Thursday, September 01, 2022

Silence

 I have woken up to silence and a sweet note from Dave.

He’d told me he’d be leaving soon after 5 a.m. to spend a day - and possibly a day and a half - helping a friend in the West Midlands with some DIY. 

Before I say anything else….I would not like to live alone, and I know how lucky I am to have a partner of 52 years whom I get along with.

But the bliss of waking up to a silent and empty house is something rare and special.

I go away four or five times a year, and Dave has the freedom to have the radio blaring out or is able to play his electric guitar at 6 in the morning if he wants to. He can leave the back door open without my complaining about the draught. He can sit in the kitchen playing his acoustic guitar with Radio 4 on loud without my wincing and asking him to choose just one.

So although he can enjoy the house without me, he never goes away, and I am rarely here alone for more than three hours at a time.

It’s not just the silence I relish, it’s the absence of any kind of demands, or need to engage with anything beyond my own thoughts and activities. The freedom to go out and not say when I’ll be back. The liberty to live my life without sharing a timetable or itinerary beforehand. I can just be. I can be led by whim without explanation. I can decide that actually I don’t want to go out on my bike this morning as I’d planned, I’ll do it at teatime. Yes! A simple thing like that. 

Don’t misunderstand me: I am always free to do what I want, it’s the always explaining beforehand that can feel like a bind. 

I am also free today to make chicken soup. When Isaac and the family were staying I cooked roast chicken, but because Dave can’t bear the smell of boiling stock I stuck the carcase in the freezer until a day when he was out. Ooh, and I can have a kipper for lunch if I like! 

Enough, I’m not going to start telling YOU what I’m going to do with my day.

On a separate matter, I have learned a lesson this week with my painting. I sometimes paint pictures from photographs I’ve taken, and they work out fine. e.g the washing line painting.

That’s why I thought I could paint this fabulous picture that Isaac took when he was here, of some honesty seeds along the lane.





I’ve tried and so far failed to paint a successful copy. Or rather, I have successfully painted it, but it doesn’t work because the composition is not strong enough, and there are other problems too - depth of field, and what the camera does to sources of reflected light. So I’m going to develop it into something else, perhaps an abstract. Watch this space. 

Actually, now seeing them together, I see that the purple is far too dark. Hmm…time to reconsider….

Have a terrific day!


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do enjoy hearing about your creative art process It is a foreign and exotic field for me Now I have a 7 yr old granddaughter taking art classes after school and am fascinated by hints of their process too. She laps it up despite neither of her parents being gifted in this way It is a joy to hear her reports not always cheerful of course!!!
Ana

marmee said...

Hi ! And I too so enjoy some time all alone and by myself in my house! Yes, most interesting to hear you talk about your painting. In particular about re working this painting into something different. I think that would be such a hard thing for me to do, would be too stuck in the first effort.