I was thinking about fiddling today. I was. We do fiddle about, do we not, with fingers, with ideas, with olding, with blockades, with the constant push against the barriers we meet on a daily basis. Should there be a question mark here? Honestly, the whole ‘how you do grammar’ thing was once my absolut. Don’t mess with me on that word. It doesn’t need an ‘e’. There are kids this day bothering about results on where the eff they place their ees, never mind their hyphens and dashes and please don’t bring up exclamation marks, which, btw, were just fine a few years ago, and which have now become a yawn. Turmoil at worst. Fiddling at best.

Let’s fiddle. Fiddling requires finger movement, dynamic finger movement, in the fingers, that is. Limited, yes, unless you have learned how to. In the mind, different. There’s a wildscape in that head which (not ‘that’,….never ‘that’.. #grammarqueen) can spiral the brightest mind. You might go low one day and all the old stuff rushes in as if a tide has suddenly turned on you. It stutters, physical momentum, there are stumbles, hesitations, pauses, a want for hiding. Other days, and for no particular reason, the fiddle mind plays a wonderfully dynamic tune, and your heart is light, your clothes feel right, your make-up worked, the path ahead clears like a walk into bright opportunities and surprising serendipities. What you expect, you will attract. I know this. It is a fact and proven. So what is the thing about days when your fingers tangle-damage your scarf, when, in irritation at said tangle-damage, you wheech off a precious gold chain, breaking it; when you forget your keys, can’t decide what to wear for an important something or someone or when your ego is way below knicker level, in fact it’s ankle deep and asleep? There’ll be days like these. Mama said.

I had one today. I know these days of old. They’re trying to be the seventh wave, and maybe they are. They do piss me off, nonetheless, because I never gave them permission to diffuse me into a spread I feel incapable of. I wanted focus, a strong light ahead, a clear path, and now you straggle me into a general illuminator. I don’t care who else can see. I just want light for myself. Ah! there it is, the conundrum. So I don’t appear to be the master of my own days. Instead there is a force I cannot see which confabulates my story, my plan, me.

When I arrived at work, I felt as if my outside, all uniformed up, didn’t belong to me. At the door, I pulled up, said some stern words to myself, got to it. But it didn’t shift. I listened to the laughter from my delicious co-workers, chatted, heard their news, cleared tables, engaged with customers, laughed with them, loved their dogs, filled water jugs, cleaned endless kitchen equipment (inventively), but I still felt I was limpish . I thought ‘tired.’ I thought ‘old.’ I watch my fingers type this out and I laugh. Tired, yes. Old yes.

Ach, wheesht! Fiddle on. Always fiddle on.