Snowfall... Jet Stream of Dreams .. At the Kitchen Sink....Busy Hands.....Idle Heart

I wake from bad dreams to light fluttering snow

 and frozen water in the bird baths .

My day ahead is full of non-urgent things to do, so while the kettle is boiling

I stand at the sink in my dressing gown and watch the slushy snow falling on the grass, from the white blanket of the sky.

 I'm still in the jet stream wash of my disturbing dreams...

 In my dream I was having a pre- theatre meal with a friend....I fell deeply asleep at the table and woke to find my open handbag on the floor.... my purse and phone stolen.... and my friend gone. I was sure I had been drugged....I found the case of my phone by my feet, hopeful  it might still be there... but it really was gone...and I'd missed the whole performance of the play . I went to the bar to ask about my friend ....no-one knew anything... ..and then I saw her and she was wearing odd clothes... but she wouldn't speak to me....and  all I could think was how am I going to replace all my contacts on my phone? And my bank cards?

This feeling of utter loss and abandonment stains my thoughts as I stand at the sink...weakens my resolve for my no appointments or nothing-urgent-or-important-to-do day.

So to stop myself dissolving, I start putting away last night's supper dishes, one at at time...and talk myself into a plan for the next half an hour...just think about that one thing to do that leads to another thing to do....

which this morning is all about the faff of having to pull OFF  my indoor boots in order to pull ON my outdoor boots.

I think about all the outdoor things I need to do so I only have to change my boots once.  Mad, I know. 

I get dressed, which demands more steely resolution than I actually have.  Just pulling on yesterday's old clothes helps  - no decisions.

 I hand wash my only cashmere jumper, which I love and which is getting all bobbly as I wear it all the time - this is leading to an outdoor thing - I need to spin-dry it in the washing machine which is in the freezing cold garage.

And I assemble on the floor by the back door a collection of outdoor things -  the kitchen compost in its compostible plastic bag - including red cabbage core, banana skins, pistachio nut shells, and some brown rice which has gone off because I cooked too much -  to go in the blue recycling bin,  a bunch of dead daffodils - their petals have turned paper thin and curled crisp at the edges, to go in the brown garden bin,  the washed peanut feeder to be filled up  - I keep the bird food in the freezing cold garage -  a creamy white pointsettia which drooped and curled up  and died in the sitting room last night - it was perfectly fine yesterday - also destined for the brown garden bin.

But before I take all that outside, in my out door boots, I get distracted and clean and scrub the sink with a wonderful all natural product, Pierre D'Agent, introduced to me by the French mother of my niece-in-law. I think it means 'silver stone'  -  it works brilliantly and makes the sink shine like nothing else does. 

All the time, while my hands are busy, I'm thinking about Robin, and how living like this - without him -  although I'm doing it because I don't know what else to do -  I feel hollow, meaningless, inside. Like my phone and my purse in my dream, he really is gone....his forever presence ...and I can't replace him or the life we would have had together.

 So I  keep my hands busy but my heart is idle, redundant, useless.   

Back at the kitchen sink, even though I'm not really hungry, I let myself think about breakfast and because there is snow on the ground I need something hot. I'm in two minds about combining fruit and grains but,

 I make  creamy porridge anyway with hazelnuts nuts and seeds - linseed, chia and pumpkin,  cinnamon stewed apples and raisins, fresh turmeric and black pepper, coconut nectar and almond milk. 

And I sit at the round table and eat it watching the birds swoop in out of the white sky and snaffle up any seeds of their own that have been left by the squirrels.

Then I pick up my idle heart and my busy hands and re-enter the non urgent fabric of my day.