I've been gritting my teeth all the time. My jaw hurts in the morning. I don't know. From the outside, my life has few demands. I do a little office work in the morning, a couple hours in the bar. In between: errands, chores, driving practice, walks, reading, and Netflix. But I'm avoiding writing, and my body is feeling it.

//

I like Madame Clairvoyant's horoscope advice for my sun sign: "It's strangely easy to define yourself solely in relation to other people. Whether you're building your life in accordance to what they want from you or in defiance of it, they're still setting the terms. This week, it's possible to break out of this mindset altogether. Other people can't establish the boundaries of your imagination, and they can't set limits on your desires. This is a week for spending time in the quiet space of your inner life. This is a week to rely on your heart's enduring, rebellious weirdness to show you the way."

//

My husband's cousin discovered a ring fort or dolmen during an excavation. He took photos of the stones, the way they lay in the earth, set thousands of years ago to commemorate the dead, or to protect cattle in those wilder times. Then he covered it again in dirt and left it alone, unreported. The husband explained it's considered bad luck to dig up these ancient constructions; you have to leave it as you found it. Moreover, reporting it to the proper authorities would only incur legal and bureaucratic hassle for the farmer whose land it was found on.

I think of it, re-buried, its mysteries sealed for another hundred or thousand years. How many more out there in the fields and bogs of Ireland, unrecognised beyond a few photos shown late at night in a bar to a few confidantes?

All the other mysteries out there, like women's writing through the ages, the feelings of ancient Cretans, the relationships between trees, so much more.

<<