outwait outrun outwit





TALES OF AN ORANGEPEELER

an archive of pleasures, wounds, sublimations
& other curiosities :: profile


02.04.23

The hotel is full of oul wans, couples with worried faces, holding hands as they cautiously walk, sometimes hobble, down staircases and along the pools. It begins to feel like a huge retirement complex.

Not that I mind their company. It's that I am always reminded of my waning vigour, how the sense of plenitude I had as a young woman has been steadily eroded by every keenly felt loss and diminished ability.

In any case I hope to retain my mind and curiosity for far longer than my physical strength. Hope, too, for the husband's hand holding mine on the cold nights of the distant future.

//

We make plans, and they go awry, or fall back as I indulge in reverie. Back home we were always doing something, tending office and pub and farm, so that free time was rare. Weekends off? Pfft! We are so busy, we forget to eat.

Now I loaf, uneasily. Watch people loll or drift about the grounds in states of undress. Eat lunch with a small glass of beer. Observe Spanish sparrow fledglings hector their parent for food in a cafe. Take photos of idle beach cats. Press bougainvillea blossoms in a book.

How childish, I sometimes think, to pay attention to cats and birds and flowers. Shape the day with tasks! Give it meaning in purposeful action! But it's okay to be lazy. To rest. To daydream and draw all day. That, too, is meaningful.




<<

hosted by DiaryLand.com

real time web analytics