SOMEONE HAS LEFT the door to the north ajar a crack this morning, just a shard of sunlight creeps into the bowl that is Nelson CBD; enough to warm my left cheek and soul and not much more. Eleven-nineteen ante meridiem. The tide is out. The ramparting hills we both know so well wear a cloak of indifference today. Not unpleasant, in fact, it rather matches autumn’s moulting canopy and the hot cup of tea sitting here in my curling hand quite perfectly. Now, if only the dude next door would trim all the rambunction from atop his tree that encroaches upon my window view, I could describe it for you more fully. But despite this arborist absence, I’m sure you get the picture. No doubt there is always a woman somewhere needing a bush trimmed, so we must just do the best with whatever we have to work with.
Claude woke me at 3am this morning. Sometimes he just doesn’t want to be alone and I indulge him because sometimes I don’t either, and he’s not always going to want to cuddle sweet and warm (with the sometimes not so occasional kicks to my bladder) with his mama. He would have lulled off to sleep again quite happily too only I let my head fill up with futility, tossing and turning with it awhile, unable to let it go. Three months now since I’ve had any real work to speak of. Plenty of promises, bookings even, but seemingly constant postponements and delays. Oh the shit that keeps us up at night… I doused tense neck and shoulders in lavender oil and found peace somehow, before we both slept through until a very civilised 8am. Heavenly. And this morning, well… I feel simply that a change to the combobulation that is the continual mothering and supporting oneself juggle is required. If something aint working, then change the configuration. Hardly rocket science. There is always a way and, if my friend is to be believed, I am sure to find it. Apparently I am an asteroid of determination.
Please keep writing. I enjoy your colourful letters from the edge. They sound like you, which always a good letter writer makes. More selfishly, they also inspire me to scribble words down without the arduous requirement of thinking too much about what. I am not in Greece obviously, or Turkey, or anywhere else even remotely exciting (although re your letter, I would like it noted that I have been before to Venice, and last weekend I did go to Wellington). I once had a notion that even if one lived in a very restricted society or is imprisoned in some way, it is still possible to know freedom if your mind is free. This was followed quickly by a second notion that the majority of people living in the ‘free world’ do not have free minds and are, therefore, actually unwitting prisoners of their own making. My point, as I feel I should get to it, is that I wholeheartedly support and encourage you in gaily draping your laundry out to dry on any and all near lying ferry bannisters and balustrades throughout the Mediterranean. This act I see as surely being euphemistic for a free mind? Back here in lil ole Nelson, although some days I do feel a little physically encaptured by my current financial situation, be sure that I am hanging out laundry freely everywhere in my mind. Perhaps this is what this letter writing lark is all about, and these written words my at-home equivalent of the tourist selfie stick?
Love,
Me xx
