It’s five minutes to six in the morning. I know this because I’ve been awake for some time now and had to listen while the birds perform their morning dawn chorus. They always start at the first crack of sparrow’s fart and witter on for the next two hours extolling the virtues of their own freedom, until the sun’s luminescence peeks over the ridge tiles of houses across the valley.
I, on the other hand, have to wait. I hold myself in readiness. Really I should be up and at it like the birds, but I have a full bladder and the bed is warm. I’ll just lay here for a while longer and enjoy living this wonderful life.
A long time ago, the wireless referred to a house such as this as being a ‘Home for the Bewildered’. The others who live here do a lot of sitting around and not a lot of activity. I need activity. Even looking at the TV in the corner is now boring. It used to be classed as ‘entertainment’, but there is far too much repetition for my liking. Talk the other day centred around culling the monthly subscription for it, so we are going through a process of seeing how long we can last without switching it on. The running total stands currently at four days and nights. I think if we spend forty days and nights in the wilderness, there will be a cancellation request sent.
The last programme watched was the second series of ‘After Life’ by Ricky Gervais which, although receiving mixed reviews was, I can assure you, well received in this house. I think that every member here has at some point been faced with the loss of a loved one – even if it was seeing the light fade from Nelson’s eyes when he was put to sleep. (Nelson was the wine drinking cat). Watching the main character deal with the loss of a loved one certainly hit the mark. But that was the point, the show was screened on Netflix and not the usual TV that the main subscription is shelled out for – “better spent on biscuits”, I think one of us muted.
My dreams at the moment, however, seem to centre on faraway places and fields of golden corn or sunflowers and freedom. I think the Coronavirus pandemic has a lot to answer for with this cooped up and restricted feeling and even though the powers-that-be have decreed that we can sally forth, there’s still an underlying current of staying safe within these four walls.
Sometimes Charlotte will be the first one up in this household. There’s always a routine. Get up, open doors, go to the bathroom, put the kettle on, have something to eat, go out for a breath of early morning fresh air, settle down for the next 9 hours and stare at the computer screen. It’s the same for five days, then there’s a break in the pattern for two and then it’s back to the five.
Today is day four of five and I’m still feeling a bit desperate. I’ve tried crossing my legs and I’m almost at the point of bursting. Finally, I’m up and able to relieve myself. A quick spruce up and I’m ready for the day. Breakfast is served. A quick cuddle and the day begins proper.
From the heights of happiness, where there is a spring in every step, to the depths of sorrowful dragging-our -tail-behind-us despair, love has a hold over us, a power that seeks out our very core being and lays it bare for everyone to see. Our exposure is nothing but complete when we lose ‘the one’, our ‘soulmate’, our ‘friend-for-life’. The garden of our love for another human being that blooms with spring’s first flush, promises so much never-ending story of togetherness and companionship stretching into the distance, that the knell of winter’s final fandango is so distant, it’s not even visible on the horizon.
“Love is a many-splendored thing” stated the 1955 romantic melodrama of the same name. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine” growled Rick Blaine in the 1942 film Casablanca, and with Sinead O’Connor singing the Prince hit, “Nothing Compares 2 U” we see the grief etched by loving and losing what once was.
I often hear that grief is the price paid for loving. That raw, ripping apart at the seams, where our whole world comes crashing down, food and sleep mean nothing and life seems to have all but ended, leaving us in a state worse than death itself, given that the pain endured in us is unending in its relentless pursuit of our very soul. That wonderful balance we find in life, when we have found our true soulmate, who is then taken from us, leaving us standing empty-handed and empty-hearted when the slashing scythe of lost love separates us by the final curtain.
I am loved. I know it and I feel it. Kisses and cuddles. In fact, sometimes I am all but smothered. I don’t complain. I guess it’s to be expected when I’m so adorable. That’s not my view of myself you understand, but it is what ‘the others’ say, so who am I to argue?
It’s been a busy day so while I rest here, basking in being loved, I, Ruby, will let you…
Carry on Regardless
DJ
Carry On Regardless 