I’m squinting at the screen with my dodgy eye. I have two, by the way, but one is dodgy and on Monday I am offski for minor surgery. All will be well, of course it will, it always is because there is a matrix for this as there is for everything. It thinks me. Matrix, from the latin ‘Mater, meaning mother/womb with the secure landing of ‘ix’ gives me confidence. Needless to say I am not concerned on behalf of the surgeon. He, and he is a ‘he’ has trained for ever and comes highly recommended. It’s the cricks in the matrix which unnerve me, the ferry not running, or running late; the potential miss of the train to Glasgow, the stranding of me. I remember, once, that all we had to do was to check the maritime weather report to know for sure that we would make the crossing. Not now #cricks.

Perfection is a rubric, a guide, a set of rules and moves and decisions that would always result in a tidy cube. Over generations this rubric slices into lives, fed wordy, initiating acceptable behaviours, cementing vows of loyalty, stultifying relationships and informing choices and, in places of power, decisions. Such a complexity and so rigid, a scoring guide with awards proffered to those who comply. And, bizarrely, I get it, even though I have lived within a rubric matrix at times in my life and fought through the cricks to escape. We do need order because disorder is unsettling, even though the ancient greeks and well before them considered Chaos as being the most powerful auger of change. I also think they were right because only from chaos does anyone, eventually, choose a new rubric, to then form a new matrix.

Think on it. In a war zone, when bombs take your everything and the street is a heavy landing of rubble and dust, there will be a voice, a someone who rises and who gathers in the broken. In a family when disaster hits there will be one who rises, takes control. In a troubled mind, full of ferrets and snipers, a voice. These voices don’t dismiss the situation as so many humans do. There are no platitudes, no empty words, no sugar coating. They are simply there and vocal. Just saying I am here. I can keep you safe. Here’s a new matrix.