Wednesday April 21st

Day 2

In the garden the sun shines on gold and scarlet tulips dipping swan-necked from their pot and nearly touching the grass. I hurry back inside, goosebumps raised on my bare arms from almost icy air.

The sweet peas and Crown Prince squash planted by my lovely man in the greenhouse have sulked and rotted in their snug seed trays.

The radishes in our lunch salad look plump and crisp and taste of nothing but a sponge flavoured with a far distant hint of pepper. Our allotment mustard greens, on the other hand bring tears to our eyes with their hard hitting heat.

This evening, filling up our pussy cat’s bowl with his sloppy tuna the pungent spray of an interloper tomcat hits my nostrils.It is low down all over the wall by the back door and over our rack of outdoor shoes. We thought we’d stopped him last time - eating our cat’s food and marking territory which isn’t his - by locking the cat flap and bleaching his smell away. Now he’s back again a silent and cocky invader.

If I met this same cat in a neighbour’s house where I presume he lives I would stroke and fuss him, admire him and call him a sweet puss. But now he is the enemy of my cat and I don’t see his sweetness any more. Like when we call a boy a hooligan or a child a thief....like when I’m cross because my lovely man cleans his mother’s silver spoons and the whole kitchen smells of Duraglit even before I’ve had breakfast.....then I forget his loveliness for a moment.

So today I’ve been thinking about how I feel upset when things are not as I think they should be - a cold spring, a taste free radish, a dead seed, a cat in the wrong place, a husband’s timing. And how would it be instead if I loved all these things I can’t change anyway? I would have to laugh at myself of course. And that would be a new and challenging practice. Like saying yes to the dancing I could have gone to tonight even though I don’t feel the sap rising in my blood yet in this cold spring air.