WELCOMING THE RAIN AT DAWN.
Dash the dog is at my feet sleeping. He is the best sleeper I have ever met ! Beds, chairs, floors; it doesn’t matter, give him a moment and he will soon be fast asleep.
I went to bed very early last night; about eight thirty. I was tired and Wendy needed some alone time. I was delighted; listening to Lady Gaga on Alexa, putting photo’s onto my lap top, reading my book, sipping my drink. In no time it was ten and now that the nights are growing larger and wider, it was dark; with the rooks settled in their roosts for the night. I could hear the rain on the windows and am lucky enough with my life to have always had somewhere dry to sleep and live without that dread thought of the deep cold and dampness that must haunt some people.
When I woke, it was still dark, Lady Gaga was still singing away and the rain heavier than when I went to bed. I had slept right through, past the shipping forecasts, past the farming program and the business section of the news to the darkness of climate change and drilling for more oil. Dash the dog was asleep then too!
It is a good feeling to wake rested; not being ripped apart by my thoughts. I call them my thoughts, my reality, a subtext for illness that isn’t illness and the loneliness of not being able to be free to escape from those thoughts; those elements of me I do not talk about and which nowadays I tuck as far into the back of my mind as I can. Sometimes when I wake before dawn, those thoughts flood in and do that horrible destruction that leaves me lost and sweaty and frightened.
It was not like that this morning. I woke; stretched out in the bed and felt so rested, so sweet with the calmness of the remnants of a long night of untroubled sleep. And then I dozed. Dillied and dallied into dreams that were not quite dreams until somehow the coffee pot was bubbling and Wendy had wandered into the sitting room for a kiss and a mutual desire for it not to be a Monday.
The rain was bouncing off the pavement. I wondered what the birds in the trees do on days like this and tried to pretend that Wendy would have to take Dash for his morning walk. By the time she had started work, the rain had fallen away into a drizzle.
Besides the sea, I was delighted that my boots fitted me in a way they didn’t used to so maybe my diet and attempts to be healthy again are having an effect.
The sea was still; in places glassy and in places mildly rippled. There were birds flittering quickly across the water, calling. A train passed by in the distance. This walk is so familiar and yet it is different every time I go on it. Today, the path was covered in puddles and the grass and reeds shone and gleamed with water droplets. In the field it was almost as if every plant had been covered in spider webs; a long gauzy mass of silver where the rain was caught.
I liked the walk; that route and that familiar routine. I stopped at the dog rose bush which still had the faintest smell of sweetness about it and turned round into the faintest hint of wind and that scattering of a tiny hint of rain about my face. I liked that. I arrived home refreshed but not that damp; the rain wasn’t enough for that. I remembered the pear tree with the start of rosy fruit on it. I remembered the flowers on the walk; my photo of grey sea, sky and land which I liked because everything was bland and uniform.
Wendy was indignant when I returned, not at me; a work thing. She showed me whatever it was and I didn’t really understand it but I liked that she wanted to show me. I liked that this is how life is for much of the time.
(Photo: Ardmore in the rain July 2023)