Burning My Wings

Strawberry swirled ice cream this afternoon.

By the River Exe tonight.

Sunset at the Quay in Topsham.

A sunset rose in someone's riverside garden.

8th July 2013

It’s too hot for England. This is Africa heat. 32 degrees this afternoon. After our Mindfulness class my husband drives to the coast for a walk. I missed the Men’s Singles Final at Wimbledon on Sunday so I stay in the sitting room with the blinds drawn, a demented black fly bashing itself against the window, watching Andy Murray become a British Champion after 77 years.  Not the same knowing he’s already won but still thrilling tennis.

Later, when it isn’t any cooler, I whip up a tub of left-over double cream from our family weekend and swirl in the left-over strawberry and Limoncello sauce with half a jar of lemon curd and half a tub of natural yogurt and freeze it. We’ll have it for supper with some allotment strawberries which are taking over the fridge like a red plague.

 At 8.30 when it’s only slighty cooler, but not much, we walk along the estuary at Topsham. The hedgerows have all been flayed and the torn branches left in the road. The air smells of newly cut hay. Sheets of Canada geese fly over us in vee formations. Swirly clouds cover the orange ball of the sun, leaving a path of rippled gold on the surface of the water. The pub on the quay is busy and noisy, so we decide to go home for supper and not bother to queue for drinks.

Now, even with the window yawning open, my study is oven hot, my ankles are swollen sponges. And in spite of everything I learned in Mindfulness class about how to live with pain - physical and emotional - coming back to the breath - all day I have been in a rumbling, spitting turmoil about yesterday’s upset with my husband - self loathing erupting in irritated sniping....

I’m a black fly trapped in a paper lantern, hurling myself against the hot light bulb, burning my wings in  rage, sealing myself off, not finding the way out..... which is only love’s breath away....