Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

(The theme of my April A-Z challenge is 'That which I am or have been,' I should inform: 'Furious' luckily is rare.) This anger is chemical. It has a fuse. It will burn somewhere, even if you never see it.  If you worked to get this reaction, perhaps you will be disappointed.  The faster the flare the safer you will keep. Slow burn can sear through anything. Deflection increases heat. You will be cauterised, sealed out. Only open dialogue can defuse.

Grandchild Two decides that we need balloons with breakfast. She has found a pack and a pumper. Here’s a long pink balloon, she calls it a sausage ice-cream. She eats toast dipped in ketchup, why on earth would she want an egg? Grandchild One, that mischievous fox, tilts his head, slants his eyes. ‘Granma Lisa,’ he confides, ‘I fluffed.’ (Fluff being slang for a soft noised fart.) It is apparent his stomach is not quite right today. Everyone with a nose has it under cover. This is nothing after the vomit bug had his home floors awash. As soon as it was done, he was laughing, his mother says: especially as she was slipping over. She is laughing too. Grandchild Four is ill, staying at home (not alone- he has Dad there with him). Either teething or the bug has the boy miserable. On a better day he makes the best growl noises and loves all hugs. Grandchild Three seems weary. She has followed her cousin round and round, her big cousin, calling his name, over and over. S

Ditsy has a brain made of polka dots. Or is it ice cream? You can ask her why she is wearing a flowerpot for a hat, she’ll say it’s not a hat, she just didn’t have a pocket the right size for it. One never knows when one will need a flowerpot. But why the shoes on her feet don’t match: mystery. Because, Tuesday? Ditsy has an apron, a polka dot apron. It has exactly the right sized pocket for a flowerpot. But if she moves the pot now, her hair will look silly! She will put her hat in the pocket instead. And a stick of rhubarb. And some sequins, for later.

(Scratches scalp, sighs) I should remember how to add this code into my blog? I did it before. I can’t remember. Distract and come back to it? Oh, fine. Everyone on Facebook is feeling blessed. Think I’ll take a walk. See if I can remember to appreciate my legs. ‘How’s it going, hun?’ (Huffs: can't think with that racket going on!) ‘Do you want some wine?’ Neither question requires an answer.

‘Bodily, totally, root and branch,’ a phrase pressed into one word, ‘bodyaciously’ is given as the etymology for this word: slang from South Carolina.  Bodacious, in use from 1837 or earlier, may also be a blend of bold and audacious: a word composited from two synonyms. It was also the name of a bull famous for head butting rodeo contestants. Comedic chaos. Language should be this: like us: it requires play to fully live. 

I am ruled as the birds sing. I am open to weather. ~ There was that phase where I tried to live without cutlery (aged about 8?) The soup bowl had a lip, most awkward. In the end I gave in to a spoon. Cutlery began to make sense to me. But on the beach a shell was my spoon. It is still. When the gulls call, it sounds like they are laughing.

Tiredness is an arse. An inconsiderate underminer, riddling calm. Over and over, grace rises from stress, is interrupted. Focus slips to the floor, broken; mindfulness is kicked crossly into a metaphorical bin. It is not even a good shot. It rolls in shame, crumpled, to a halt. Oh gosh, we say, or something like that. And then wonder, what is all this work for? And what is to show for it? Did we need something- a house, perhaps? Being warm? No one remembers, only feels that it is unfair. But none of that was the point. It was finding the eternal in the moment: the spark, the genius, the serendipity! How did we forget? The jaw dropping splendour of the whole universe? Somehow, we forgot. Tiredness is a repetitive arse. It is not the only thing that tangles us: there are many recurrent debilities. They tangle our steps, like dirty shirts dumped on the floor. Same old shirts and quirks of fear. Never mind. Fill up the wash basket. Run yourself a bath. B

This paperback of The Catcher In The Rye is a second reprint from 1987. It has age spots and a typeface I like (Monotype Bembo) and I would have been 17 in that year but I don’t remember if that’s when I bought it.  Surely I had read the book earlier, maybe even in hardback?   I remember Holden Caulfield though; disaffected antihero, soul in a soulless world, thinker in a thoughtless world. He acted on impulses born of that odd mix of emotion and moral responses. He had a keen insight into people, even if he was confused by what he saw: he saw it, reacted to it. He had stubbornness and integrity and that  individualistic  red hat. (If you don’t know the plot and/or the palaver of this book, have a quick cheat here: The Catcher In The Rye .) Rereading was a gamble - what if I’d left my old friend Holden too far behind? Perhaps I would find him gauche, all acne and embarrassment? If old JD had been having a laugh? What if I wanted to save him? What if I’m a phoney now

Tuesday Is A  Calm Day Peelings piled in a pot, hob-simmered; dots of herb leaf turning, jade flecks in amber convections.  This onion, roasted to a sweet paste. Bone stock brewed overnight, tucked into the Rayburn’s dinky oven. This makes soup, a shimmering dark gold soup, edged in lemon zest, earthed with turmeric. But we are so hungry we add rice, pale rice, carrot, broccoli, red leaf, a fresh shine of onion, orange lentils, tomatoes; all the colours slippery rich with good oils. We put hot food in deep plates and we eat our feast outdoors. At the end house the clearance men are working. We hear their chatter. The house is being emptied: we speak of it briefly, sadly. Our lawn is mowed. The sun shines and the breeze does not steal that warmth. In the polytunnel, flora is waking; we speak of this, the spring miracle, the full happiness of it. There will be left overs for supper, we say, and this is how life should be. Wednesday Is A Travel Day  Our car become

My calendar says it is the 15th day of the 3rd month of the 15th year of the 21st century, a specificity that should focus a mind to the present point. My head says, is this Sunday? Possibly it is… No real decisions are made but we find ourselves stalking the moorlands with a sharp wind and a shovel.  We heft a small sack of horse poo half a mile or so, a circular route, back to the car. Unburdened then up Cox Tor, all the way to the panorama and the full push of wind. We hide for a while in the dip of a rock nest. Dog wags patiently. We climb down over knolls of buried stone; matted in grass, it reminds me of sloth hair and giant knucklebones. Gargantuan knuckle dragging sloth monsters slumbering under our feet. In every pool, ladles of frogspawn, rich bubbles of life.  Even here, where the vegetation is dwarfed by harsh weathering, there is succulence in this waking season. The sloths will be dreaming of warming sun. We sit in the car, heater on; we ar

If we are lucky, there is a recollection from childhood that we revere for being a time when expectations were delivered upon. Impatience at the waiting will have existed, but we remember the thrill better. Ingratitude may have been present, but not held in memory. We were open to the immensity of receiving and satiated by the result. It could have been a toy, a feast, a visit, any number of details. If we are lucky, we have this in memory. This is the uncomplicated bliss with which I hold a new seed catalogue. Those who garden understand, those who don’t feel let down perhaps - a seed catalogue? Recaptures all that? Not recapture, not nostalgia. A development of the grateful receipt that allows true happiness. As adults, we must do the work ourselves of course, it is a more proactive experience. We make decisions - here the priorities are edible and medicinal - towards constructing our lives, living how we wish to live in order to make the most of being alive: not ex

When I click the beams full, my car has the eyes of a giant. The road and the night are one colour. I follow a line of stars homeward. All the sky is stars: a maze of lights: the eyes of my car gape. How simple it would be to amble up, meander, squint-bleary, marvel time away. How would we find our way back? I don’t know. I think we would be laughing too much, but then find a bean stalk, helter-skelter, plonk, back on the driveway. Find a pot of gold in the footwell.

Frost held the grass still, early this morning. Birds sang. Daffodils, without the nods of breeze, seemed lost in dreams. Today they took Clarrie to the crematorium. There will be a fine view over the woods from there. Maybe the starlings will fly, make sympathetic murmurations over the canopy of Cardinham.  Grandchild 2 passed the pegs, while we hung out washing on the rotary lines. My back ached from levelling soil, from making new beds in the polytunnel: we will grow melons for the summer. ‘It is sad, Granma,’ the little one says. ‘Your friend is died.’ And she says, ‘Oh! I love melons!’ She helped to seal the envelope of the memoriam card, carried it to Carol next door, for passing on at the service. Ron was going up to feed the chickens: the little one went up too, made backward skips away from the pecking. ‘Remember Clarrie’s sweet peas?’ Carol said. ‘We collected seeds in September, you can have some. We can all grow sweet peas at the side of our houses.’

This skyline is a pale bleed, cloud into sea, dissolving. The sea is salt-milk, wind churned, flung in daubs, white froth on fish-silver sheen. Above the wind-line clouds edge inland, sun on their backs, grey fleece and opal. A three-quarter moon in the clear sky sits, pulling tides. Mr and me, in the car with the bad starter motor, sit, eat bargain bucket cream tea from regrettable plastic. Gulls are calling, in flight, at the fierce air. Gorse shivers non-stop. This show is fantastic. It has everything. Cloud swallows moon. Crumbs of scone skim out into the road.

Winter melts. In breezes Spring, the unfurler, the light of wing. Wind comes cold without bite: a soother of fevers, a sweeper of fears. Warmth comes, in beams of sun. What is it that you want, the earth whispers: I can grow it. Up in the field the old barn is breaking. ‘Entropy.’ I point: Dog has an air of trying not to laugh in my face. (What is it that she knows?) At home mess has vigorous regrowth. Today it signifies creative abundance. Crumbs of bread because our soup was delicious. Mud prints over the kitchen floor because the garden begins its bloom. Drain still blocked and this matters not: if anything, how the water spills, the foam from washed clothes, the icky slick of dish water, it is lively, jaunty even, over the messed up gravel. Washing whips on the line till we pull it in out of the hail. The sun comes back, beaming warm.

Friday Afternoon: In daylight, I saw the owl. White, the colour of ghosts and beginnings; deep in purpose, flying over a road. Tired, I was, but in warm clothes. The sky was rinsed blue, the roads wet. How the old car still rolls is mysterious. But, there I was, driving rust through road-spray, struck admirably dumb. Saturday Afternoon: Rain span out from the edge of a storm. From inside my polytunnel bubble I hear it. I am smiling, tidying up, making ready. My running shoes mud-sodden, left on the porch step. My legs feel good. Earth browned hands untangle roots. Here and there budlets burst from a stem. Here: peeping from a pot, the pretty faces of winter pansies.  Put into my pocket rich leaves for soup.  

What a show this is, the Weather Spectacular! Hail strikes and sheets of lightening - gripped we are in the drama of it - agog for thunder which rolls elsewhere - where did that thunder go? And when the sun strikes up the wind cuts ice cold through unwary bones. And then rain, heavy  rain that would flatten a rainbow. How can water be so cold and not ice? The sky so dark and not night? And if there were a time to venture tender petals, would this be it? A time for buds to birth from bark? But here they are: vulnerable, with fortitude. The miracle of reoccurrence. 

This urge to write is to let words follow a course. To think of Granma Grace, 85 years collected, armfuls of flowers, roomful of family, all fetching more flowers till the vases are full. Sat, adored. Lauded. Looking at her cards. To think of home where a crocus appears in the lawn and rats are infiltrating the compost. We are outside, clearing up, working on deterrents, finding a blocked drain, a wall of calm spiders. And one starling, deceased. Mr calls me to it, thinking it is injured, breathing: it is not. A sharp wind ruffles the feathers, makes illusory movement. To think of Dear Old Clarice: how like a hedge bird she was, the same spark about her, the same work ethic, the same amused head tilt. We had come home to find an ambulance parked outside her house. ‘Did she fall again?’ ‘No,’ the paramedic says. He has a perfect pitch of calm. They must wait for the family. The sky warm blue; the air blows ice. We busy ourselves making space. Drag out a pile

I do not want to get out of bed. It is the right weather for hiding in bed with a book. Mr does not want to get out of bed. He is sure he has more sleep to attend to. But if your Granddaughter requests to see you fly, out of bed you get. Dog does not want to get into the car. What if there is a vet involved? An injection? Reluctance and rain, that’s how the day begins. To the Eden Project we go, park up, send Girl, Grandchild  and Dog to the viewing platform with all the bags. Mr and me jump on a bus to the Skywire shed office and hand over cash for wrist bands. We sign forms to say we are unlikely to die of an existing complaint. (Nothing on the form about a restrictive fear of heights, luckily.) We are put into harnesses and weighed in kilos, which I only use to buy sugar for brewing and begin to calculate how many gallons worth am I? The safety talk is simple: Do Not Touch Anything. Meanwhile Jenny takes the van to the landing site. They will transport bags

A phone call comes, brings the news in low voice. We knew he was old, of course, not immortal, but our picture of the world has an Uncle Den as a building has a foundation stone. With his passing, a puzzling gap appears. We have stories, of course, like how he loved to paint, he liked rum, he wasn’t so keen on the gout; we paint him back with our words, with our gratitude. He knew the world before we came to it. He knew the world at war. He knew to be kind. He was happy. He was a grand and gentle role model for a flock of children. Into the car, we go. We fit one granddaughter, one godson. Find, at a train station, one son. Gather at a house; children are spilling everywhere. Sun shines, draws us out. There’s the usual comedy of one car following the other and being lost at the traffic lights and a car park reunion. Tiny ones are strapped to a pram, they kick their legs, sometimes each other. The older three bounce like Tiggers, all the way to the ice rink. We can hold them