That Was the Week That Was...

A week when a potential plague-vaccine has been unveiled, Trump has all-but conceded defeat and  the slighthiest tove in a political lifetime has left Downing St with his cardboard box...

 

And I wake up with a black dog glowering on my shoulder...

I shouldn't be surprised...it is well-known that the heart's landscape is just that -  just the way I feel, no more and no less. Nothing in the real world has changed overnight, for better or for worse. 

It helps to recognise that of course, and to take steps to keep things on track - back-track on a couple of commitments, verbalise how it feels (at least to myself, and on paper), eat soup, read a good book...

And shiney up a few dishes...

The Firebreak Files #15

Today is the 23rd anniversary of my lovely Mum's death. So here is my favourite pic of her, taken by her sister, I think, in one of the summers of the later 1940s, when they were walking together on Arran:

And here is the poem which I discovered while browsing the shelves of a bookshop in Ireland the summer after she died, and which always reminds me of this picture. And her:

"I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday -
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle - '
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life -
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us - eternally"

Patrick Kavagnah  'In Memory of My Mother'

The Firebreak Files #14

What shall I write about in the Firebreak Files tonight? says I

Write about Dylan, she replied, and wove me a tale of big brass beds and memories, of regrets and no regrets, of diamonds and of rust.

And I thought about the other Dylan, of Milkwood and Fern Hill...

"Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
     The night above the dingle starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
     In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be
     Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea."

The Firebreak Files #13

Kitty , in common with all long-legged dogs I have known, likes a bed to stretch out on (well, a choice of two actually, and her own armchair!). Or curl up on in the cooler nights. 

During the day, once it is tidied and covered, she takes up residence on our bed, from where she can keep an eye on, and remark upon, all the comings and goings in the road.

At night, once she deigns to come to bed, (think sulky teenager) she stretches out across the bed in the spare room.

Alistair has been using that room as a dumping-ground or transit lounge for 'stuff', while the ongoing process of turning the study/office into a gym/study/office is...ongoing.

A few days ago, rooting around under the bed, he came across a cardboard crocodile that one of us had made with Ben many, many years ago.

"Chris the Croc" featured, along with "Allosaurus" in adventures which Alistair used to tell Ben - Ben shared every small child's fascination for dinosaurs, and making cardboard replicas was a Saturday morning staple for quite a while:

"What are we going to make today, Daddy?".

But cardboard Chris has been placed, eye rolling and jaws agape just waiting for the moment Kitty would be curled up unaware of her peril - and I would be passing with my camera...

The Firebreak Files #12

An inauspicious start to the day when we quickly realised we had NO GAS! So no heating or hot water and no coffee!

Fortunately this is considered An Emergency, so a very prompt call-out, meant it was taken care of quickly and I received a welcome message: 'now we're cooking with gas!'

Because I was OUT! Walking Kitty, for the first time in days and days!

And lovely it was too - sunny with no wind - and Kitty and I had a little time on the golf course (the golf club being closed).

Other than that news, we wait, still, for the result of the U.S election - I wish it didn't matter to us, but it would be naive to pretend that is so.

And I  got excited about photographing reflections:

And made my best loaf yet:

The Firebreak Files #11

Part of this month's challenge is to find objects that are just useful, divest them of their 'usefulness', and display them as 'ready-made' art.

A la Duchamp's'Fountain'...

I actually find it quite hard to find 'just ordinary' things - my home is filled with repurposed stuff, or found stuff, most of which has significant emotional or sentimental attachment...

In other news, I managed a stroll along the prom this morning. And was rewarded with this beauty...

The Firebreak Files #10

Books I have loved this year...oh there have been quite a few! Like many others, I have read more under Lock-Down than before - and I was reading plenty before. Novels have always been a huge part of my interior life - I could read before I went to school and reckon school taught me nothing new...

So... Lock-Down books! Early on I started to buy copious books from my favourite online second-hand bookshop. A few were duds, and went back into the box for Oxfam (life is too short...). Quite a few were ho-hum, and some of those have suffered the same fate.

And a few were wonderful and have now been read twice...among those was of course Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet, and 'My Beautiful Friend' is number three in this year's best books list.

Number two in the list is the astonishing 'Station Eleven' by Emily St John Mandel - a post-apocalyptic, post-pandemic novel, achingly beautiful, horrifying and, I promise you, life-affirming!

And number one? Has to be 'Devisadero' by Michael Ondaatje, which I read twice, back to back in the summer ..

Happy reading!

The Firebreak Files #9

All weathers...

' Going out in all weathers', both physically and emotionally, has been much under discussion in my world  recently, and very much appealed to me - although I don't consider myself an outdoorsy type, I do love the weather, and live very close to the elements. 

And exploring the weather of my emotions, being ready to welcome and live with all the seasons of my mind has been very illuminating.

But badly hurting my leg last week has enforced a 'staying in in all weathers' on my physical movements. I haven't been past the very narrow confines of the garden - and then only to feed the birds and bring logs in from the woodstore.

 And this has had a knock-on effect on the range of my emotions. I find it all too easy to become narrow, contracted, constricted - finding that spacious and open place has not been easy at all...

But like Lock-down parts 1&2, these things are lessons for me in self-knowledge, self-acceptance, resilience - to be useful in the years to come I think...