Walking whilst talking to a friend. We were discussing how there is no “normal.” It’s just habitude. We had got used to thinking in terms of earning enough money to pay for rent, council tax, utility bills and anything left over going on food. Constant working out of how much for this and how much for that. Well for me and for her and many others, it’s all gone. Somehow though we’re muddling through as best we can, and neither of us feels worried. A calm has descended. More than that: a frisson of excitement. There is another way.
It never felt natural striving all the time; dancing to the piper-of-poverty’s drab tune. What were we all trying to prove? That we could win a race against all the odds? That was not living. What I have now is unearned. It is free.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my interaction with people, the joy of connecting. Singing is a great way to reach places within where logic cannot go. Like mining for seams of gold.
It’s just the uncomfortable cost of it all…
Back to walking and imbibing those natural delights that feed the soul. Yes, my soul may have had glimpses, but it is lapping up the daily treats, as if it can’t quite believe its luck!
On the way, the quirkiness of ever-evolving Upper Norman Rd: a bike behind insect eye windows and opposite, a mint-green house.
Westhill Rd has been really the greatest on-my-doorstep rediscovery. The views today from the mini pyramid dedicated to the Burtons, the father and son architects who gentrified much of St Leonards, were breathtaking.
Later on down Boscobel Rd North, overlooking Filshsam valley, the sky beckoned to me, its vast mouth filled with clouds like wild meringues.
Then drinking chilled white wine on the terrace with my neighbour friend, both wrapped in winter jackets and scarves, planted on chairs apart in the last of the sun.
