Day 590: Take a Bite of Peach

Hats off to the Spotify copywriter who came up with the line 'eat that working week like a peach' to publicise their feelgoodiest playlist. That was my feelgood fix right there. 

If you love language, the way words sit on your tongue or roll around in your mouth has a completely different texture to a perfunctory sentence, made without art or pleasure. There's nothing wrong with it, but why eat unsalted potatoes when you can take a bite of peach that makes you groan with the pleasure of it. 

Hats off too to the faces of the two lifeguards this morning. I'm a tea addict and I'm trying to stop, and from within the cupboard, the huge box of Yorkshire Tea has nothing better to do than sit and call my name like a siren lolling on a rock. So I brought this box of enticing, shouty tea to the pond to palm off on Ruth, who didn't show. I asked if I could leave it with them and their eyes got so much bigger. They'd been sitting on two teabags, trying to make them last, because they'd run out. There have to be two lifeguards at the pond at all times, so there's no popping to the corner shop for them. Aaah, serendipity, how I love you. 

Day 589: Announcing Your Place

Things are good, aren't they? They are. 

SO much has happened since the last time I wrote and yet what stands out? Always the tiny things:

* butterflies fliffing up in waves from within long grass and flowers in a churchyard 
* a great swathe of wildflowers making Preston Park specialler than I'd ever imagined it
* a child given a microphone, making animal noises, echoed back massively by the crowd
* tears watching a beautiful daughter sing to her beautiful mother - a privilege to witness

So many big things have happened, and these are the jewel gifts that sparkle. 
Thank you.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.


You do not have to walk on your knees


for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.


You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.


Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.


Meanwhile the world goes on.


Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes,


over the prairies and the deep trees,


the mountains and the rivers.


Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,


are heading home again.


Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,


the world offers itself to your imagination,


calls to you like the wild geese,

harsh and exciting -

over and over

announcing your place in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

Day 598: Top & Teeth

This is Victoria in my cupboard,
years ago.

Yesterday, I had my top on back to front all day. Thank you for not saying, even though my throat was all coddled in it and my nape was all bare. And thank you that I'm not a teenager any more. It'd have taken me an aeon to get over that as a teen.

Thanks for that Victoria Sandison and that Sue Hayes and that Greg Vukasovic and that tiny Aristotle. Vic's been here for three days, on and off, and it's been easy like good friendship is. The first time we saw each other this trip was a feast. People who've been fed on gruel but live in the memory of nourishment suddenly getting a whole joyful buffet to dig into. Ooh, the vol-au-vents! Oh god, the sprouting broccoli! The puddings!

This time it was just good, healthy ease. Lovely to have her there. Moreish, but every morsel a bonus. I wasn't craving any more because if at all, I only really expected to see her properly that once, after plans changed, so to have her here during that time was a gift. 

Step away from the goofy gosling

Thank you Veal, for being a joy to play with. Thank you, Greg, for being delightful. Thank you, Ruth, for an unplanned Heathside coffee stop before 8am yesterday, after the pond. Thank you, pond. On Monday, a little later than usual, the sun had warmed the top two inches of the water. It was warm like a blanket, and underneath, cold skin. 

Thank you for the ripples dancing up the willow trunks, and for the preeny mallards and the snippety coot; for territorial goose strutting and ungainly goslings, and for the sweetly delicate mandarin ducklings, geisha-like in their markings, curious and brave for such tiny things in such a big and teethy world. 

Day 597: Bliss and Jellyfish

Blown. Away.

A weekend of learning and dancing and sitting and singing and beautiful music made by beautiful people and shared by other beautiful people. Am I gushing? Fuck it... it's only going to get worse.

I love all that communal stuff - the joy of cooking together and washing up; of hugging everyone a lot; of getting to do the things we all love to do. For example, I gave a few massages - shorter or longer, but given just the same. And other people all offering their thing - hands on healing, cranio-sacral, just chatting, making music, making people laugh. Such a glorious experience. And the people. Honestly, I could eat each and every one of them entirely up. I wouldn't even need seasoning.

Speaking of which, the food I ate this weekend... all of it made me either dance or cry, or both. A beany, vegetably stew, a sweet Moroccan mouth-party and a sweet potato mash veggie shepherd's pie... oh and the raw chocolate pudding, creamy, rich and velvet-smooth, and not even a dash of sugar. Just avocadoes (mashed beyond recognition, taste-wise as well as texturely), raw chocolate and honey. How can I be allowed such tasty bliss?

And after all the hugly goodbyes, the hugs continued in the world of outside. The train was so full on the way back that i plumped for the upgrade to first class. It wasn't expensive, actually, and it was a fine choice. As the lady said - today, it's worth ever penny. I had with me one bag big enough to hide a body and another smaller one, but still big. I didn't fancy forcing my way on with them. I honestly don't think I'd have made it. 

I sat with a delightful elderly lady, very willing and open and happy to talk, and a lovely young man (what am I, 85?). He started it, and within minutes we were all talking. He helped her off with her bag at Reading and we left the train together. Although we didn't know each other's names, we hugged goodbye. Twice, in fact. Once at the frontier of the tube, as I had to top up, and again at Kings Cross - we crossed paths again getting off the tube. His name (I asked) was Alistair. He is an occupational therapist and he's just come back from Devon where he was training as a pacemaker for his friend, who is about to do a 26-hour swim. He encountered four big, brown, flobbly jellyfish. He didn't like that. He got stage two hypothermia. He got bumped into by a shoal of mackerel. He didn't like that much either, but was pleased to be able to tell it. Not as pleased as me, though. What a great thing to say. 

And now, as if this whole weekend full of joy and genuine loveliness and new learning wasn't enough, I get a proper dose of That Victoria Sandison, who is passing through on her way a. to work and b. to Melbourne. Oh YES!  

PS - pictures to follow.