Stories that make sense
I passed this wall as I walked home this afternoon, and had to stop to take a second look. I could say something about how the temporal and the eternal are all mixed up together. I could say something about having to be willing to let go in order to produce something really spectacular. But actually I just thought it was beautiful.
We had a John Lewis voucher to spend, so got some winter gear. I am not a great adherent of the cult of Pink For Girls, but all the other snowsuits were lacking in feet, sold out of the appropriate size, or unspeakably tasteful. (Read: boring. And liable to look grubby.)
I’m finding things a little difficult at the moment. No sooner did the baby concede to sitting in a bouncy chair so I could get on with doing things than I slipped getting out of the shower and bashed my knee and had to spend three days in bed and two weeks on the sofa. No sooner did my knee get back to normal than the dark closed in. Still, things are generally not as bad as all that, and all over my home town people are decorating their windows to remind me of it. None more so than this.
Today the sky is very blue and the grass is very green and the sunlight is making everything 25% more beautiful than it was before. And compared to yesterday, which was a day of wind and drizzle, it’s at least 200% more beautiful.
This skirt has a deadline: two weeks and a bit from now. There is still quite a lot of hemming to do, in limited sewing time. It’s very tempting, though, to add more decoration. It’s a question of balance.
Sunset on All Saints’ Day, and I find myself singing The golden evening brightens in the west. Although this year We feebly struggle/ They in glory shine seems more like where I’m at, and apart from all the leaves the photo is saying sempiternal though sodden towards sundown three months early.
I’ve been feeling somewhat adrift from the seasons this year. My calendar emptied out after mid June, and you can never quite believe the weather these days. The garden is running wild with most of the fruit unpicked. Suddenly it’s November. But I got out into the golden evening on All Saints’ Day, and that’s something.
But now I’m in my own house, listening to water dripping off the pram onto the floor. The great advantage is that I know where the kettle is here.
Everybody loves the strawberry hat. (They tend to be favourably impressed by the baby, too, but it’s the hat that gets the attention.)
Clocks go back. Not this one, though: it’s not going anywhere, in either direction, until it gets a new battery.
I always used to look forward to the day the clocks go back. I find dark mornings far more difficult than dark evenings. This year, it hadn’t registered in my consciousness in the same way, my schedule being so much less predictable. Ironically, I think it’s going to be helpful in a rather different way, moving all the day’s appointments an hour later while keeping breakfast and dressing the same. We weren’t even late to church this morning.
“Two leeks and a lemon,” I said.
“Is she calling you a lemon?” the man on the market stall said to my baby. Then he said to me, “There’ll be moments you remember. Enjoy them.”
“Enjoy the quiet,” said the woman in the bakery, leaving me to my coffee and my sleeping baby.
And indeed, lately I’ve been drawing inspiration from a mug that claims The secret of enduring is enjoying.
People say it a lot. Enjoy… Enjoy… Usually it seems to be those who became parents a while ago, perhaps regretting their own missed opportunities to enjoy. I think it’s inevitable. Enjoyment is an active thing, and sometimes (often?) you don’t have the energy to be as active as all that. But there are plenty of moments, and enjoying can be as simple as noticing.
Kathleen Jowitt 