Pillow Book of Prudence …
Things that relax you… are the most perfect things in one’s life. Eclectic things: waves shushing in and out,
a light breeze blowing through the leaves of a tree, the sounds of snowy silence, a dog asleep under one’s hand. There are sinful things as well: chocolate, a good wine, even medication when one has a serious ache or pain. But then there is massage: preferably a Bowen massage, the pressure of kind fingers, ambient music playing just within earshot, warm towels being laid over one’s body.
Floating in ocean water: lying like a star, arms outstretched, ears below the waterline listening to the sound of the ocean. A ticking sound, a buzzing sound… all from deep down through the layers of water from whatever creatures roam the depths beneath. The ebb and flow of the tide lifts and releases, lifts and releases and one feels as a babe must, cocooned in safe arms. Then there is solitude, peace, just the sound and feeling of one’s breath coming in, going out …
Things that don’t relax are the sound of jetskis and the people that feel obliged to destroy the peace of the surroundings. I liken it to lying on a race track with a fleet of motorbikes charging around. Throngs. Of people. Go to your homes, people. Stop clogging our wide open spaces. We can’t breathe and you don’t care as you leave your litter, despoiling our places. Too much socialising is also not relaxing for one like me who craves the solitary peace of a beach-cottage. To be sure it is wonderful mingling, but I watch the second-hand of the clock the whole time. In addition, whilst I celebrated the hands of the clock passing midnight on December 31st because it opened the gates to a year that may be even more wonderful than the last, I also realised that this is the year I turn sixty and that is so not a relaxing thought …
In this first week of 2011, I wish for many things: the health of my family, two members in particular. I wish for as wonderful a year meeting people through this blog and through Facebook and Twitter as I had last year. I wish that the fountain of youth could be discovered for our oldest sheepdog who is growing frailer by the day.
I wish for happiness for those that I love. And I wish for inspiration to keep my fingers typing the kinds of stories that people want to hear.
Strangely I also wish that grey, taupe or brown will be the new black, and that people will stop looking as if they are in perpetual mourning. For as readers of this blog know, I have ever been disappointed by the masses who insist on wearing the colour of shadow. For me black is the colour of no imagination, it’s harsh and unforgiving … and this is not a world in which we should not forgive. Perhaps then black is a lesson to me: ‘Forgive, Mesmered, forgive and forget.’
Lovely thoughts!
Aha. But black is also slimming, my dear. I’m considering wearing a black snood now to take care of the extra chins!
Si, you are so funny! The snood would be delicious but I fear you may look like a hairy nun!
I wish everyone would pick a beautiful color that suited them best as their incarnation of black–a personal sartorial fallback option rather than a prescribed one 🙂 Relax, and enjoy 🙂
So true, Rowenna. I think mine is grey or taupe in the winter season. Mostly blues otherwise.
I could be flip and say 60 is the new 30, but then I don’t know how you felt when you were thirty. I’ll just say, breathe deeply and concentrate on the enjoyment. For me black is the color of potential — it’s what I see when i close my eyes, just before I start dreaming.
Servetus,
Physically more adept when I was thirty although strangely more Survivor-ish and daring physically now. Intellectually, far more alive now than at 30! But so little time to accomplish everything.
Love your idea of what black means. Pre- dreams? Yes, indubitably.
I’ve been thinking lately that 60 is indeed the new 30! I can hardly get 60 out of my mouth. Birthdays have never bothered me, but this one did. But I have to agree with Mes. Most certainly I am wiser and more daring than I was at 30. And also more tolerant and definitely getting curiouser and curiouser by the day. The Age of Information! Often I wish that my grandmother would pop in for some tea so I could introduce her to the technology and to her great-great grandchildren. Her first response would be, “Well, I’ll swonie!” (If you’re familiar with that term, it’s a Southern take for “swear”. She said it a lot, along with many other Southernisms.)
Grey seems to be my black. But blue is my real color! I can’t seem to bring home anything but blue. It’s almost more of a habit/fallback than a prescription. I need to work on that!
@November Bride,
Funny isn’t it? I remember sitting back amazed that I had turned forty and fifty slipped by and didn’t worry me at all as that’s when I began to hit my straps with long kayaking voyages and taking up the sheep-farming baton.
But the thought of sixty is bothering on two fronts: firstly in 10 years I shall be 70 and that’s old-age in anyone’s language. Gaaah!!!
And secondly, as a writer I am concerned that I don’t have time to achieve all I want to achieve with a fresh and alert mind.
Having said all that, I have a mind -set that I am casting in concrete which shall say that 60 IS the new 30 and that actions will indeed speak louder than words. Must go now and prove it and for your interest, I am wearing blue today!