This morning the air brings me the smell of trees. It could be fallen leaves or sycamore scent. There is drizzle in the air.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a piece of wood on the ground. I say it is a photo which makes a nice addition to my #ElasticBandPhotos collection, and that it was taken on a blustery afternoon this week.
The photo brought me joy at the end of a walk that had become rather pedestrian and consequently was one that I wasn’t really enjoying. I had been feeling ‘under the weather’ and went for the walk because I thought I should. I think I spent almost the entire 45 minutes thinking about the hot chocolate I was going to have when I got home. No particular attention to the cows or sheep or weather or indeed the music on my playlist. Of course I know that shoulds aren’t really the way to go, but still I put my boots on and went. Thank goodness for the moment of amusement at the end of my mini trek when I saw the discarded elastic band on the ground. I laughed at the fact that it could be a letter ‘p’ given that 50% of feeling under the weather was related to floaters in my left eye and the other 50% was a bladder issue.
I thoroughly enjoyed my hot chocolate when I got home, and resolved to switch off future shoulds when it comes to walks that I don’t fancy, and fast track myself to the comfort of a warm drink instead. Pleasingly walks on different days afterwards were chosen because they felt like nice things to do, as well as being helpful for my general fitness. This helped me to stop lingering in ‘I had a rubbish walk’ mode.
Taking time to reflect on the elements of joy in the week felt much needed, and I was pleased to find all these things dotted around in my seven days:
- a masterclass on metaphor
- 2 zoom rooms of poetry
- editing time
- receiving positive feedback
- a kind and helpful optician
- a kind and helpful nurse
- caring messages and conversations
- remembering to look up sayings if I am going to be using them, and finding out that it is probable that ‘under the weather’ has a nautical origin related to sailors going below deck.
Here’s to all the joys that sprinkle themselves amongst the grey bits, and to the people that help us weather the storm.
A dream poem seems fitting to end with. And this one was a complete dream, not one that needed a redoze to finish it, but it had quite a dramatic ending. It is exhibited in the gallery of dreams in ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ published by Black Eyes Publishing UK.
I’VE NOTHING TO OFFER THE WHITE HORSE I DREAM OF
Head down shy
a white horse senses me,
whinnies – as if a desire to gallop
is rising inside.
She comes right up to the fence.
Spider-leg eyelashes frame her eyes,
defined jawbone
makes her almost too thin.
I want to touch
the coarse hair of her mane
to know if her blood warms it.
I am wishing now for an apple
or a carrot.
As if reading my mind her mouth opens,
those pupils flash wild.
I have nothing to offer.
A cloud of hayed breath
puffs between us.
Before I can release myself from her gaze,
she clamps my arm.
When I was young
I used to bite my forearms
to feel the resistance of flesh
imprint my incisors.
I bit my brother once.
Now there is a horse,
with blunted yellowed teeth,
latched on hard, biting my skin to burst it
to taste the metal of my blood.
