Lifting

There are primroses in the lane, and lapwings in the sky over the fields you can't see, but you can hear that watery shimmery trilling song of theirs, and look up, searching the air for them.

We've finally put up our improvised curtain in the window by the sink in the kitchen, and it looks a treat, made from a piece of lightweight material that had been left behind when we moved into our last house, that just happens to match the red in our kitchen perfectly, attached by IKEA clip-on hooks to a curtain wire such as you might use to put up a net or voile curtain. Each of these sorts of little jobs we complete makes me feel more at home somehow. Maybe because so much of the work was done by others in the refurbishment process. Usually we do our own decorating and it's a good way to become intimate with rooms. Here a sense of connection, of ownership has been slower to evolve. I think also, I'm finally thawing from the shock of what happened in November. You can't see what shock has done to you until it begins to pass. Like a veil slowly lifting, I begin to see more clearly what is in front of me. Celandines beside the beck, the neighbour's boy throwing stones into the water, greeting me, turning his face towards me. I've only seen him in profile before, passing our window several times a day going to and from his home. A gentle face.