Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Sweetness

One of the great things about living up our lane is that when there's a fabulous dawn and you want to take a picture of it, it's just fine to slip on your long winter coat over your pyjamas and put on your wellies and stride down the lane to capture a moment that won't be there in five minutes time.

Yesterday I did just that and met my next door neighbour walking the dog and no explanation was necessary. 

Here is the result, which I love:





It makes me feel so happy.

Someone else's photographs make thousands of people happy on Twitter everyday - Mick Oxley  aka @SeaSkyCraster, who treats the world to a daily photograph of the sea and sky at dawn, that he takes from his window in Craster. Last week the photos were all so stunning and so different, and he kindly gave me permission to share a few of them here:



Photo by Mick Oxley, 5th February 2020




Photo by Mick Oxley, 6th February 2020


Photo by Mick Oxley, 7th February 2020

Photo by Mick Oxley, 8th February 2020


After feeling so desperate a couple of weeks ago I've been holding the news at arm's length and trying to build up my resilience by focusing on the good and the beautiful in everyday life.

Yesterday I went to an art workshop with a friend, plus lunch afterwards, and I came back so uplifted that when I played my current practise pieces on the sax, that have lately been feeling stale, the improvisation went so well I wished my teacher had been there to hear.   (I was going to say 'I played my current pieces and totally smashed them' and then I looked up 'smashed' in the urban dictionary and decided perhaps I'd better not. It would been far more pithy, however.)

I read of some research recently that happiness rubs off on other people. So being happy and sharing happiness is another arrow in the quiver of people who want to make the world a better place.

Lastly, I want to share this poem with you which fits into the theme of this post...


COLD SOLACE

When my mother died,
one of her honey cakes remained in the freezer.
I couldn’t bear to see it vanish,
so it waited, pardoned,
in its ice cave behind the metal trays
for two more years.
On my forty-first birthday
I chipped it out,
a rectangular resurrection,
hefted the dead weight in my palm.
Before it thawed,
I sawed, with serrated knife,
the thinnest of slices —
Jewish Eucharist.
The amber squares
with their translucent panes of walnuts
tasted — even toasted — of freezer,
of frost,
a raisined delicacy delivered up
from a deli in the underworld.
I yearned to recall life, not death —
the still body in her pink nightgown on the bed,
how I lay in the shallow cradle of the scattered sheets
after they took it away,
inhaling her scent one last time.
I close my eyes, savor a wafer of
sacred cake on my tongue and
try to taste my mother, to discern
the message she baked in these loaves
when she was too ill to eat them:
I love you.
It will end.
Leave something of sweetness
and substance
in the mouth of the world.
Anna Belle Kaufman


(I have been unable to contact the poet for permission, but the search for her contact details continues.)

3 comments:

Lois said...

Wonderful photos to brighten the afternoon of one stuck indoors with a chest infection. Your photo of the lane is stunning

Sue Hepworth said...

Thank you, Lois, I’m so glad you like the photos.
I hope you get better soon,

Unknown said...

Lovey words and photos to match. Xoxo
LRH