"I am eighty one now, and still going... I wouldn't say strong, but going anyway. Along my journey, I have written a lot and talked too much. However now, partly due to the restrictions rightly imposed on us by the Health Department and the ailments of my old age, I have become selective in my writing and talk less. My TV and radio productions have been reduced to almost nil. This gave rise to long moments of creative silence, waiting like an old Noah, for my thoughts and words to come back to me and enter through the ajar window of my mind.

I am not inclined to consider the semi-seclusion we had to go through during Covid 19 as a lock down. I prefer to consider it a sort of retreat.  An insightful walk in the meadows and meanders of the mind has taught me to stay quiet, listening to myself. The problem is, that at times, silence becomes an uncomfortable noise - I answer myself back and argue with my own thoughts. And I have to collect all my strength to keep listening to myself without interrupting - to simply listen. In silence. This throws me back to my childhood.

I remember when I used to attend De La Salle College, in the annual report I was penned as a talkative student, despite the satisfactory results. My father wasn't sure about the meaning of this word. I was ready with an accommodating answer. "It means, Dad,  that I like to ask a lot of questions." But he thought otherwise and one day he told me: "I met Brother William and asked the right meaning. The answer he gave me differs completely from yours. You talk too much in class during lessons and you disturb the other students. " My father who occasionally was endowed with sporadic flashes of practical philosophy, continued: "Listen, son, talk less and listen more. As you grow older, you'll find out by yourself that being silent is more important than being a chatter-box... (ilsienek itaqtaq)."

I haven't heeded his advice, but he was certainly right.

Old age is just the time to stop waiting and searching for answers. On the other hand, children are never happy with the answers they get and keep asking 'Why?' Whilst philosophers flaunt their thoughts, thinking that they have found the final answers.

Old age and seclusion have taught me that there are no answers sufficient enough to fill our mind. And I am getting used to letting the sound and echo of silence fill the empty spaces in my consumed mind. It does not surprise me that in my latest poems, written during the retreat due to  'Covid-19', the word silence predominates just like it features in this poem which sums up my thoughts in a nutshell.

The bare-footed silence

Is heard walking beside me.

Even so. Bare-footed.

It casts no shadow

But its breath

Smells of harvested field

Of sun-filled fruits;'

Of leaves singing with the first rain.

Silence is...

Hush!

I can hear it walking bare-footed

Beside me.

Even so. Bare-footed.

Although it casts no shadow

Its singing smell

Wades into the laughter of the dawn.

Writing and reediting my last novel, L-Aħħar Warda, despite being a demanding yet creative exercise, it helped me to shun my mind from the invasion of misinformation by those who barely know anything but give the impression that they know it all.

Unfortunately, fake news, misinofrmation and mud-throwing come without a diclaimer or a User's Booklet. I have survived Covid 19's ordeal because I believed in those who know their job and disregarded those  who don't.

I detest the jungle call 'let's go back to normality!' What normality? The chaos we had been living in, steering away from the feeling of life as a community? The fast paced life led to an impulsive greed to kill the space and fill it with horrible constructions like unfruitful trees 'with roots of steel, that smothered and killed Spring' out of our lives. I hope normality incorporates the respect we have cultivated towards the front liners and their sound advice.

Luckily and perhaps selfishly, I have reached a point in life where I am not much concerned about what I am leaving behind. There are things which I should have done better and others which I should not have done at all. Now I am fully concerned about what I am taking with me...

Being secluded within the cells of my thoughts, helped me to be myself. It does not mean that I have entertained the thought that my ways are better than others but, at least, I was dealing with someone - MYSELF who I could cope with and blame and encourage when I need to. What a sorry situation we wrap ourselves in if we need somebody in our life to blame for our mistakes or to glorify our narcissism.

'When I consider how my light is spent...', 'in this dark world and wide' (with apologies to Milton), while my eye sight is getting more feeble and blurred, I feel more prone to indulge in meditation and listen to music. From Beethoven to Mahler, from Liszt to Chopin,  from The Beatles to Dire Straits, I have found energy and light to ignore the tedious long faced Jeremiahs that knock on the door of my mind.

And life goes on. Somehow. Either with blurred or closed eyes in search of beauty that is truth and truth that is beauty. And that is all we need (with gratitude to Keats).

Next Week: Dr Paul Xuereb's COVID Diary