It could be Zara’s big nose resting on my knee in the early morning, which makes me aware of her liquid brown eyes telling me it’s time to make coffee and toast. Her insistence has me pushing myself up, out of the chair, to fulfil our desire for breakfast as she and Ella trot along behind in fervent anticipation.
Or it could be the pig’s snout lifting me off the ground and tossing me into the muddy pig pond that alerted me to her misery. It’s hot and she is irritable. Alone, since her mother loped along the path to visit a neighbouring farm, she’s become bored and frustrated. Despite a steady stream of melon and veggies nothing appears to alleviate her disgruntlement and today, jettisoning me into her piggie pond, was her best way of communicating this fact.
Thankfully, a muddy pond led to a relatively soft landing with no major damage; demonstrating why she likes it so much! However, I leaped up and out before she decided to join me and, as the sucking action of water half pulled me back again, I emerged swathed in mud, dripping as if covered in chocolate. As I stand in the shower, I watch the wet earth slide from my body and swirl in the plug hole before vanishing down the drain.
It could be that a lunch date had me hurrying on, without stopping to consider the implication of what had happened. The next day, I realised the aches and bruises were telling their own story, reminding me that trust can take years to build but can be destroyed in a moment.
The same day an email with a quote from GK Chesterton “We must learn to love life but never trust it” had me reeling at the poignancy and timing of a message seemingly directed at me.
It could be my little white cat slipping in-between me and my laptop as I write this, that brings a smile to my lips as she cuddles into me. She gazes at the screen and watches the little black ants we call letters and words emerging - mesmerising her. Then she and our tortoiseshell Tiger both hop off the sofa and head into the dark to hunt - good girls! The rodent population has reduced significantly since their arrival. A fact validated by the garden still having plants, rather than mounds of earth where the mice burrowed deep to eat the roots of my little treasures.
Continuing this theme, I had never appreciated the joy of cats. Our previous feral rescue kitties, were content to be fed but dismissed any sort of intimacy. These two are therefore a surprise of disproportionate amounts and a ceaseless joy to a someone who believed she was purely a dog person.
Isn’t life full of surprises and change. A constant cornucopia of movement and impermanence. The waft and web as life unfurls itself, throwing up unexpected as well as expected phenomena to challenge or delight us.
