A Break in the Sun
A moment on the ledge of a window at home, watching the passers-by - both big and small.
Sitting in the window - in a spot of sun - I brush away a net of cobweb that catches around my hand and fingers, and crackles on my skin - glinting in the sunshine as it settles in.
And on the ledge I hug my tea as I’m drenched in the heat, and the hum, and the chatter of passers-by who walk their dogs and their children, their buggies and their shopping, their phones on loud speaker - past the garden, behind the hedge and beyond into the day.
You only ever catch a little bit: “[…] sure, her going was very sudden […]”… and I’m sure it was. But a snippet like that lingers in the ear longer than it usually would. I ponder the Irish-ness of it all as I spot a woodlouse crawl out from under a flowerpot - going about its business just like everyone else - out enjoying the sunny side of a long winter inside.
Sure why would you not be out in this? To breath it all in and carry on. Isn’t that how we should be knowing what we know. And how brief it all can be before the clouds come in - “[…] and they will, sure it’ll be raining soon […]” - and he’s not wrong. But this woodlouse is just living in the moment going from A to B - it’s got things to do while the going is good.
I can’t hear the woodlouse and its grumbles - it might be having a tough day but I would be none the wiser, “[…] tāpēc es viņam teicu dabūt darbu […]”… that said, she might also be having a bad day but who am I to say? And yet my attention is dead set on the woodlouse as it travels across a concrete slab, which in its macro world must stretch out as an endless plain of great stoney drumlins.
I catch the troubled frown of a lady out for a lunchtime walk - speeding by as she drowns in the sound from her headphones. Something serious. Important no doubt. And looking back the woodlouse is gone, missing… hiding. And I wonder if it got where its going. That specific woodlouse. I wonder if that is what the lady was concerned about.
I sip my tea and close my eyes.