Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Affirming sun splashes on every bared surface. Down by the river, Mr and me are climbing trees. The river runs lower than we've ever seen, the water clear enough to show where the rocks are pointed, where the mud slides to depths. Mesmerised, one foot slides astride a trunk, lands one leg in a bramble tangle. No harm done: if anything, more laughter appears. Okay, maybe today is not the day for shimmying out on the branch that overhangs those incisive boulders. But still, foot scuffs in the moss of the thick trunked fallen tree: they are proof of this: I was here: I laughed.

April's A-Z Challenge is put to bed :-)  Sleep is the drift between one day and another. Dreams come from this: tumbles of thought and hope and things that happened that we saw, or heard about, or felt. Night spreads like wet ink, slippery as squid, heavy eyelids sink, sink. Deep, down: drowned in sleep: subsumed. Held in suspension: sleep is a chrysalis. As we wake, shade becomes colour. Yes, I remember now. And if I were never here, the lightness would mean so much less. I remember, I regain: swim upwards, laughing.

A-Z part Y 'What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.' Richard Bach. An Emperor Dragonfly, tattooed on my shoulder, in flight, is always wings stretched, always having climbed from egg to grub to chrysalis to this leap of faith. Grub form lingers in half-light, calls the shadows home. Much is learnt in these formative shades. Grub feels comfortable in this mud, in this formational half-light: feels safe being half-formed, being unlaunched. This is the comfort zone of discomfort. If I hurt, if I am failed, I need not fear waiting for pain or failure to find me. Foolish grub! Life is not only harsh truths: not all truth need be harsh. Sunlight is no lie. Grub at the base of the reed, looking up, hesitant: drawn. What is it that I want then? To live in this half-light, as most people do, but to leave a body of work that is the beautiful, truthful guide to living in economic vagary, though people migh...

X is the unknown, the independent variable: also the mark of treasure, of affection, of the illiterate. Here is a formula to consider: My life + X = perfect Dog and me, we wander the woods, hear only the wind, the river, a whir of duck wing. Thirsty eyes drink up the green, and cheer. There's a bough over deep water that I've seen, and dare to climb. Here, even my slight shiver of fright is refreshing. Giggle and get down, gently, as the bank is not sturdy. Walk then, over anemones, primrose, wild garlic, baby stalks of bramble and rose, down where the fallen tree has gathered a shale beach, and off come my boots and the water is not so cold and the rocks mud-slippy. If I had thought of it, I would have drawn an X in this shored up silt, where the sun was shining through the edge of the new leafed trees.

A-Z challenge part W: This is a mash up of my writing, or perhaps I should think of these words as simmered into something tasty and nourishing? I have been strolling the fields with Dog. The weather swirls from hot to cold; an assortment of fattened clouds are dumped across the sky, humidity fluctuates from one step to the next, like the dial has broken. It reminds me of when I’m tired and trying to cook. The weather is trying to remember how to knock up a thunderstorm, but keeps putting the cumulonimbus down somewhere in the troposphere, and promptly losing it . Then it forgets the dew point of water. And how much turbulence to add? Tiredness is a great friend to forgetfulness. I’m tired now, and there’s a tired pile of dishes soaking in the kitchen sink. Only the thought of coffee is strong enough to pull me back up the slope of this slippery field, in through the heavy clank of old farmhouse doors, into the kitchen. On the crumb speckled worktop, over the surf-stic...

The A-Z reaches V!  Holiday- a day set aside by law or statute as exempt from regular business activities to commemorate a date or festival. A Holy Day: a part of a nation's history. Vacation- a scheduled period of time during which regular business ceases. Vacate: relinquish, empty, withdraw. Please mull over that in your own time: which you would prefer, whether it matters...  Right now, my perfect time would be spent with an espresso machine, a library, a laptop, a blank sketchpad, a sunny beach. What I have is a stovetop espresso pot, a small bookcase, the internet, a laptop (slightly cranky) some clear sketchbook pages and a damp garden. This is not a complaint, for it's not too far removed from the ideal. This damp garden has primroses, chairs clustered around the bonfire ash, a rogue chicken and eight budding currant bushes. My answer to the question is: forget semantics, let your lexicons fall: if the sun shines, close your eyes, bask....

At our first Black belt grading: Zoe and Boy literally strike a pose... Once upon a time I was never going to start training in Tae Kwon-Do. I tried it, because I am always curious about things and it seemed polite to pay some attention to the profession of the man I was dating. All I ever seemed to hear was 'Are you going to do Tae Kwon-Do then?' (In an annoying singsong fashion: not how it was said, that's how I heard it…) Being a strong, independent, working mother I did what I did, not what my boyfriend did: but I liked him enough to try a lesson. Both things worked out rather well. I never liked gradings, though, they made me horribly nervous and full of distracted mistakes, until I reached red belt, when, in spite of nerves and still with odd errors, there was a confidence growing. It was the confidence of having made it through all the previous gradings, the confidence of knowing my training was ample. Also, before we grade, we have the ritual of the ...