Way, way back in the ‘fifties, when I was at grammar school, we were compelled to take part in the school’s army cadet force. This was largely a waste of time, and I suspect included in our curriculum largely for ideological reasons. There were a few things I learned there, however, which have remained useful in later life. Perhaps foremost among these was map-reading. Every now and then I encounter other tit-bits of knowledge which have remained with me. One of these is the concept of “night vision”.
It seems that if you need to move about in the darkness it is important to wait for at least ten minutes in the dark before attempting to do anything. Although it seems at first that you can’t see anything at all, quite soon your eyes adjust to some extent to the lower level of illumination. We will never be cats, but with a little patience we discover that we are not deprived of vision altogether. We discovered the value of this on a holiday in North Yorkshire, when we emerged from the pub in which we had dined only to realise that in rural areas like that there is no such thing as street lighting. I managed really rather well on the walk back to the cottage …. and certainly far better than my wife, who was trying to find her way using the illumination from her mobile ‘phone.
The idea of “night vision” is not only a useful practical idea, it is also a rather good metaphor for other aspects of life experience. The sudden ceasing of activity following my intensive activity over the past month or so was initially disconcerting. I couldn’t decide (metaphorically speaking) where I was going, or even where it might be possible to make choices in that respect. A few days of inactivity have served to make much clearer the possible direction of travel. I spent a good part of the day up a ladder pruning a large nuisance branch off a tree in the garden. Its main function seemed to be as a perch from which the birds released their droppings onto the wood shed, which had become a kind of avian toilet. The garden is quite thoroughly weeded now. This afternoon I really managed to get stuck into the cryptic crossword in The Guardian. Not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve been doing nothing of any consequence. I have to say, however, that after this period of voluntary inactivity it really is the case that the choice of what I might do next is beginning to emerge with a degree of clarity. I like to think that I’m recovering my artistic “night vision”.