Singing as the Darkness Lifts, Episode 40
Castor and Pollux
PodBean Link for those who like to listen
This morning the air smells as fresh as it does on the mountains. I breathe deeply and catch a hint of lavender there too.
Alt text says it’s ‘A cat on a cake’. I say it is an excellent card to have received in the post to celebrate my birthday and shows a cat presenting an iced birthday cake with sparklers with text reading ‘Castor (AKA Sue) In a world full of candles you’re a sparkler'. I love cards and I love the fact that I wear a number of names. Sometimes I am Poodle Floppet, sometimes I am Sissy, sometimes I am Sooper Sue, sometimes I am Freda, sometimes I am Castor to someone else’s Pollox.
I think the passing of time which is marked quite dramatically by a birthday got me into ‘sorting mode’ last week. I decided to revisit a massive box of ‘stuff’ that was bursting at the seams and a massive box of photos. Although neither are out on display (one is tucked under a set of shelves and one under a bed) I could feel the untidy nature of my storage and a call to look to see what was in there. By the time I had finished I had delved back into so many memories I felt like I had revisited all the past versions of me!
I read kind words, relived funny moments as well as poignant times. I tidied it well and enjoyed the long memory lane. I do wonder what possessed me to label the photo of two plates of dinner as ‘Quinoa 2005’, but must admit that that photo remains in the box. I might recycle it next time, but for now I preserve the quinoa! I read an old birthday card from a friend who is no longer with us three times and realised how much I had missed getting a card from her this year. That stays in the box too. I like keeping things, but I also like the feeling of knowing that I don’t need to keep absolutely everything in order to prove that I have been respected, made people laugh, shared my time and been loved. Some of my old photos were easy to recycle because they came from the times of taking a roll of film on holiday and then waiting to see how the 24 or 36 pictures came out. Quite easy to whittle these down to half a dozen decent memories! Some things have become old and tattier than I would like, and they will get photographed instead of retained. And that makes me laugh because it sort of messes with the app on my phone that shows me things from the past each day. When I am very old I might think that I met the Beverley Sisters in June 2024. And I guess in a way I will eat my words because I fed some rather entertaining correspondence from my twenty-six-year-old self to the compost worms during my sorting. I love my compost worms.
In my continued tidying mode I went out to tackle the weeds at the weekend. It was hard work and I was determined and had to remain determined! It’s amazing how many weeds can spring up when you’re not really looking. There was a wonderful feeling of satisfaction as I noticed it was making a positive difference and there was real joy in the fact that the phone rang twice. Two people who I love very much calling me and I got to ditch the muddy gloves and lie in the sun talking and listening. Perfect moments in time.
Sunday is my walking day and as my sister calls it, my Snowdon training. I am a bit of a fair-weather walker. In fact I am quite a lot of a fair-weather walker and it was raining hard on Sunday by the time I had finished digging in the garden and decided I was ready for my walk. I had woken up at 4am and considered a dawn chorus kind of walk which I dismissed for more cosy hours in bed. It wasn’t raining at 4! I considered not going for my walk at all, and heard myself saying that would be a missed opportunity and that it was highly likely that there would be very many other rainy walks in the future and it would be very strange to discount them all. So I donned my waterproof coat and off I went. It felt good. I am definitely getting better at dressing appropriately. The other week I set off knowing I had a hole in one sock and thought I could out walk it for an hour. I was wrong. Blisteringly wrong. Hence the right socks and right boots and waterproof coat this time. Wrong jeans and no hat though because I am not yet fully my best self. I hate wearing my hood up because as well as dulling my hearing it sort of rustles so I do prefer a hat and of course I have hats, but I ignored them and set off. Next time it rains I might take my hat, swap jeans for walking trousers and take my ‘fully prepared walker’ bow.
Sometimes when I am walking I spend time deciding what my snack will be later on. After I had pictured thick toast with peanut butter and jam and a large cup of tea I listened to my thoughts about writing a fanzine for the Manic Street Preachers and the fact I had googled it to see if it is rare. I think it is rare, but it wasn’t googleable. I tucked my signed copy into the box alongside a postcard that told me they enjoyed the fanzine, not too far from my signed Beverley Sisters photo. I do like an autograph or two! I smiled at the thought of seeing the band live next month and am curious to see what that feels like after all this time.
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