If they were me and I was you
As I write this from my prone position on a sunlounger by the pool, there’s a fire raging less than 30 minutes away, just south of Avignon. It started last night while we were out having dinner and when I opened our shutters this morning, a thick haze of smoke was still hanging in the sky. It is now, thankfully, under control but it’s a constant fear in this part of France, which hasn’t seen any rain since November.
It’s a stark reminder while I lie here and grizzle about how hot I am and now sore my sunburn is – because Irish skin and 40 degree heat make uneasy bedfellows – that the tiniest actions can have the most devastating consequences.
A few days of lying around on a sunlounger has allowed my brain to slow down a bit and meander down some corridors it likes the look of, rather than being forced to think about things that make it go Hmmm. Consumer Duty, I’m specifically looking at you, here. But as it’s my brain, it likes to go where I’d prefer it didn’t, too – and never more so than yesterday, when I had quite a challenging day inside my head. A few months ago, I wrote about the untimely death of our friend, and how I believe we should all tell those we care about how we feel about them, because life’s short and all that. I’m still a work in progress on this – but I want the people I love, care for and appreciate in my life to know this, otherwise what’s the point? I still think it, even if I don’t say it.
Last night, it was my turn to reap the benefits, when an unexpected message from somebody whose opinion and company I greatly value turned my challenging day on its head, simply because they’d taken the time to tell me what they thought. I’m still basking in the glow of it today – more of that sort of thing, for everybody.
My holiday reading this week has been The Authority Gap, by the powerhouse that is Mary Ann Sieghart. Not, perhaps, the lighthearted stuff of drifty summer days, but an immensely readable book nonetheless – and deeply disconcerting at times. I like to think I’m right up there on the feminist ladder with the occasional ranty rant to prove it, but this has caught me up short. A book about why women are still taken less seriously than men? Fabulous – something else we can blame the patriarchy for, right? Wrong, actually. I mean yes, there’s an underlying bedrock of patriarchal bullshit that we can comfortably roll our eyes about, obvs, but an early chapter on unconscious bias and the role that women play in that has stuck with me, to the extent that I need to go back and read it again, because it seems that I’m as culpable in this as the next person. Now *that’s* an uncomfortable realisation for sure – especially when, if I’m honest, I know my immediate reaction to somebody suggesting this was the case would probably be pretty negative.
My takeaway from halfway through is that we are, of course, all in this together – we have to be. It can’t be yet another us vs them situation. I’m very lucky that I have some fabulous men in my life who will not only pick up this book and read it, but also reflect on how they can be part of making sure that the next time somebody carries out a piece of research in this area, the outcomes have changed and will continue to change. Because I have to believe that it will change – anything else is intolerable, frankly.
As with all good things, our wee sojourn in Provence has to end. Tomorrow we head off up the road for a brief overnight pit stop with friends who are staying in Les Contamines, before we land in Les Gets on Sunday. An auspicious day – not least because I’ve run out of clothes, so the excitement of having access to a washing machine is greater than it ought to be.
And on that slightly grubby note, I’m off. Next broadcast will be from the alps, where I’ll be reuniting my heart with the bit it left behind in March.