and being found out, exposed. But this does not sit with the fact that he has been openly gay and even flamboyantly so for most of his adult life in contrast with his contemporary and fellow Yorkshireman, the writer Alan Bennett who only ‘came out’ in his later years.

Maybe that startled look does stem from a primal fear of being found out that was deep rooted from his teenage years.

Or perhaps it is something to do with the embarrassment about being in any way artistic and creative when you are brought up with an ordinary working class background. But then I may be reading something of myself into Hockney’s paintings. My own feelings of embarrassment were unnecessary really as the adults around me and my peers accepted that I wrote little plays and enjoyed acting. My primary school teacher encouraged me. She thought I would end up as a producer or director for BBC Drama.

And yet it is an extremely courageous act to commit a portrait of oneself to paper or canvas especially when it is realistic rather than narcissistic! There are times when I have shied way from writing this blog because I have been a little wary of committing myself to paper as it were. It is a private act that becomes public. Perhaps it is my childhood and teenage embarrassment taking hold again.

In one way I found the exhibition depressing. Walking around and gradually observing these five sitters (including the artist) getting older and older made me feel as if I was growing old with them! In truth they made me realise my own age. I am not young anymore myself. Looking back on my walk around these portraits with their constant expressions, I see that Hockney has hit upon a truth about human nature: our bodies grow older but we look out to the world with the same eyes we did as a child or young person. This can make us forget our real age sometimes: we think we are younger than we are in reality. As I have been working with young people for over half my life, yes, as others

have repeatedly pointed out, working with young people keeps you young, but it can also lead to self delusion at times!

Inevitably the restrictions imposed this week for our own good have also reminded me of my age and vulnerability. I am but four years off 70! Living alone has compounded this. I have always said that living alone is an art form, something in the coming days of isolation we may have to learn. But so many friends, neighbours and colleagues and of course family have been in touch for which I am so very grateful.

So I am once again reminded of the stained glass window in St Pierre de Montmatre in Paris. That abstract stained glass reminded me many years ago about all my family and friends, each one a bright and colourful pane of glass welded to the other by the molten lead of affection and love. We may be well aware at present that we are an individual and isolated pane of glass. We may even feel that our bright and cheerful colour has faded but the sun will still shine through it. And we need to remember that we may be a single pane but we are surrounded by the molten lead of affection and love.

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

As I begin to write, I look for a moment at the little flame of the candle behind my tablet. I realise what damage a small flame can do, as I reflect upon the devastation caused by the fire in Norte Dame Cathedral in Paris. Although, at present, we do not know how that momentous conflagration was caused.

So, for several days I have not been candle-gazing but fire-gazing as I have been following the incident on the television news. When I first saw the news late on Tuesday evening, I must confess to being initially as shocked as the crowds who quickly assembled on the Ile De La Cite to witness the blaze. Their shock was palpable as they silently watched the cathedral enveloped by flames. The heart of the Gothic Cathedral was a roaring fire and easily visible as the roof had caved in. It was the shock of disbelief and impotence as there was nothing the numerous bystanders could do except watch as the hundreds of firefighters, dwarfed by the conflagration, fought to douse the flames. The shock was shared by millions around the globe.

It is remarkable that this cathedral in Paris inspires so much international affection, perhaps because it is a main tourist attraction in Paris and so many have visited the basilica as a tourist, or, like myself, as a Christian, to worship as well. This affection has resulted in an outpouring of donations to restore Notre Dame.

I find it even more remarkable that, over the last few days, the cathedral has emerged as a potent symbol not only for Parisians but for the French nation, that it has a special place in their consciousness, in their hearts. It is a symbol of Paris, of France itself and perhaps because of recent terrorist attacks, even more potent.

Perhaps this is partly due to Victor Hugo’s famous novel ‘Notre Dame de Paris’. The book has been frequently mentioned over the last few days in the media in connection with the fire. Hugo’s famous 1831 story of the hunchback bell ringer Quasimodo and the gypsy girl Esmeralda has made the building a part of global culture. Indeed, Hugo has created our image of the cathedral, much as Shakespeare has of ancient Rome. The cathedral itself is a character in the novel, it could be argued the main character, so detailed and atmospheric is Hugo’s description of the ‘majestic and sublime edifice.’ Prophetically, the building catches fire towards the end of the novel as Quasimodo wards off armies of the populace by pouring boiling oil on them as they try to rescue Esmeralda from the cathedral: ‘two spouts terminating in gargoyles, vomited sheets of fiery rain.’

Hugo wrote the book to draw attention to the dilapidated cathedral itself – ‘the countless defacements and mutilations which men and time have subjected to that venerable monument’ – and other historic churches and buildings of Gothic architecture which had been ransacked and defaced in the revolution and left to go to ruin or destroyed to make way for new buildings. In a way his novel is a campaign document and he does digress from the plot at times (and at length) to make his point. As a result his novel and his campaigning led to the extensive renovation of the cathedral. So, to some extent Hugo has come to rescue of the cathedral once again in 2019. Apparently sales of his novel have soared in the last few days on Amazon!

I have always been haunted by the story since seeing the classic 1939 film as a child (and many times since). Charles Laughton brings great dignity and pathos to the role of Quasimodo in one of the greatest acting performances on film. I have recently looked at the film again on a luminous blue ray transfer. The film is very true to Hugo’s vision of medieval Paris with amazing sets and highly detailed artwork and detailed crowd scenes (all filmed under the sweltering Californian sunshine!).

The film led me to read the novel as a teenager and again years later. I had the idea of dramatising it as a school production a few years after I first came to the school. Going to Paris and seeing the Cathedral for myself finally inspired me to write it along with my colleague Phil Watkins in 2006. He had thought it would be a good project for a school production too. Now the burnt out Cathedral seems to be calling me, telling me to revive that production again.

The burnt out shell seems to be an image of Europe itself, an image of European civilisation even, dilapidated, crumbling, falling in on itself. Yet still standing; it is not completely destroyed. The rose windows are still intact and the April sun shines through them, the interlaced stained glass, an image of the interdependence and good will of nations. What is precious has miraculously been preserved. It is an image of survival. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, it will also be an image of renewal. Of resurrection.

Ave atque vale until the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail.

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I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius