I’m watching my tulips, a huge vase of them, a gift from a friend, curve into fingers of fire. Others might have thrown them out days ago but I like to notice change and its effects, so they remain, still wild with colour, but obviously existing in the end days. Do they still have a voice, something to say? I think so. In the sky the clouds move fast like a conjoining of grey-haired line dancers full of gin. Today, yet another big gale was all about push, like a bully, without care for the lids of my wheelies, the cancellation of all ferries, of no mail, no deliveries, the village shop scanty on all the expected usuals. The rain pelted and I didn’t walk. I watched, from the goldfish bowl of my very obvious conservatory, those who did. I could hear them crackling by, all waterproofed, all with dogs. There’s a kind of ‘have to’ about dogs no matter the weather. Although I have always refused any noisy clothing, just fine about getting soaked, I regret not getting out there. It was cold, the wind full of teeth and menace. However, I know that, had I got out there, smelled the wild, soaked myself, been buffeted beneath very compromised trees, watched the uplift of wind over tide, the upsurge of startled water, I would have engaged with the change. It thinks me.

In less than a week, I will be in South Africa. Am I anxious about the journey, the airport overwhelm, the weather, the ferry situation? Hell Yes. But my thoughts on these are just thoughts, my feelings understandable and still just feelings. It is how I deal with my fear of change, over most of which I have no control at all, which will matter. Matter…….sounds like someone who makes mats, as a Hatter makes hats. Sorry, wordal irrelevance. In any life there is always a surprising element of control, not over anyone else, nor over everything, but over self, over me, oh definitely yes. My response to fear, to a scary change, will shift the whole dynamic. Not like a bullying wind but more as a gentle turnaway. The anxiety comes in. I gently whisper, and I do, and out loud, I See You, but You are not Helpful to me. Please Go. And then I find a Thank you, for something, anything and the list builds itself.

Everything passes, the good and the scary, the gales and the calms, the good days and the not so good, the seasons, the daily round and its upsets, the friendships, the losses, the changes. Like the line dancing clouds, it all moves on, has done for millennia. We just need to accept and to dance on, in the rain, through the shite, bright as beacons, because we all are. Beacons.