Beast

Two - 2, a photo by elefthis1 on Flickr.

Don't need much excuse for a photo of the late, lamented cat. He wasn't posed for this shot, honestly. I just came into the room and there he was sitting calmly alongside his miniature double. I grabbed the camera.

This is my entry for this week's Photo Friday challenge "Beasts".

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Today it feels the world has stopped on its axis. No drama or crisis in this little corner of the planet, just a grey, damp and very still January day with no percepible movement in the immediate surroundings. There is a low-key, understated beauty around if you look and listen for it: the first snowdrops; the silence; the complex silhouettes of the trees with clumps of misletoe dotted at various points through the branches - the latter a sure sign of the cleanliness of the air, or so I'm told.

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I've started chanting again.  Thirty years or so ago I was given a mantra, and it suits me.  I've always loved voicework and singing and the morning and afternoon ritual of sitting down and sending out the sounds has become a necessary part of my day now.  All sorts of benefits are supposed to derive from it and I'm not dismissive of the claims.

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The sorting through and chucking out of stuff continues with DVDs currently in the frame. I'm watching each one again before reaching a decision. Today it's Raising Arizona (charity shop). Yesterday was Hideous Kinky (also charity shop). A few days ago, The Chorus (a definite keeper).

It's all preparation for the new life chapter. In actual fact I'm dubious about this concept of new chapters: barring the major stuff of life - sudden accidents or illness, bereavement, house moves and so on - minutes, hours and days merge and flow into each other without definite endings and beginnings.   I mean when I'm able to be out and about more, to be a social animal again who has much less time to watch DVDs.

Time

Yesterday this particular online groceries delivery man recognised me. He hadn't been on my route for a couple of years - the supermarket seems to switch them around regularly and with one or two morose exceptions they are to a man affable and friendly.  He helped me unload my fortnightly order and asked how my back was.

When he last saw me I was on strong codeine-based painkillers and had to lie on the floor for a good part of the day.  I remember he commiserated with me at the time and told me how he'd had similar problems before taking his current job and now he hauled heavy crates of groceries in and out of his van all day. Yesterday as he passed me the packets of salad, tins of sardines and the bottles of extra virgin olive oil he said that he believed that all this heavy lifting had actually strengthened his back.  Using the muscles, moving, bending at the knees,  keeping the weight close to the body.

He's right. I'm not where I was two or three years ago. The pain levels in the back are much lower and I'm off the codeine.  I'm moving more freely, with greater confidence.   I didn't want to inflict on him details of the gut and digestive stuff which has taken over as the number one health nuisance but seeing him again is good reminder.

A little gratitude is in order. Heaven knows I'm not where I want to be healthwise, but looking back it's clear that nature and time are doing their job.  Slowly.  With a bit of luck and a prayer the progress will continue.

Climate

My entry for this week's Photo Friday challenge: "Climate". 

Taken five years ago just a few miles down the road. No snow so far this winter.

Joy

It really has been a beautiful day.   Crisp, cold (but not too cold), very still.  I went into the garden to put some vegetable peelings on the compost and was filled with something approaching joy.  The blue of the sky. The quiet. The generous and unexpected brilliance of the January sun.  Such has been the nastiness of the last few years that these days I'm wary of opening up to this kind of upbeat emotion without vetting it, patting it down, thoroughly in my mind first  - for safety's sake -  but today I just went ahead and let it in.

The sun has vanished now and night is falling fast.  The waxing moon in the east peers in at me through the window as I type.