Rain not snow. Water drips from the gutter. Is it beautiful or a worrying reminder that the gutters need clearing? Or both?
I kinda like it. Just as I enjoyed the icicles that hung here briefly yesterday.
Pity I didn’t photograph those icicles though but I have been warned to be careful about taking photographs because of the giddiness caused by my illness.
Looking through a camera lens changes your world – you become eye and brain whilst the rest of your body disappears. I remember that story of the film cameraman who got a dramatic shot of an advancing army guns to the ready. The bullet caught him just as he caught the shot. Then he was dead.
Photography from my prison cell is OK I think. Nothing too dangerous as long as I don’t go in for leaning out of the window…..or doing clever stuff on the staircase. Well danger is everywhere in the end, isn’t it! Maybe I will take my camera out round the town today.
Go on, I dare me!I am feeling adventurous today. Maybe a bit better but that must surely be my imagination. In reality I am waiting to go back into hospital where I will be flung into the role of patient again. Today is different, it is the day after I went back to my tai chi class where I found so many pleasures. In the moves themselves, in the recognition that my injures, spine, torso muscles and physical confidence, are definitely on the mend. Also in the pleasure of joining in with the others, fellow human beings, friends, I guess, all trying to move through those 66 moves together whilst staying an individual, mastering his own body, ready of course, we hope, to turn those graceful moves into an attack or defence. So different from the solitary practice I have been doing these last three months.We are social beings, well I am, for sure. Nothing is such fun as a good fight….sadly I am not well enough for that yet. Maybe, thanks to my brain injury, my fighting days are done. Let’s see.I am still not well enough to go to kung fu class….and definitely had to miss the trip to China which begins on Friday. Growl. I can though practise my kung fu patterns – gently, not quite as slowly as I had to a few weeks ago but still no impact. Even though this is a calm, meditative form of kung fu, I find it so different from tai chi. I love both, of course, but there is something envigorating and intoxicating about kung fu. The patterns are of course concentrated sets of moves which teach and train you in the various fighting techniques which belong to a particular style – in my case White Crane from Southern China. Tai chi does the same, I know, but the tai chi form teaches us in a more concealed way and has on top of that a meditative, calming effect which is wonderful when you are in need of calming.After three months convalescing from a brain haemorrhage and various painful body injuries, this form of calming down has had a profoundly healing effect but, now, even though I am no way near recovered, I was amazed how much of me woke up when I started to do those kung fu moves again.I guess you can have enough calming down after three months of taking care. After all this time I am full of frustrated energy.I used to train for about 13 hours a week, reaching a level of fitness I had never dreamt of before. So it has been a cruel experience having to withdraw whilst my body heals but also slowly and visibly weakens.Come on hospital, come on doctors, lets get this thing sorted now, OK. I want to have my life back.Should I climb up onto the roof and clear those gutters? Maybe not.