Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Questioneer is not a typo. It is an attempt to climb, to make the summit of How To Live. Every question should have an answer, in a balanced world, but every answer can create several questions. Avalanche!! It is not easy, except to be overwhelmed. One hold at a time, we get and keep our grip. (And if ever you need to practice, spend time with a three year old. They question everything except their own spontaneity.)

This morning, early, early-ish. Coffee bubbles. Eggs are poached in domes. Air is clear, cool to touch. Buttocks press on damp bench-plank. The view, half green, half blue. Out of this protein and caffeine draw some wakefulness. Protean: this is how the word wanders up in my mind. A mix of protein and caffeine? Versatile, changeable. Reluctant to be driving. Open window. Clock watch. On time, parking is easy. Feel competent, even, yes, sociable. In the big hall, one thousand white suits, one thousand voices, one thousand techniques: or thereabouts. It sounds like one thousand, it feels like one thousand. Every one happy, breaks sweat, body moving, brain connecting - this move goes here because - aha! How to smite your enemies! All the lovely relaxing loss of tension - I would describe as ebbs in swirls - how it leaves you as you should be, happy, glowing. And for the journey home, no satellite navigational advice. Follow a whim to Glastonbury instead, decide to vis

Lacking a geopolitical stronghold (unless the polytunnel counts) I am not a true oligarch. I dream of a stronghold, as any oligarchic candidate would - a vague yet vivid dream involving wide open space, water, natural materials, a sense of sparkle… I have four hired venues for my teaching, however, in which I strut up and down waving a stop watch, issuing orders, organising, delegating , reviewing, assessing, correcting, planning, answering questions, provoking thought, promoting harmony and progression on as many levels as possible. I suspect my pay is below oligarchic average; job satisfaction, above. 

Dog's first train ride... She gets the hang of it quickly- as long as she can sit in the middle of the walkway... The round house was much admired. This says 'tree also elephant baby with hands.' Seaweed hair extensions. Crutches on sand, this was amusing. Yesterday we wrote in the sand. There was not time for any other scribing. We found a square of part pebbled beach, where the waves curled around a tall harbour wall, curled around the river currents, clear and shining. Gulls sat, iconic and thievish, watching. Here we lingered over possibilities of real estate, digesting our fine lunch, working up appetites for ice cream.  Back from our day trip in time to fly to work, home again with time to watch a film before our eyes would not stay open. Yes and No both are empowering words: it is all in the context. Yesterday I chose: no other scribing.

[Centile: one of 99 actual or notional values of a variable dividing its distribution into 100 groups with equal frequencies; the 90th centile is the value of a variable such that 90% of the relevant population is below that value.] Magnificentile: a scale on which you measure the magnificence of your life. On which you choose what the centiles represent. Today I choose bluebells, eating outdoors, the noise of bees. Measuring a full quotient, as is usual. Dog agrees. She is no mathematician, merely a genius.

A sprouting, unnecessary yet exuberant, from the word ‘lovely,’ this expression conveys a deal done to the favour of the expresser, or some unearned luck. Not a phrase so often used these days; perhaps from the taint of 1980s greed; though it has a jolly twang, a satisfaction to it. Something of the child holds in the simplicity of it, and the element of gloating. So I use it to convey here an uncomplicated swell of pride. It is my wolfish appreciation at the shelves of seedlings in the polytunnel, at the fertile garden, of how this work reaps reward. It is the grin at a grandchild, engrossed, who in all the paradise of fauna has set herself up on the driveway to play with items retrieved from the recycling bag and pots of borrowed pond water. ‘Making soup dear? Lovely jubbly!’

I am keen. On Life. Every minute every excruciating minutiae Detail of it. This afternoon we drove towards home: from Kent to Cornwall Hot behind car glass because the air con is broken Open windows sporadically: beautiful relief. Over Blackhill Downs a cloud had dropped, split like a fallen craft- Into the mist we drove it was neither Recognisably, day, night? The sun was barely shining, a plain disc Until hilltops: there it glared And in the valleys, dense, debris vapour And the evening came. We drove as the sun dipped to the earths’s edge Seemed to set it on fire: cloud or smoke forming in the sky The sky: Rubescent, turquoise, molten gold Expanse beyond detail Gestaltist, joyous: Keen, the experience of everything.

Jealous, Not: that was the intended title. Such wise things I would write; of things you are supposed to want to make your incomplete life connected, of dangerous comparisons pressed upon us. About how we should not daydream of ‘when’ but look to our hearts and know what it is that we truly wish for, and figure out what can be done to work towards this, figure out what is it that we have all ready that is part of this. For example, I love outdoor life. I dream of outdoor bathrooms and kitchens. I have a garden. Mr has built a lean-to space, where the loganberries go berserk, with a mouldering work table. This has been stuck with junk, which slowly, slowly I am clearing: an outdoor kitchen will grow from this determination. A friend has even given us a sink and draining board. It’s propped, waiting.The hose pipe will be our outdoor plumbing. And how splendid it is simply to say, I should like a sink, and there one is! And while I’m trailing round, putting things in piles fo

This is not a characteristic, but a type of getting or maintaining fitness with exercise that changes intensity.  This morning I used the walk, jog, sprint interval method to travel two hilly miles and now my leg muscles feel appreciated.  I am pleased to have a physical body to interact with the physical world. I love movement; the push of an uphill sprint, the breeze trailing lost twine from a tree, the dip of birds in flight; and how the light interplays; how pale the sky is today, opal blue, and the light seems pasted on behind it, opaquely collaged. Dog and I and even the hedgerow flowers are ridiculously solid in comparison.  Primrose, violet, tulips, daffodils in frills; the light has hewn them into stone.  None of which comes up when you google ‘interval training.’ The mind’s input is directed instead to envy, perhaps, through photoshopped abdominals, and other such nonsense. Exercise is a distraction, there, but it shouldn’t be: it should be something to emb

What is a hap? A word of Scandinavian root, it seems, meaning chance, good luck. This morning was supposed to be met earlier. ‘Rest’ is the item most overlooked on the To Do list, so this was acceptable. There was sun, strong, no clouds to see. If there had been mist, I had missed it. Toast and coffee on the lawn- or rather the picnic table, no mishaps here. Breakfast was simple and fantastic. Something cheeky had scratched up the onions in the raised bed, suspects were many. Blackbirds had their mouths full of bugs and could not tell. I had pushed the little sets back into the dry earth, added rows of wooden stakes (for the garlic was untouched, it could have been vampires…) and gone inside to wash the loose dust from my hands. One nublet of old coal tar soap in the dish, and I was thinking how much I love that smell, one of those evocative childhood scents, and I have no idea how the trajectory of washing sent that nub skidding under the cabinet. My hands went into

Open window, sunlight, whir of bird feathers.  Shadow of a pigeon darts across the windowsill, slides on the white gloss.  Out on the grass the mist has left her marbles, dropped them in a bright scatter as she left, as she hastened to the river. Over the broad water she lets go of everything, she unbecomes.  Choruses of birds sing and their sound spins out melodic, avant-garde.  The crop fields are ploughed, earthy and rich-dark.  In a grazing field four horses flick tails and chew up sparkling grass. Somewhere a tractor rumbles. In each detail, gratitude.

(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