View from the front door at night through RFD*
Well we haven't had a summer, not by any stretch of the imagination and mine can be very fanciful. My mother would tell me “get out of your own head”, my father would bang on the bathroom door with its toasty infrared heater hanging high on the wall: “are you reading the entire Cork library in there?”
as if these were bad things.
How confusing our childhoods can be. How hard to make the adjustments to reformulate ourselves into whatever we think is right for ourselves. And how simple the pleasures we discover just for ourselves.
We had about fourteen seasons of weather yesterday. Thunderstorms, 30 seconds of blazing sunshine, followed by RFD (rain, fog, drizzle in the local vernacular) and then a greyish pall followed by chill which has clung to everyone and everything since. Snow wouldn't surprise any of us. While the rest of Canada scorches in unbearable heat and humidity.
I lit the wood-stove, put on a pot of my famous chili on top of it and let it cook itself in the cast iron. My chili is a complete meal, served with Irish soda bread, potatoes or nachos, whatever is on hand. I pretended it was a November day.
I met a friend in the leg of the day for chat and catch-up which meandered far into the dark reaches of the night - 2.30 a.m. to be precise which is catching up with me today.
But I stay in The Now, a very good place to be. Because there is nothing I can do about all the minor annoyances and disappointments (and I could count far too many) that could shred my mind if I let them.
Or as one of my good friends says: Stay where your hands are.
*RFD=rain, fog, drizzle.
