Wonderful Wednesday #96
All kinds of light and some lovely things from lately.
These days, lately the only thing fastening them together is the light. Each one nearly identical to the one before and the one after: An icy blur of sometimes blue skies—sometimes not— bowls of porridge, and layers tucked into and tugged over the top of. A well rehearsed and familiar routine danced each day and night, tied together by all of the light and not enough of it all at once.
Morning light: Stubborn, s-l-o-w and struggling even more on the sorts of days that begin grey and damp. Just like us. The kind of light that dictates when we can begin our day properly; when it is day and light enough to see because, it’s not at a nudge after 6am anymore and it was; only a couple of months or so ago. We sip our morning tea in a room lit only by clear fair lights and then do all of the other sorts of morning jobs we can in the very same time of day that we’d be halfway through a marshy field, faces full of light and life. But not now. Now it’s the same as much as it’s not. All new and all familiar.
Afternoon light: chased on hurried lunch breaks in a bid to feel daylight against my skin while it’s still there. A cold five or ten minute quick-march, hands pushed into coat pockets, hair tucked under a hat and telling myself this is storing it all up, letting it in to some how pull whatever ‘it’ is out again later or on another day when there is even less light to be in. I fit right in as everyone else marches with purpose, lists in hands and things to tick off too. They don’t know I’m not drawing an invisible line through ‘light’ and ticking it off my also invisible lists because at this time of year we’re mostly all invisible to each other, aren’t we? It’s no wonder the darkness lingers as much as it does.
Night light, or no light or just different light but I’m drawn to it either way. On clear days the smattering of stars that fill up the vast, inky-blue skies above me remind me of my smallness and the vastness of the skies make me feel safe in a way that doesn’t make sense but then does at the same time. On the grey days, the wet ones where cycles home are skyless and swallowed up with a damp fog that gets everywhere; I’m guided home by one single flickering bicycle light. I think I feel safer under the stars but remember that just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean that they’re not there and, that someone else, somewhere else can still see them when they need them and I don’t begrudge them an equal sense of safety and protection either. There are more enough stars to go around after all.
Mostly though, I am grateful for the light in all of it’s ways of getting in or not and however it finds me. Now that there is even more dark and even less of it I think that I am more grateful because it’s more precious and it only seems right to notice it and maybe even honour too it in a funny sort of way.
Here are few other things I’m grateful for lately. Small could-be lost things and small joys that might have got swallowed up along with the light and other things that can often seem so fleeting and lost during the darker but busier part of the year.
1 Re-reading books. Because each time I pick up a book I have read before I read it with new eyes. I find new places I didn’t ‘see’ before, feel different emotions and remember as much as I have forgotten about it. It’s also a warm familiarity during a busy time and another nice way to end each day.
2 New slippers. Is there anything more joyful?! Except maybe new socks. These lined with sheepskin and adorned with pom-poms.
3 Hearing a new bird. We walk the very same fields most mornings and I always love to notice how the landscape changes with the seasons, how the light dances and lands differently and, how even one Winter can seem so different from the one before. Lately I have begun noticing the bird song more and, how much it also changes with the time of year. This week the birdsong was different: less isolated, a cheerful chirrup that filled the hedgerows which all of a sudden have seemed alive all over again. The app on my phone tells me that they’re Nuthatches which, I know very little about other than the fact that they are new to the hedges. Well new to us anyhow!
4 Morning walks. I’ll admit if there wasn’t an eager spaniel pup to walk they wouldn’t be nearly as early on but, I’ll never not feel better for walking her early morning. It’s my most favourite part of the day. So much quieter, calmer and more beautiful and I’m sure they’re in part responsible for readying me for the day in a much calmer way!
I’d love to know what smaller joys you’re most grateful for lately and, what you’ve been cherishing a little more during these busy days that seem to disappear as quick as they arrive. I hope that wherever you are you’re keeping warm and letting as much of the light in as you can too.