Here is a poem from Lorraine. A lovely lady, who has been blinded by illness.
Wheat fields
You undress me
Stripping me of falsehoods
That invaded my wounded soul,
Clothing
Me then
In the pure white of my childhood
When joys were young and blithe
Dancing and free
Flying
Adorn
My soul this day
Throw away all the chains
That kept in place the clothes of black
That seemed
So white
And now keep me safe for ever
Entwined in innocence
Like spotless lamb
Take me
Not feeling it.
I woke up not thinking about much at all today. Hardly surprising, as for the past week or so, I am just ‘not feeling it’.
Perhaps it is the unseasonably dull and damp weather? Central heating still on in the last week of May. Lawn grass a foot high, but too wet to mow. Joints aching in the cold and damp. Hips feeling like they have come unscrewed, Voltarol gel on my finger joints to get them moving.
But I am definitely not feeling it.
Little or no interest in writing.
Little or no interest in watching TV or films.
Still zero interest in reading books.
Even my blog has had to trickle along with reblogs of old posts from 2013.
I try to stay perky for Ollie, but walking around holding an umbrella in high winds and driving rain is becoming really boring. The shorts have gone back into the wardrobe, and the rubber boots and heavy coat are in service again.
On the bright side, I haven’t had any mosquito bites.
Hoping to ‘feel it’ again soon, but not holding my breath.
If you could see just one last thing.
What would that thing be?
My decision was easy.
For me.
It would be a tree.
Can a companion be a real friend?
Can you truly love a friend?
Is friendship more than companionship?
Is love no more than a form of friendship?
1) Probably not.
2) Yes.
3) Definitely.
4) I think so.
Being sad is not always a bad thing.
Sadness can come from memories.
Those are often good memories.
Even when prompted by sadness.
Elephants in the wild are an amazing sight to see.
As are the amusing antics of a chimpanzee.
But now watching ants on a log.
Or my contentedly sleeping dog.
Is more than enough for me.
I thought of something earlier.
And then it slipped my mind.
So it probably wasn’t important.
Or was it?
I will never know.
I once travelled the world.
In search of wonders to see.
Now I realise they were all here.
In front of my eyes.
I just wasn’t looking.
But now I see.
I spent so much time searching for things I thought I needed, or wanted.
Emotional things, physical things, tactile things.
Possessions in the hand, or of the mind and spirit.
Only to discover I had them all the time, and hadn’t realised.
That they were never what I had expected them to be.
Reading things online, and looking at Twitter, I am suddenly reminded that it is Wednesday.
For everyone still working, at least those still able to work during lockdown, that middle day of the week has some significance. It still seems a long way to go until the weekend promises a break from toil, and the chance to do ‘weekend stuff’.
And it is two more days until that ‘Friday Feeling’ brings the promise of two days not having to get up early unless you want to.
I have to go back a very long time if I want to recall either of those feelings associated with days of the week. Almost forty-one years, to be precise. Because that was the last time I ever worked in a nine-to-five job. Friday evenings were either ‘eat out’ nights, or ‘go to see a film at the cinema’ nights. Something pleasant crammed in to the end of a working day, to get a head start on a weekend of enjoyment.
Saturday nights were ‘friends over for dinner’ nights, or ‘going to friends for dinner’ nights. Sundays were usually reserved for ‘visiting mum’, or ‘roast dinner with family’. By the time it got to four in the afternoon on a Sunday, I was already dreading having to go to work the next day. That feeling usually ruined the rest of what became a dull evening.
If we were really lucky, the whole weekend might be a ‘weekend away’. Friday and Saturday night staying in a hotel somewhere, the enjoyment only dampened by returning home in the usual heavy traffic on a Sunday in London.
Then I started to work in a job that involved shifts.
Weekends became a thing of the past. I was working three out of four of them, so they lost any significance. Then on the one when I wasn’t working, I slept away most of the first day after a night shift. Monday morning stopped being something to dread. I was either out of the house well before six, or sleeping in until getting up for a late shift that started at three in the afternoon.
No boring ‘midweek Wednesday’ feeling any longer. No ‘Friday feeling’ to excite me.
Just shifts.
Now my life could not be more different. The days of the week have no relevance to my life whatsoever. I might go shopping on a Monday, or I might not. I take Ollie out every day, whatever day that is. I don’t miss any ‘Friday feeling’, because every day might just as well be a Friday. Or a Sunday.
Or a Wednesday, for that matter.
beetleypete 