BUTTERFLIES
I still manage to get into ways of thinking that I would prefer not to have and memories that I would also like to set aside, as if they never happened. I am glad that all those years ago I was sometimes able to see some light despite this.
BUTTERFLIES
It is a hard task trying to think beautiful thoughts!
I was walking by the river, collecting glimpses of the world around me, wanting a lovely piece of writing to spring from the pale walk in the watery winter sunshine.
As I walked, I thought of a few sentences I saw yesterday; carved into the pavement. The wonderful words of a friend. They melted my heart but we had to scrape the pink grit from the concrete to see them.
I walked and the sun shone in my eyes and dazzled me. Besides me gleamed silver tramways of glistening water in the tire tracks of the ploughed field; brown seagulls stood and pecked disinterestedly.
There were the first signs of the shoots of the plants of the New Year; green bulbs poking through, the leaves all tightly curled.
I sat on a cold seat, avoiding the runnels of water from last night’s rain and stared. Stared ahead, listening to music, watching the white water under the bridge. Watching the family throwing branches into the river and, though I tried, I couldn’t avoid my thoughts.
It was a solid lump of sadness; filling my stomach. The worries and resentments swirled through my head. Somehow the pain swelled and though the music brought light to me, I found I couldn’t imagine a life where a worry could become carefree and drift away.
But the world kept breaking through, reminding me that the pale heat of the sun is better than constant darkness. The passers by helping me see, I don’t know what; the need to walk that continual walk whatever lies on the path to distract you, drag you away.
At another bench I sat and stared into the sun which lit up the small standing waves in the river and I thought of the people that I love and I gasped at the loneliness. Those that I once held closer to my heart than I ever thought possible and then somehow walked away from into a new darker more frightening world and those that I now crave a smile from and in whose eyes I only see sadness and a need to be free of the burden of friendship.
I walked home and flocks of crows flew past. Flying upstream, upstream; presumably to the woods and the fields.
In the Nickel & Dime shop I found a small pin board and pins for a couple of pounds. When I got home, I pinned a couple of my few precious pictures of my wife and son to it. I surrounded those with pictures that bring memories: me washing nappies, the loch where we saw the Northern Lights, the prehistoric settlement at Borgie, sailing fast in the waves, a mountain in Borneo, a ladybird, frozen ice. That sort of thing.
Memories of beautiful times stuck through with pins. As I look, I realise that I haven’t fastened the pictures properly and that the photo’s are already curling up at the edges.
02 11 11
(Photo: Early gorse flowers; Jan 2021)
Comments