Turn Over

Attachments to animals can be made before one realises that a bond has formed and even then, you may not discover that there is a link until that link is broken.  Hurt, because you have been left to feel the emptiness of a place once filled and because you did not give permission for the loss to happen.

Sadness, yes, for self, left to sit and cry, bemoan the why of the situation and falter when what others want is strength and the assurance that ‘she’ll be right mate’, but all you can think of is that the situation just can’t be right.  

Then you reach a point where emotion is no more, you do what the diary had planned for the day, simply because you can’t think of anything else to do.  Days convert too weeks, just when you think you have formed your new unemotional being you hear a noise in your closet and feel, frightened.  

Hoping that some nasty rodent has not invaded your space you release some of the self-sorrow and plan an attack.  Opening the closet door as quick as you can, you shift the hanging clothes, because you can hear the noise coming from the bottom left corner, and when the clothes move, they reveal Tabitha.  She is no rodent to be demolished.  You thought Tabitha the second cat had left you too, because you had not been good company.

Beside Tabitha, you notice a wriggling mass that you cannot resist, and because you have not been your best lately you find some manners, and ask permission first, to touch and stroke each of the six kittens.  Tabitha blinks and purrs, looks you in the eye, and you swear she is chiding you for hanging onto what is not, life brings change, and will never remember loss for long, because something new is just is around the corner.  Life always moves on.

Recieving End

Cold wind cuts through my clothing, I should have worn my coat, but I wasn’t expecting to wait this long.  I notice the gum tree is flowering, didn’t think this was the time of year a gum tree is supposed to flower, but then I don’t know all that much about gum trees.

The tree was flowering when I met Kal here for the first time, that was a warmer day, a day of.....Kal should be here, he agreed to meet in the usual place, this place.  I walk to my car, place my hand on the handle of the door.  I hesitate.  I am cold, miserable, and passing time is a chasm of ever deepening distance.
 
 Kal must have decided that he does not want to answer my question. He didn't give an answer when I spoke to him on the phone, he said he couldn’t talk, I have never asked for much,  I just wanted to understand why he hadn't mentioned his wife and kids.  Three of them.  I wouldn’t have known about them if he hadn’t turned up at the football match.  

I felt it then, I was standing at the crossroads, when I saw him standing there with his arm around another woman, the ring on his finger glared at me.  I felt something break.  The situation was confirmed when a pretty almost teenage girl and two boys in football clothes came up to Kal and the other woman and asked a question that opened the bank of mum and dad and because I saw another life, and because he saw me seeing his other life, I should have known that Kal would be late arriving at our special place.

Not What It Looks Like.

photo by M.J. McKay

Took my new camera with me when we were collecting wood for winter heating. I can guarantee you that this is not a piece of orange stuck to a log even though it looks like a sliced orange.  You never know what you can find till you have a look. As most things fungi are poisonous I left the orange slice attached to the log.