Evening
A few hours ago I was hot; hot and bothered and not particularly nice to be around. My sister had wanted to meet up in Glasgow and I wasn’t in the mood for trains and metros and heat and people or even the conversation and news she has that I have been wanting to hear for the last few days. I also wanted time with Wendy, my partner. We are one of those very lucky families in a weird way, where we get time off from the children when their dad has them. It means we have ‘US’ time or more usually slump into a chair in exhaustion; stare at the telly or facebook in a flummoxed ‘ME’ time instead, until it is bedtime.
Earlier, when I picked Wendy up from Dalreoch ,I realised I was too hot even for a welcome home kiss and too bothered by life and the day and work to relax into an evening of conversation or at least words. I did and did not watch telly, I skipped through Instagram and twitter and facebook and wished I hadn’t looked. I thought of doing a twitter post and hastily decided against it.
I phoned my mum and yet again found it hard to understand how an eighty four year old could still be volunteering for the Samaritans and wondered again at how she must have felt the first time she heard I had tried to die just months before she suddenly decided to started that work forty years ago. I also wondered how she still manages to look after various frail friends and do the gardening and polish the silver. Our garden with two of us to look after it is an overgrown midden, and we don’t have any silver!!
My Mum asked what I would do this evening and instantly I knew. I would have a shower but first I would clear away, with the help of the hoover, all the dead wasps in the bathroom.
And now here I am, in my room. The window is open; if I crane my head I can just see the first blush of the sunset. I am that special clean. Where you feel light and fresh and smooth and well; clean!
It is a lovely feeling. I could stay here all evening typing away but instead I will pause to listen to the rooks in the trees across the road settling down. I will listen to the radio for a bit, read for a bit and then go downstairs to see if I can be pleasant to Wendy, maybe start the conversations and the ramblings I forgot to have earlier.
When I take Dash the dog out I very much hope I will see the bats again. They are normally out in the evening at this time of the year, jinking around, almost invisible and then suddenly there against the sky.
After that I fully intend to do lots of dreaming for the rest of the night. My dad has returned to my dreams recently which is a pleasant surprise, he is much nicer in my dreams than in my long ago memories. I like that he grows shyer and gentler and calmer and more mischievous in my sleep. That I remember him as I finally began to get to know him in his later years. That is good. To be able to have memories that grow softer and kinder is a wonderful blessing.
(First Published in Bothy Blethers, September 2021)
(Photo : Sunset, Tunstall; June 2021)
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