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A DAFFODILESQUE DALEK, THE FIRST MOW AND THE MUSE (#SingingAsTheDarknessLifts 126)

   A DAFFODILESQUE DALEK, THE FIRST MOW AND THE MUSE 

This morning the air mingles the scent of warm Premier Inn and fresh grass into a cloudy mix.
 
Alt text says this week’s photo is a yellow flower in the grass. I say it is my shadow featuring a midforehead daffodil. I also say I was rather hoping to create a daffodilesque dalek photo. I guess it is distinctly unlikely that alt text would come up with that description even if the photo was on point, but perhaps I also didn’t pull it off quite as I had planned. It was fun though and it was taken during my daffodil noticing/clear my head/have a think walk one sunny morning last week.
 
Jobs have been calling to me this week...
“Look, the sun’s shining, if you clean me you can hang the washing out.” was the cry from the washing line.
“You feel better with a haircut – what about us?” the mini lawns were imploring.
 
And at the same time my energy levels were feeling a little depleted, so rebalancing has been an important thing to focus on as well as remembering how motivating it is to get the jobs done rather than carrying the thought of them around in my head whilst trying to concentrate on something else. I reminded myself that I could always use my trick of timing myself to do a job like I did when I wasn’t sure I could persuade myself that cleaning the windows was going to fit into my day. But these jobs were different and the joy was always going to be in the end result and the fact they lead so nicely into the welcoming of the season of spring. (I still like the moment of personal development that came about after timing myself to clean the windows... this being that my ultimate motivation is to complete the task shortly after sunrise whilst wearing my pyjamas.)
 
Pleasingly Claire Pedrick’s second edition of Simplifying Coaching was out on Monday and I knew that this would be an informative and restorative read to slot into my week. Two early morning reading slots and one I want to finish this tonight slot and I had read the book from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is an excellent read for all coaches and a wonderful build on the first version which was already a favourite coaching book for me. Highly recommended to all coaches. I also love the fact that there is a little quote from me in the book...how cool is that?
 
There’s been a good sprinkling of words in my week all round because as well as reading I have been writing. One of my favourite ways to write poetry is when there is a compelling feeling of being pulled to set something down. This week my sister was my muse. We had been talking on the phone and after telling me something she hadn’t told me before she said it would make a good poem if I wanted to write it. I pondered on what she had said on one of my walks and came back with a pretty much fully formed poem. I remembered to leave it to rest overnight as well as read it out loud to check it sounded right before editing it and smoothing its edges. Then I recorded it as a voice note and sent it to her.  We both agree that is has something special about it so I am hoping it will find a home in the not-too-distant future.
 
This week I choose to share a poem that was written to set down a moment in time when something shiny caught my eye in a supermarket car park in Canterbury.
 
THE BALL BEARING
 
The shine and the surprise of it
rolled to a stop in a gravel dip
in a wet car park.
 
Almost a marble from my childhood;
a mini, silvered moon
cratered and old.
 
Glimpsing it made us smile
and you knew
I wanted to hold the heaviness of it.

 


 

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