Tuesday 13 June 2017

Every Small and Sweet Thing


Pink elderflower cordial I made from the lace cap flower heads, dew wet with rain, that I picked in my nephew's garden on Sunday....remembering the 12 litre bottles of it - rosy nectar - that I took to my niece's wedding nearly two years ago. That batch was made from the elder tree on the allotment.

Will it always be like this ....everything ...every small and sweet thing.... hooking me back to that other life I had with Robin?

The remembering is good. It's the remorse and what ifs? that I hurt myself with that aren't good.
Today I wondered if, like any habit, I could stop it.....notice when I was going too deep into the wound...and do something  radically different .....think kinder thoughts....not exactly ignore the elephant in the room but take it gently by the trunk and feed it fresh grass.


The salad I couldn't eat tonight easily as earlier on I broke a tooth on a piece of yesterday's stale focaccia bread I was nibbling, soft but chewy. I felt something come away, sharp against my tongue -  I thought it was a chip,  a tiny piece of enamel. But I was horrified to find it was my whole tooth sheared off, rough and decayed, at the level of the gum in my lower jaw, the root still intact but leaving a gaping hole. And it's such a big hole as I'm one short of a tooth on that side anyway.

 Up till now I've kept all my teeth even though some of them are heavily filled.  I expect to find them there. Suddenly there is this raw empty space where once there was certainty and strength I thought I could rely on....with the help of the dentist. Now it's gone - that particular tooth with it's own particular history, that I've taken for granted all my life. 

Leaving me surprisingly bereft.





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