Thought for the Day

Thought for Today! by Jo-Ann Hughes

Her day so far has been lived in the past. It is 08:33 and she had been awake for probably an hour and a half. Her thoughts overwhelmed her of the days before, spent in painful writhing over family and friendships that prevent her from living… from truly living. Existing is mundane and walking beside the ones she loved is often heavy as she imagined slavery. Bound that she is to others in their misery and loss she felt tainted and trapped. Their struggles become a soaked, heavy wool fleece she carries day and night - a fleece that doesn’t dry while asleep and remains damp in the morning.

She now knows that people live in a circle of their doing and undoing, repeating patterns of struggle and failure, tortured by a dull palette of blues and ochres and a canvas that forgets to let in the light.

So her morning so far - it is now 8:44 - and she can hear the heavy rumble of old engines as the day leads lives into odds and ends of this and that.

The grey misery of yesterday, will it be repeated today? She won’t be having shepherd’s pie with a beetroot salad on the side. No! she will create a ham and mushroom carbonara but exchange the spaghetti for those wide crinkly strips of organic pasta that are coated and soaked in sauce. She’ll have beetroot on the side though because it was good for her yesterday, so the same must be true today.

Yesterday, she, in an effort to change, went through twenty years of wardrobes and drawers and cleared out lives, many lives, of un-adventure. Her peculiar female friend made many purchases that were to make a difference to her day and days ahead. May it be so!

Amazon claimed to bring her a smile - but is a smile enough to brighten any day let alone a life?

She smiled at everyone she met yesterday as she walked her dogs through the clouds and rain. She recalled a jogger who gave her a half smile - probably out of pity as she flew along bouncing from toe to toe in fine lycra and ballet shoes. For what a sight of self protective armour she was wearing. Anyone would think that she was in some barren wasteland wrapped in layers of defensive, precautionary safeguarding on Slingsby Walk of all places; to her right gated mansions and left an open expanse of tamed grass.

And doesn’t she wrap herself up in her everyday bubble, living in the lives of yesterday unaware that each day has a new adventure, colours to daub here and there, places to go, people to see and light to smile? Maybe she will write something funny tomorrow that will break into laughter and joy and just, maybe … joy will have a new adventure.

It’s 09:17 now and it’s time to say hello to today … expectantly.