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A Collage of a Person and a Pizza

 

Singing as the Darkness Lifts, Episode 31

A Collage of a Person and a Pizza

Podbean Link for those who like to listen

 


 

I am a really good listener and this past week I have listened to myself a lot. I have listened to the wonderful silence that exists in my head when I am in the rhythm of a long drive and also found some of my procrastination and impatience quite amusing. 

 

During the middle of the week I felt like I wanted to see fitness results from the walking I wasn’t doing. ‘Just start’ or ‘crack on then’ usually works for me when I am stuck, but it didn’t get me out and walking very much this week! I was ignoring myself and ignoring the fact that I know it feels really good when I get cracking!

 

It took me until Sunday to sort out my thoughts on walking, when I realised I had walked a proper walk the previous Sunday and if I did it again then I was effectively establishing a new habit! I found I could even picture walk three and therefore the real embedding of this new habit. I had found my way in and was motivated. Prior to this my demotivation seemed to come from having put on a bit of weight and then not walking properly each day. I slumped! But now I am two Sundays in because I put a new slant on it and got on with it. My new app that reminds me to ‘close my circle’ indicates to me that I have now achieved that. I have three apps to help me view my walking habits, and they are currently playing a role in holding me accountable so I shall keep them for now. I quite like the idea of having my walking routes sorted and being in the flow without the technology, but hey someone designed them well and they are a help while I crack on.

 

I love being in the flow of something. It makes me feel completely real. Recently it has been in the silence of a motorway drive and when I am hearing and feeling the rhythm of my steps on a walk. Such a positive benefit of silence. Different from the silence in some of my poems and different from the silence which some people will experience today for the eclipse. I have one particularly vivid memory of standing outside for an eclipse. It was eery to feel the temperature fall and to be aware that all the sounds of the birds had suddenly just dropped away. It was a huge grey shiver.

 

‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ held a working title of ‘Silence’ in its early draft and I am really pleased that it evolved away from this with the help of good editing because my immersion in silence has altered over time. The book itself is due out a week today which feels exciting and then I get to plan a set list for its launch. I will be visiting Script Haven in Worcester in May for this so if you are local and can make time for this I would be delighted to see you there. It’s a lovely place and I know Ronnie will enjoy having his photo taken with Elgar who is statued just outside. If you are not local and want to come along then there will be a zoom link, again it would be lovely to see you. I will share links from my publisher soon.

 

This week’s blog title was gifted to me by ALT Text. If I had titled it based on the photo I chose then it might be called ‘Me, My Wife, My Pizza and Three Blue Apples’. These are all things that have brought me joy this week and they are therefore well worth celebrating. We even think that the staff in the pizza restaurant might have played an Indigo Girls song and a bit of k.d. lang for us on purpose, and whether this was the case or whether it was just coincidence it made us smile. It’s good to smile.

 

I will leave you today with my eclipse poem:

 

CASTING SHADOWS

 

The day greys and yellows around us

stops the birds singing.

We feel the tightness of this new silence

as the air cools rapidly.

We know not to stare 

so I am holding a colander to the sun

casting shadows on the ground.

So many tiny solar bodies eclipsing, emerging.

 

A photograph to capture the day

to remember we were alive

we saw it.

I fear it will be too small

but when you show me

I am holding that eclipse in the palm of my hand.

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