The Invisible Body

Caught up with a couple of friends for a coffee after work in Woodlands Road. Met these pair of bumpers crossing at the traffic lights. It's pretty hard to ignore someone carrying an armless and legless body, albeit a mannequin, down the road. I had my blip of the day and, being witlessly literal, I knew what I wanted to say about it.
A broken body. How long I've had a broken body. My skin has been a wreck, I've not been sleeping and my wrist is slowly recovering to its purpose. Yet these past days I've had a realisation of how light and at ease I feel when I don't realise my body exists. It's not itchy, it's not aching. I don't notice that it feels well and healthy. Of course this leads to the conclusion that when we're not bothered by something we take it as a given. We're not thankful for all the things that work just fine, so fine that we don't notice them.
I had a wee trick to try and snap myself out of this complacency of well-being. When I was doing something that I actually wanted to do and liked I would make sure that I emphasised the positive in it. A wee verbal manipulation was the magic spell. So, I  wouldn't have a coffee, I would enjoy a coffee. I wouldn't go for a walk, I would enjoy a walk. I wouldn't just read a book, I would enjoy the chance to do so. And on and on.
It may sound mundane, but the purpose was so that I recognised that I was already doing lots of things in my life that I actually wanted to do and got a lot of pleasure from. So, rather then just taking them for granted I wanted to recognise that I was extremely lucky to fill my day with this little trail of pleasures that were things I was able to do. Not just doing, but enjoying and paying respect to Gods of Luck that they saw fit to allow me to indulge many of my pleasures on a daily basis.
Today I enjoyed a first coffee of the day; eggs for breakfast, sitting down sharing it with the kids; a bus ride listening to two Polish women laugh and talk with gusto; had great chat with wonderful workmates; enjoyed a takeaway lunch from an Italian Bistro; walked with the sun on my face taking in the city; met a friend for coffee; unexpectedly met a good friend I've not seen for yonks; got the best steak-pie out of the local butchers which is currently cooking in the oven; blipping; and, of course, not realising that my skin is so perfect as to be invisible.

Lucky me: amen.

Onwards.