Companions

THANK YOU everyone for all the stars for yesterday's black cat!  Maybe I should tell him about it?  He might demand a fee ... haha!

AW left again for Eindhoven for an overnight.  Once again, I have the house to myself.  The weather has imposed limitations on where to go, and the presence of COVID-19 has done the exact same thing.  Not for the first time am I thankful that I have everything I need for this kind of long-haul endurance race.  Mindfulness and some self-knowledge have taught me how to exercise patience and, to some degree, stoicism.  These things will pass.

On the other hand, many things are going on elsewhere, both near and far and further away.  There is great cause for serious concern -- rising number of infections and deaths, forest fires, indications of political instability, all kinds of unrest, and really unsettling events that make you feel like the ground could open under your feet.  But that last one is only in my head and will stay there if I give it permission, and I do not.  If there is anything that will not help, it's to persist in such fantasies.  The sometimes boring and tedious day-to-day stuff is what grounds me, and doing my best to focus on them wards off all those other delusions.

Look at these dahlias.  They bloom and share their colour with us and ask for nothing but a little admiration, and not even that.  No worry of mine will make them less pretty.  This was shot mid-afternoon.  Glad it did not rain much today although the clouds sometimes looked like ten blankets piled on top of each other.