On a recent journey through a nearby major city, my car radio continually lost signal as I drove under, and emerged from, a series of tunnels.

I noticed that if the song I was listening to was familiar to me, I could imagine the parts I was missing during the lost signal and try to see if my imagination of the music was in sync with the actual music when the song re-emerged as I drove out of each underpass.

Of course, if a conversation was being held, I lost connection momentarily with what was being said, but I did not lose touch with my ability to think and process what I had been listening to, before I lost signal.

There have been many times in my life when I have lost signal with those around me, not because of a physical barrier of concrete and steel, but because of my own emotional barrier which has blocked out my capacity to hear/to listen;  and blocked out my capacity to speak/ to be heard.

The lost signal to my car radio in the underpasses, has taught me that despite the physical barrier of the concrete underpass and the lost connection, the radio was still transmitting and I was still in connection with it because my mind was active and alert throughout.

The movement of the car drove me to a re-connection of the signal and my senses, but in the world I inhabit, when I am maintaining my own metaphorical lost signal, I have to rely on my own capacity to recognise that I am suffering, and work my way back through reasoning and through courage to a place of community and safety and love.

My next blog will be: Salt and Light

William Defoe