Received a letter length email today from a dear friend. It unlocked something in my heart, something to do with seeing and being seen, caring and being cared about. It made me cry.
Today was an oddly blustery early-summer day. Gorgeous sunset; vibrant sunlight bursting through a low bank of clouds, casting vivid yellow hues all over the tree-scape and all throughout our kitchen. It made me want to bawl.
Finally picked up my knitting needles this evening. This also made me cry. I was so happy and relieved to have time to get a new project started and my happiness, with a mind of its own, rose up in a rush from my heart straight to the backs of my eyes, stung my eyeballs, and transformed into silent, painful tears. Indeed, tears seem to be ready and waiting these days, ready to spill over at any moment. No, correction – only in happy moments, only ever in the happiest of moments. My eyes are stubbornly dry in the sad ones.
At playgroup today we talked about Doc Martins. Can’t believe we, as teenagers, used to travel three hours on the train from Maitland to Glebe to check out the special edition ones, the ones you couldn’t get in Newcastle. No internet shopping of course back then, back in the old days!
The heat is relentless, bearing down all day, from mid-morning to after sunset, wearing one’s spirit. No breaks, no air-conditioning, no reprieve. Hot days really are a bit of a trial.
Watering the cherry tomatoes together this evening when Master E suddenly piped up – “It was sad that Nanna died. She was a very nice Nanna of ours. But it’s good that she’s in heaven. Then she won’t be lonely”.
Look! Here is a moment, nice and calm,
here is a moment to breathe.
Look! There is another – see – way down there,
there is a moment to breathe.
Close your eyes, don’t worry now,
close your eyes, and leap.
Leap through time like a light gazelle,
from moment to tiny moment to tiny moment.
Master E woke from a nightmare at 4:30am this morning. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I just lay there, back in my bed, soaking in the predawn stillness, listening to the odd car or two rolling through our lane way, smoothly and carefully crunching gently over the gravel. All is well at this time of day, all seems well out there in the sleeping world, so early in the morning, or so I like to think. All is not well in my mind (there is too much going on in there as usual), all is not well in my body (it is stiff and sore from neglect), but all is well, I think, deep in the universe, in the inner fabric of all things; I think all is very well there.
“That Monday morning in October 1943. A beautiful day with the buoyancy of a bird.”
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote.
My isle of serenity 