Five years single now, more in fact, and apart from that nearly dying stuff during 2020, I'm happily adapted to doing things my way.
When I want; how I want.
Course I’d much prefer it if I didn’t live with 7/8 pain in my right knee, and wouldn’t mind sending back my two lung conditions in return for that half lung which went AWOL, but this is me now - who I is today - and yes, they slow me down, and the ensuing obesity doesn't help either, but the jobs still get done.
This colyoom has talked before about a certain type of selfish that’s a pure good thing. It neither harms nor affects anyone else: it’s just you being you.
Well, there’s been plenty of that.
It’s incredibly comforting when you discover you are the person you thought you are; that you do mean what you say.
Just takes a while to adjust to doing things more slowly, to learn my new limitations, which require many grunts of
“Oooawaaaargghhh!”
and plenty of exclamations of
“Phoooofffssshhh!”
...with many pauses...
...to catch my breath…
…to restore the air intake...
....to a happy rhythm.
Those are the moments when I grasp the opportunity to take a look around; to peer through the trees, looking for the silvery sheen of high tide glowing; to watch the rooks reinforce their giant nests, way up high in the ancient ash trees; to listen to the salty sea wind in my ears.
I’ve always been happiest when lost staring into nature for indefinite periods of wonder.
Time was the one commodity I missed beyond all others when I lived in California in the 1990s. Now I have the luxury of it, and I bathe in its glory.
Like I said, it’s a relief to turn out to be the person you thought you were; to find out that the object of your dreams truly does make you happy.
Better still to have faith in what you say. This space cadet will always stop and stare, but also, I get the job done.
I pay my rent by working on my friend’s magnificent garden, but due to my unique athleticism, I’m not exactly Monty Don.
I tell her that even though I’m a month behind, the trees in the orchard will be mulched before first frost. She believes me.
Last week, on the two dry days advertised by Met Eireann, that was done, and I came dangerously close to feeling smug, finishing the day before the night temperatures plummeted.
I tell her that the little patio just up from my wee gaff will be sorted, and she says nothing. I say it might take a while, but it will be done, ‘cos it all gets done in the end.
Casting her eyes over the neglected terrace, now transformed into a layer cake of grasses, creeping buttercup, moss and mud, topped off with an amber frosting from the million zillion leaves, fallen from overhanging copper beech, she says nowt.
Tacitly she trusts me.
As I sit here today, it’s half done, liberated from that messy mire of a carpet, the fig tree and rose cut right back, and tomorrow, on the second of two days of sunny high pressure, I will perform slow motion trickery with the loppers, a step ladder and hedge trimmers.
Everything takes a little longer now, but it all gets done.
And there is much pleasure in the doing.
So much, because I do it when and as and how I like.
Slowly.
Quickly.
Steadily.
I am who I think.
I mean what I say.
It will be done.
©Charlie Adley
27.11.223
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