Fwd: Early Sunday Los Abrigos

Slowly coming to life. A man and woman, walk easily together, talking, intense.  In the square by the church, two small boys ride scooters, as their father reads the paper. In the harbour, a fisherman cheerfully starts the engine on his small boat, singing to himself and chatting to the old man standing on the quayside. Men fish off the rocks, and a blonde haired man and his little boy fish from the jetty, just behind the harbour. In the sky, just a few cotton buds of cloud, dotted here and there.

Voices of children inside seep through shutters to windows which have not yet been opened. An older woman, in loose dress and sandals, hoses her garden, then pulls the hose across the street to water the plants in the verge above the harbour. A little boy out on a balcony with his mother waggles his fingers at me. People walk dogs. A man in a wheelchair sits outside his house. A cafe owner wipes tables.

The church in the square is locked tight. Thankfulness doesn't need to be locked within four walls. Everybody prays in their own way.

Swallows

Nesting

For thirteen years, we've been living in this house. For thirteen years I've watched each year as the swallows have tried, for a week or so, to build a nest, only to have it pulled down by the wind. They started again last weekend. And I looked on, sadly, at their futile efforts. And yet. Not one, but TWO nests completed, and a pair of swallows in each!

Early Start

Sunshine at dawn, with barely
a whisp of cloud in the sky.
I wake up early, and (for once)
sated with sleep. I decide to
take the dogs for a run, and myself
for a half walk, half run (of the conscience easing sort).
All is still. As I reach the crossroads,
a cuckoo pipes up from the trees,
down in the bog. Other birds trill
and chirp, and a wood pigeon adds its
gentle call. There are bluebells, and
pretty white flowers I can't name.
All is good, and the day stretches
before me, all sunshine and space.

Gossamer

The gossamer thread
that holds
the living to the dead.

Before conception - what?
Last breath then - where?
Floating and tied

with gossamer
thread.

Oh how I wish that

I could come back as a flower

Walking out

The old man struggled determinedly to put his clothes on, though his hands shook and his fingers fumbled; the nurses and the doctor, at the far end of the ward, had their backs to him. He tucked his shirt into the gaping waistband of his trousers. A nurse, half turning, caught sight of him and rushed across the ward. "Please! Getback to bed! You shouldn't be sitting, let alone standing and out of bed!" He stared her down, as the other medical staff followed her to surround him. "I'm leaving". A chorus of "you can't!" " you're too sick" and "please let me help you back into your pyjamas and back into bed".

"I'm leaving. My mind is sound, even if my body is not. I reject this ward. I reject your treatment. I'm leaving". And taking his jacket over his arm, the old man walked, slowly, with difficulty, to the doors at the end of the ward. He stepped out into the corridor, and was gone.

I never saw him again, but his words ran round and round like a loop of film as I lay in the bed, weak, powerless, vulnerable. And I determined I'd do just as he had. And now, six months later, I'm walking out of Ward 5, against the odds, in defiance of their prognosis, I'm walking towards a life they told me I'd never have.