Nighttime is the exterior's private time, and makes the interior, with lights on, exposed and public.

Such a snappy peppery day and bodily expressed by throat constriction (had trouble talking all day) and deep frown lines.

But, I have beside me a stack of travel photos newly printed up and again I am amazed at how visuals snap you back in space and time: a kind of soothing EST. Which brings to mind the EST Dick Cheney required for his heart murmur - that quivery buzz that he'd never noticed before - more numb soul. ("more" was meant to be "poor" - I like that either way.)

Sky looking nice and brooding outside my window, wind occasional through the next door neighbour's pear tree.

I swam for the first time this season and the water just kept streaming out of me afterwards and I have been reading of fairy tales and wolves and these make me read my things through a new type of rose-coloured lens. A type that aids the fine stitching required to hold it all together. Critics may dismiss palatable as evasive, but I disagree; I can hold my bundle more tenderly and calmly (the nearest state to objectivity perhaps?) if I am not in fear that I shall drop it.

The feeling is also, and assuredly, that this here and now, as sweet as it is, is not permanent and I have absolutely no idea what that will require of me in the near or distant future except that lessons in another language will be necessary.

a list of things that are good for me

an evening yoga class in a park: salutes into an umbrella of oak tree.
a bike ride to and from the park: serenity on wheels.
evening bath with my child: we discuss body glue - lymphatic fluid.
when in doubt, write.
when in doubt, move.
when in doubt, be still.
share a pot of tea.
ignore the washing up.
but wash the cute white bra.
lounge beside the pool and read design magazines: child floats luxuriously about on his noodle.
read empathetic words that make your heart float a bit.
eat paternal poppy-seed cake.
listen to the rain watering your vegetable garden for you.
think about making the writing room into the smallest, loveliest bedroom in the entire world and find oneself an equally small lovely tenant
and when in doubt, write
and when in doubt, move - purposefully.

Bikes, Rose and Options

Every available vase in my house is stuffed with roses. I love that.
It is evening here and I have a migraine creeping around the back of my eyes. However, I was so restless that I have ended up here, in my new favourite room of the house.

I can sit here and watch things like the neighbour's kids sneaking into the garden to retrieve their soccer ball, the washing draped in the sunshine, roses on fluffed up against the fence, broadbeans sagging, etc etc.

Am wondering about what this writing here is all about, what it is for? Because here, in this virtual space, I am really conscious that I have lost my goalposts: or rather, that I cannot judge how far away, or how close, I am too them. Quite an odd feeling.

There is a lot of tangibly good stuff going on in my immediate sphere and I am trying to consciously practice 'joyousness' (just been flicking through the old I Ching) but still feel suspension. Which, if I dredge the old Science class memory, is a beaker of clear liquid with mud/grit/substance on the bottom.

I remember sitting in Firenze and feeling the same way. That something was going to shift into go go go gear any day now but it just wasn't quite ready.

Stir it up?
Get earthed in garden and home?
Be patient?
Be impatient?

Or get on my bike?

ah, that would be it.

That beautiful aqua Repco number with one brake and a basket on the back.