From my notebook, earlier this month -
“I put on sun block today because I decided to actually sit in the sun rather than just flirt with it.
Yesterday felt like a good day. Good to be within that particular Tuesday. A good day to pass through. Do I pass through a day or does a day pass through me? is a human life a digestive system for time?
On a daily basis we bite off chunks and nibbles. We chew. We flavour them with different names - work, rest and play. We spice them up or soothe them through our tubes. And slowly but surely with peristaltic grace they travel through our winding passageways. We suck what we need from them. We drain the life from each scrap and then discard the waste. The husks we have no use for - the leftover seconds, minutes or hours that offered no nutriment.”
And since then I’ve tried to pay closer attention to the particular flavour of each day, noting something special I tasted along the way.
- She said she was woken by the seagulls.
- In my hand, reflected birds pass through the lens of my sunglasses. Moments before they would have flown across my eyes. And I wouldn’t have noticed.
- The man I admired holds a large fish he has caught. Note the past tense.
- Every chimney seems to be sprouting gull chicks.
- The cheapest flowers are also the ones I would choose.
- So many bees. I can still hear the buzzing when none are near.