Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

The ear infection morphed; became a mufflement of the outer world. A sense of chrysalis held: gentle, un-claustrophobic, welcome.  I had gone to the beach and seen the low sun reach rich orange across the sea till it churned in foam, tumbled at my feet. I had swum and felt the water lift me. Mr and I had been buying, just lately - proper, from a vendor, consumerist buying - things to make our lives heavenly, like changing robes to keep us warm should we swim into the winter months, like a chrome book for writing while in transit (literally, in a Ford Transit). Stuff we will appreciate, use to pieces - but previously would have been determined to forego.  Are we greedy? Are we hypocrites now?  I had been pushing myself, thinking that I must push myself, deeply engaged with the analogy of caterpillar becoming butterfly - a caterpillar will become a butterfly, it will happen - just as our lives will unfold to fullness when we get our bit of land and...

These hot days steam by. They desiccate. Grass is pale, brittle, like old parchment. Everything without shade is crotchety, dust, fetid, or sheltering in water. I have been all of these, and the last three days each a long shift with bare respite. And my ears become stoppered with infection. This hot world becomes silent.  Bees move flower to flower, birds turn, open beaks, there are leaves twitching, soundless. Did this air on skin always feel like a tumble of morning petals? Um, yes. And the smell of the warming earth under dew, yes, that has ever been my treasure.  But having a sense impaired, also yes, the focus on what is left is re-treasured; the sense of moment blooms, re-blooms.  Meditative appreciation, under-grumbled with intermittent pain.  As some people get tattooed for decorative reasons but some require each etch to bear meaning - I am in need of learning from every ailment. (I try to just be ill sometimes, not much succes...