Sometimes, When the Light

Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles
and pulls you back into childhood

and you are passing a crumbling mansion
completely hidden behind old willows

or an empty convent guarded by hemlocks
and giant firs standing hip to hip,

you know again that behind that wall,
under the uncut hair of the willows

something secret is going on,
so marvelous and dangerous

that if you crawled through and saw,
you would die, or be happy forever.
Lisel Mueller


Photo: Source unknown- apologies.

 Words are sometimes a problem for me now, when at one time words were part of my job, they are not as forthcoming.  When you have M.E. you loose words.  'Presque vu' - 'almost seen', 'on the tip of my tongue', they float about just out of reach and it drives you potty trying to catch them, like netting gold fish darting hither and thither in a pond or if you've ever had the occasion to try to catch a tame rabbit.

  One morning my eldest daughter came into the living-room with a big grey-brown rabbit she'd found hopping about in the back entry of our house. It was obviously an escapee, someone's beloved pet having made a run for freedom.  I decided a box to put it in was the best option (rather than a pie!) and went to find something suitable, but by the time I returned she'd made the mistake of putting it down.  Then....of course we had to catch it again!  Every time we approached it under the table it would niftily evade us.  It sat there there, eyeing us craftily from a distance, perfectly still.  Tantalising us with it's stillness, and then at the last moment it ducked and dove or otherwise manoeuvred, all the while growling and muttering, evading capture.  Until that moment I'd thought of rabbits as fluffy bunny creatures, that idea changed quickly, this was a beast, trying to bite at every juncture, spitting and screaming.  At least three quarters of an hour passed, school time loomed and my patience was wearing very....very thin, eventually all was resolved when there was a knock at the front door and a neighbour stuck her head around it and called, "Anyone seen our rabbit?". Words were at my beck and call back then, so you can imagine a few choice one's were thrown towards the door that particular morning!

This is just what I've been doing since my last post.... thank goodness, unlike some people who have ME I can still manage to occupy myself with reading.  Sorry to be away from here for such an inordinate length of time everyone, I have occasionally been able to at least read some of your lovely posts even if I haven't left a comment for you all.  As soon as I feel I might have turned a corner again, as Arnold said in 'Terminator'...
"I'll be back!".  In the meantime much love to you all.
x

Hello everyone.....so sorry to away SOOOO long, been in bed most of the time but I've been thinking of you all!

Photo: Wikipedia.     'The Poor Poet' by   Carl Spitzweg.

Cirque du Soleil     Photo:- Veronique Vial.

'You want to know what living life to the fullest actually is?  It's waking up on a Monday morning with no complaints.  It's knowing you always deserve to laugh.  It's doing what feels right no matter what.  It's doing what you want to no matter how stupid you look.  It's about being yourself, because no one can tell you you're doing it wrong.'                          -Unknown-

I'm just about recovering from a brilliant laughing fit I experienced just now.

I've just started reading a book I've had on my shelves for ages, I've had it that long I can only guess where it came from, probably one of the local charity shops in the village.  The one where one of the volunteer's is a retired librarian, and they seem to get better, less mangled books.  So.... there I am sipping my illicit coffee in my favourite cup, with the conservatory doors thrown open and the sunshine (what's that? sunshine in Manchester?) streaming in, when I came across this passage and just had to read it out aloud to my long-suffering husband who was playing solitaire against his lying cheating lap-top.  The lap-top it's alive...I swear! It continually tells him he can  'go', when he definitely can't.  Anyway I'm reading out this passage from my book and quite literally I'm laughing that much that my legs are flying in the air, my feet are drumming the laminate planks and tears are streaming down my cheeks!  To set the scene - Peter the protagonist is a writer who's come up against a dreaded block, so, living in New York he decides to go for a skate...like you do.  He dons all his equipment, strapping on matte black safety gear: helmet, elbow pads, wrist protectors with Velcro fasteners and plastic reinforcers, mittens and knee pads with black plastic cups over the joints themselves. I should explain he's been ten years before this, working in London and has recently moved to New York with his wife. He's even been to a blading school at Chelsea Piers NYC!  Where he found himself the only adult male amongst large middle-aged ladies and small children, so back to self-tutoring.  The scene is set:-

'There is one physical barrier that seriously blights my blading enjoyment.  It is the West Side Highway, the eight lane stream of traffic that I am forced to cross to get to the river walk.  Although there is a pedestrian crossing, the flashing green man has been wrongly adjusted by the Traffic Department.  For intermediate bladers like myself, he provides an inadequately fleeting window of opportunity in which to blade across, and the impatient traffic sits on the line revving up for their green, like racing cars waiting for a chequered starting-flag to fall.  Nor i it unknown for them to jump the lights.  I find that under the close scrutiny of eight rows of New York drivers, my blading deteriorates significantly.  I wobble nervously and falter like a beginner.  Once I reach the other side I feel triumphant, liberated.  Until the time approaches to cross again, as it always does.
But today, today is my last crossing of the West Side Highway.  Today I have almost reached the other side when unaccountably, my left skate jams and I fall heavily - just as the lights turn in favour of a grid of trucks.  The Mack truck nearest me releases its brakes with a menacing pneumatic wheeze, kicks into gear and advances.  I look up desperately, but my perspective is too low to allow me to see the driver, too low to fix him with pleading eyes.  The truck looms dangerously and then emits a vast, throaty, customized hoot.  My whole body resonates, right to the fillings in my molars.  I scuttle desperately to the kerb, a spidery, Gothic figure in my matte black safety outfit and the goat's hooves of my black skates.  I felt that I must look like one of those Calcutta pavement cripples, cosmetically enhanced by callous relatives for more proficient begging.  I haul myself up over the concrete lip to safety, where I sit, feeling the laughter of the driver wash over me.  Fast, proficient skaters, the ones I have been trying to emulate, blade gracefully past me.
"Bad blades, man.  You OK?" yells one cheerily, as he whisks past shirtless, and without any safety gear, casually ramping some substantial obstacle.'

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-U-S-New-Life-York/dp/0002571021/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349702936&sr=1-1

Yesterday afternoon.

Our house is on a very narrow, small cul-de-sac.  It's very tight to turn a vehicle around in too.  Partially because some driveways are too narrow to get a car up, necessitating that they be drawn up, half onto the pavement half on the road, but also because all the neighbours drive there are simply too many cars to fit on their drives, so the road is made even narrower by parked cars.  Imagine then my interest when a fire-engine drove up, a ladder-engine.  Hang on, is someone's house on fire?  Look for smoke...signs of panic, shouts, people?  Not a sign.  What a relief - all quiet, just the usual Saturday afternoon in the suburbs of the city, not a soul in sight.  The engine stopped, presumably ruminating on how to get out of the situation without pranging anything.  Two lovely young firemen jump out and go to the rear to direct operations, up a bit, left a bit, forward, back, shunt shunt, eventually the great red engine managed to park up, and sat there.  And sat there... I'm watching through my bedroom window, I could just about see inside the cab they were just chatting.  I suddenly thought of all the dangerous things these young men do for us.  Bright young men doing a job not everyone could contemplate.  Downstairs now, I'm rummaging through my larder.   Do I have chocolate somewhere?  No.. but I have biscuits, completely covered with chocolate.  I fling on a sweater and some shoes and make my way outside into the sunny September afternoon.
As I reached the engine the door swung open and six lovely smiley faces peered down at me.
" I don't know why you're here." I ventured,  "But, I just wanted to give you these." handing up the packet.
" You don't know why we're here? We're here to fit smoke-alarms, do you have them?"
"I do."
"Do they work?"
"They do, yes.  Anyway...... I just wanted to thank you all for what you do.  I think you do a brilliant job! I know you sometimes get abuse and even rocks thrown at you, but the people on this road are all nice people. So...Thank you! I think you're all brilliant!"
Six lovely handsome faces grinned down at me.
"Well.....it's not often we get this kind of treatment, thank you. We're not supposed to accept gifts but seeing as they arr..r..e chocolate! Thank you very much!"
They all waved as they drove off into the afternoon, it was lovely.  Afterwards I felt emotional thinking of the brave job that they do, these ordinary men who do extraordinarily dangerous jobs for us all every day.

It's not often we get a chance to be able to say thank you, I'm so glad that I did!

Photo: Wikipedia