Mother's Day. Not to be confused with Mothering Sunday which occurs on the fourth Sunday of Lent in the UK. Mother's Day was a strange one this year. Well, obviously, as everyone has to stay home. Not that I usually go out and celebrate being a mother on any other year. Maybe I am getting weary of the routine-ness of all of these celebrations which seem to merge into one long reason to spend money? I have become the personification of Anna Jarvis, the woman who regretted creating Mother's Day.
Perhaps the fact that so much frippery remained unsold in the supermarket this morning, is testament to a transformation from the material to the experiential, living for the moment and each other, rather than things?
Although finding Waitrose white chocolate ice cream was a terrible temptation, to which I succumbed.
I watched a documentary on 1980's Singapore, ate a salad for lunch, started a rather dauntingly thick novel - thank you Philip Pullman - and then, sat and watched the rain. That wonderful moment when the rain falls, there are the initial screams, and then silence as all human activity ceases.
I don't know why I should feel this way, but after five weeks of circuit breaker, I have developed a jealous protection of the silence of the world around me. I can hear silence, the silence that is peppered with bird song, cicadas and the occasional "clocking" toad (the closest I can come to describing his song).
The birds have become bolder and often, I sit and find sun birds and orioles perched on branches closer than I'm used to. It usually helps to have the cat asleep at the back for this to occur. Nature is slowly creeping. Tendrils wave across paths around the estate as the creeping plants crawl up tree trunks, slither across the tops of the bushes, and threaten to cocoon you, absorbing you into the greenery.
Which leads me to the topic of cats.
The boys have been on sentry duty again this evening, but the enemy has gone to ground for the time being. Although we have some respite from the enemy, we still have field hospital duties, dressing wounds and removing the guck.
The thought has crossed my mind to demand reparations, however, that might not be politically correct at this time. Meanwhile, the patient has been remarkably tolerant of me grabbing his ear and dousing it with chlorhexidine wash.
So far, he has remained at home, watching the gate from the safety of the sofa, or the garden chair, if human defenders are close by. I'd like to say my lectures about staying at home and social distancing have worked, but he is a cat, and cats do what they choose.
Comentarios