A bid for freedom

Rambling

Definitions from Oxford Languages
1. (of writing or speech) lengthy and confused or inconsequential.
2. (of a plant) putting out long shoots and growing over walls or other plants.

Definitions from Merriam-Webster
Proceeding without a specific goal, purpose, or direction: such as
a: wandering about from one place to another
b: straying from subject to subject
c: stretching, spreading, or growing in a winding or irregular way

Definition from Collins English Dictionary
If you describe a speech or a piece of writing as someone's ramblings, you are saying that it is meaningless because the person who said or wrote it was very confused or insane.


I think that just about covers it.

Not long after I entered the UK Civil Service in the mid 1970's a manager wrote on one of my memos, "We write too long."

I have previous form. I plead guilty. 

But I served my time, 32 years of it. That was finished 15 years ago. 

And now I am reminded of the poem Warning, by Jenny Joseph, which starts:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

Well, I am an old man now, and (at least here, in public secret), I shall write purple prose that doesn't suit a lot of people. 

And I shall feel free.