I write this with a bump on the back of my head from throwing it back in laughter and hitting the door, a burn on my neck from the splash of boiling water as I took the corn out of the microwave a little too haphazardly before a dinner party, and a bruise on my forehead from goodness knows where.
The dinner party was on Saturday, and after going for a run I rushed over to ALDI to get supplies, raced back to college and started cooking in quite a frantic rush. The Greek Girl who always cooks the most incredible food came in and saw me and asked if I needed help. (The dinner party was lovely - I love those people)
On Friday morning the world was so brilliant I almost want to write the sun was blue, and I walked through town stopping often, buying nothing, although I was sorely tempted by Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I bought it off Amazon instead, together with Lighthouse Keeping by Jeanette Winterson, a book that I have meant to read ever since Ching stuck a post it with its title into my copy of Jane Eyre.
On Saturday, I watched Arden of Faversham with Alex, and cried just before the interval, because I suddenly noticed the stuffed teddy bear prop on the stage bed, which reminded me of how Grandma would sleep with her bear, Percy (short for Perseverance) tucked behind her neck. Crying in a comedy. I need to pull myself together. In the interval we went to the bathroom and I somehow managed to stick the tap so that the water wouldn't stop flowing out! In a panic, my oh-so-logical brain thought that if I pressed the other tap, the first one would stop. But what happened was the second tap got stuck as well.
On Sunday, I tried to work on my Scott essay all morning to no avail, and then gave up and went to play cards and bananagrams with some of the girls from church. The choir had practiced the Leighton Second Service on Thursday, a complicated piece that made me physically tired to sing it. But then on Sunday I awoke and listened to it and suddenly the notes fell into place and it was easy, and I wouldn't stop listening to it the whole day. Just like how I did five books in 2 years in JC and now I do at least 2 a week, I find it surreal that a piece like the Leighton, which we'd practice for weeks or months in AC Choir, we now perform after just two rehearsals in the Sidney Choir. (We also did View Me Lord which I found so much rest in)
I am so thankful to have had evensong services for the past few weeks. After Grandma's death I haven't been to church, partly because everything has been so overwhelming and also partly because I don't feel like my heart would be in the fast moving songs, or my mind in the challenging and thought-provoking sermons. I needed a space where I could just be with God, where I could be lifted from reflecting on myself and my own feelings which grief tends to make me do, and instead just think on the glory of God.
After evensong, Mum (who had come down before her flight back home today) and I met Auntie Sarah for dinner, and Mum passed me a bag of things, including a lovely wool sweater (I have a weakness for those things...) and two of Grandma's handkerchiefs and her blue blouse. They insisted on driving the bag up to me although I could have carried it on my bicycle, so I cycled off first, and waited for their call. After waiting longer than I thought normal, I called Mum and asked if they were lost.
Apparently they'd been pulled over by a police car for erratic driving, and the policeman had assumed they were either drunk or on drugs, until they saw they were just two harmless women.
Today I discovered the poet Billy Collins, and read 'Marginalia' and 'Litany', the latter made me laugh:
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
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