'Some people dance in the rain and others get wet.'
-Roger Miller, Singer songwriter -




The summer reigns on, rains on.  Somewhere there will be children staring from steamed-up windows, gazing out through this fence of steel knitting-needle rain falling to earth.  Mind you...are there any children out there longing to play outside any more?  It seems I may be thinking back too far into my own past remembering.  Most probably they are all mesmerized by different screens, glass certainly, but 'windows on the world' of a different kind.

I was drinking my morning illicit cup of coffee earlier, illicit because caffeine seems to be not good for those of us with M.E. however....I enjoy it and I've had to forgo quite a few things since being ill so I've reached a point of, "Oh what the heck and allow myself one cup savouring every sip!"  Anyway I was reading a magazine article, simultaneously raising my favourite cup to my lips, I reckon if I'm doing something illicit it had better look the part  and then I came across Tim Lott's words:

'Because I had learnt, more deeply than ever before, that life is lived not through fantasies of control, but by giving in to it and trusting to the future.  Why?  Who knows?  What happens now?  Again, who knows?  And isn't that the wonderful perfect, remarkable thing about being alive?  The uncertainty.  You must love the uncertainty.  Because only when you have begun to accept that life is as insubstantial as a wisp of smoke and that you are helpless, that it will end in death and oblivion, can you discover the true joy of simply breathing, and looking, and being, just being, right here, now.'    -Tim Lott- 

 Uncertainty according to the Chambers Concise dictionary means not sure or certain, not definitely known or decided, not to be depended upon, likely to change, though it can also mean lacking confidence or hesitant.  So the fact that I'm uncertain dealing with uncertainty poses a difficulty....certainly.

Mind you, if I'm uncertain then even that difficulty itself becomes uncertain surely?  Which is what Mr Lott was saying I think, although I don't like to think that there is only oblivion after death, that's not a certainty and therefore he can't then be certain of that outcome of course.  ;)))

However....'The moment when you first wake up in the morning is that most wonderful of the twenty-four hours.  No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen.  And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot.  The possibility is always there!'  -Monica Baldwin- 

I was about eight when I first saw the film 'The Red Balloon' it was all in black and white then, no colour, hardly any dialogue, although as child I don't think I noticed this at all, it was totally magical. I never forgot the small boy in the rain greyness of the post-war streets of Paris rescuing the sentient balloon and its befriending of him.  Recently I was enchanted again watching the newly restored coloured version.  Paris looks romantic if shabby, the skyline pearly and its people worn.  The small boy in his brown shoes runs through the cobbled streets playfully followed by the cheeky, rebellious balloon so red...so shiny.

Why aren't balloons shiny any more?

Les Ballons

by Oscar Wilde

Against these turbid turquoise skies

The light and luminous balloons

Dip and drift like satin moons,

Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust,

Rise and reel like dancing girls,

Float like strange transparent pearls,

Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling,

Each with coy fantastic pose,

Each a petal of a rose

Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees they climb,

Like thin globes of amethyst,

Wandering opals keeping tryst

With the rubies of the lime.

Angels about?

This morning sunshine after two solid days of heavy summer rain, there's been flooding all over the north- west of England.  Earlier a magpie landed on my window-ledge and looked in at me with his black shiny eyes and sharp pointy beak, whilst snowflakes of angels feathers blew on the breeze or so it seemed.  Either someone somewhere was shaking free their duvet or a million dandelion clocks had stopped ticking and tufts of time floated freely in the morning air.  Lazing along not a care in the world.
This side of my magpie stand white freesia and carnations, they capture my heart and their fragrance perfumes my day.

Questions About Angels

by Billy Collins

Of all the questions you might want to ask

about angels, the only one you ever hear

is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time

besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin

or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth

or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God's body and come out singing?

Do they swing like children from the hinges

of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?

Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colours?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,

their diet of unfiltered divine light?

What goes on inside their luminous heads?  Is there a wall

these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole

in a river and would the hole float along endlessly

filled with silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive 

in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume

the appearance of the regular mail-man and

whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians control the court.

The only question you ever hear is about 

the dance floor on the head of a pin

where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,

billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse

into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:

one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,

a small jazz combo working in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful

eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over

to glance at his watch because she has been dancing 

forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

Copyright 1991 by Billy Collins. All rights controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press.