Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!
After a hot and sunny day, it’s now after midnight. I can hear the rain outside cleansing the air, watering the earth, and all that grows. The blinds are drawn. So, I can’t see outside, but I can hear the raindrops, and a bit of wind and an intermittent soft pitter-patter on the roof. Of course, the dogs are inside sheltering with their humans, and the rest of the family is asleep I should be sleep too. However, after a hectic day yesterday, I slept through much of today and am out of synch again. Things also feel much more straightforward at night when there’s only myself to think about. There’s peace and quiet, and this sense of nothingness. I think that’s the sense that catastrophe is only just being held at bay, and this is but a stolen moment of respite from it all. Intermission. However, even intermission is good, isn’t it?!!
The highlight of this week was our daughter’s dance competition. She doesn’t enter many of these, and they sort of hover on the horizon with a mix of excitement and dread. I really love watching her dance. Not only because she’s my daughter. She’s also a magnificent dancer. Moreover, as a poet and writer, dance appeals to my soul, my inner most being. Well, at least some of it does. Lyrical, which is essentially about telling a story, is my favourite genre. It tends to remind me of some of my favourite poets…Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, and can be rather connected to nature. However, I do become quite entranced by ballet and all its trappings…tutus, satin pointe shoes and tiaras. However, I also want depth to any dance, and not just flouncing around.
Anyway, the concert began in earnest, two days earlier when we ended up on a last minute pointe shoe run. Our daughter had ordered in a pair, and they hadn’t arrived, leaving her seriously in the lurch, and with only two days for us to find a pair. For the uninitiated, pointe shoes need to be fitted, and for that you need an appointment. We had no appointment. On top of that, finding the right pointe shoe reminds me of Prince Charming trying to find the foot which fit into the glass slipper, only in reverse. We had the foot, and now we need to find the one in a million pointe shoe which was not only going to fit, but also offer exactly the right amount of support. It’s a very precise science, and our daughter’s had a few pairs now and has a pretty good idea of what she needs. Thankfully, we managed to find the pair, and on Saturday we were off with the car loaded up with costumes, shoes, food, a newspaper, and a book. It was going to be a 12 hour day, and even if you love dance, it’s a lot to watch and a lot of things you could be sorting out at home. As it was, she came first in her ballet solo, third in her duo and third in her Contemporary. However, just getting through all of this and all the preparation, is an achievement for us both. I was pleased I didn’t screw anything up.
Meanwhile, now that school has been back for a few weeks, I’ve started getting back into my WWI research and am focusing on a series of bios of people on the home front. It wasn’t my intention to write about the home front at all. However, I came across these stories and outliers while researching our families’ stories and working towards a collection of soldiers’ bios. Now, that I’ve been thinking about the home front more, I feel the link to the home front and the battlefield is closer than I thought and they’re quite interactive, even though they’re geographically quite distant in Australia’s case.
You see, the soldiers themselves are coming from the home front, so what’s going on there obviously has a strong influence on why they enlisted. Then, there are soldiers returning home, who are also bringing experiences and news from the battlefield to the front home. Anyway, right from the get go, it’s been riveting, and it’s exciting to see it coming together. By the way, this research turned into my covid lockdown project and it’s really given me a strong sense of purpose during these uncertain times, especially when we were in lockdown last year.
Have you had a covid project?
Actually, speaking of Covid, have you had the vaccine yet? It isn’t available here yet, and I’ll need to speak to my specialist before I go ahead. BTW for those of you who are wondering why get vaccinated if it doesn’t provide full protection from the virus and negate the need for masks, my view is that all these precautions add up and will hopefully be effective as a whole. It’s like wearing a suit of armour. You still need your sword.
Anyway, I’m going to head off because it’s way too late.
This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer at https://natalietheexplorer.home.blog/
Best wishes,
Rowena
Beyond the Flow 