Went to Maggie’s on Friday and handed in cheques for £207 from the tea party. It was the last Art therapy class which was a very good session for me – did a pastel from Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Morning poem’ and had a significant click about where I am at the moment. Here it is:
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches –
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver
© Mary Oliver
Oh, how I would like to be swimming along the soft trails!
Saturday morning H and the boys did bits of the Edinburgh-St Andrews cycle run (Thomas got to Dunfermline, managing the Forth Road Bridge despite his vertigo, and Jamie did 48 miles), their first attempt – keen to do it again next year. I went with friend H and her mother-in-law R to garden centre on Saturday and bought verbena, petunias and lobelia for the pots on the deck – and some pretty bacopa, which I’d not heard of before. Fortunately it turns out R is a knowledgeable gadener and she’s coming to plant up for me tomorrow.
And yesterday we had a lovely Quaker meeting OUTSIDE at Wiston. It was in the shade but I was thoughtfully provided with a big warm blanket, and as the morning went on, the sun peeked above the trees and warmed my face, bliss. After meeting, we talked about the ambulance convoy to Gaza, and generally about war and peace….
But afternoons and evenings aren’t good for me. Sick and weak. I’ve had to forego more things than I’ve been to – in fact, I haven’t been out in the evening since I can remember. Saddest of all, friend A and I’ve been planning to go to a Jackson Brown concert tonight for months and I finally decided yesterday I just wouldn’t be up to it.
Glorious day again today. I spend little intervals warming up on the deck and then retreat to the cool of the sofa or the bedroom….
