I remember being shocked when I asked a friend how she was feeling about her eldest child moving out. She smiled and confided wearily: “It’s time. For all of us.” At that stage in my own life, both of my boys were still young enough to insist on curling around me as we all watched a movie together like a small tribe of monkeys. I literally could not envision them leaving home without welling up and feeling physically empty and panic stricken. I would feel as though I had swallowed a stone. But I now know that nature has a way of clearing that up quite nicely. And it looks like this:
I’ve never been someone who enjoys rushing – especially in the morning – so I’ve been taking a long analytical look at what is slowing me down recently. My head seems to never quite empty of what needs to be done and I find myself waking early, sifting through all the strata, heading downwards into the land of lists.
And it goes liiiike this …
I have a bit of a weekly tradition surrounding kale. As everyone knows, kale is a superfood chock full of vitamins, anti-oxidants and fibre but honestly that sharp, bitter after-snap taste taste in a frigid breakfast smoothie is just too unfriendly for me to bear first thing in the morning. (Plus that thick, brilliant green reminds me of verdant pond scum or extra-terrestial poo … ) Yet many Sunday afternoons (usually around 4pm when I am composing earnest menu plans for the following week, often whilst enjoying some kettle chips and a glass of Chardonnay) – I will revisit the notion of kale and end up purchasing a large, frilly bouquet of the stuff which then sits resentfully in the crisper, eyeing me each time I open the fridge door. (By Thursday the kale is a limp, browner version of its former self and to assuage my guilt, I throw it onto the compost heap with the others).
