Hi everyone – I do hope you’re having a good day in the sunshine…
A few weeks ago I highlighted a poem by Olena Kalytiak Davis – the first line of which is ‘Lately I am capable of only small things’ (You can read it here) It’s a line that keeps coming back to me. I hear it echo in my head most days and I think it will chime with many of us just now.
Our worlds have shrunk and turned in on themselves. This is especially true if we’ve been ill or are caring for someone, or been unable to exercise, and even if we do get out of the house we are rarely going beyond what’s in our neighbourhood.
Ordinary things that in the past we might have seen as inconsequential, are much more of a challenge, small things loom large, shopping for one. It’s a challenge and achievement just to come home with the food. Or go to the chemist and back.
Some of the big things – like holidays are for the future only. Much as we might be longing for that glass of rosé in a French cafe on market day, we will have to wait. Instead we take solace in the natural world, in our gardens and kitchens, in the view from the window, in a song, a poem, a cream cake… It’s the small everyday things that bring surprising comfort and peace of mind. Below is a random list of small things, including achievements, from my own lockdown life –
keeping a dreaded hospital appointment (I consider this an achievement – I could so easily have postponed)
planting my cornflower seeds
drinking a glass of cold Bergerac white
looking at the sky though the glass roof in the conservatory ( I’m always being told I should get blinds but…No!)
re- potting the lavender
checking on my lily of the valley ( flowering for the first time)
keeping my renga diary
listening to the radio while I collage postcards
making pancakes for breakfast
writing 500 words
watching the trees from my window
today’s beautiful walk in Forgotten Quarry ( all part of my novella research)
chatting with my neighbour
reading in the garden
I’d love to hear the small things that loom large in your lockdown life, leave me a comment below and let me know…
