With yet another Covid lockdown knocking on our pink door, the third in a year’s time but who’s counting, to be decided on today or so we’ve been told, and not to mention the growing list of ample disasters on our checklist of realness as of lately, almost adding ‘hole in the roof’ to that yesterday but a closer inspection proved just a stain of non-frozen tiles because of the underlaying presence of our shower’s boiler, to be honest there’s little room for melodrama or self-pity anyway when you find yourself surrounded by the most soothing landscape imaginable, invisibly but tangibly shared with whatever chooses to stay around here in winter and rejoice.
It’s foremost young Mec’s infectious excitement driving us to get out more, as if beauty in the offing no longer deploys the infinite incentive it should, this spoiled miscreant confesses, underlined by the slow fading of our former habits not so much since the passing of our dear Fos, but way before that, when his old age and stiffness became eager to curb his willingness to move and therewith ours.
Now that young Mec has gained mastery over his initial and overweening aversion to the cold, he beseeches us earlier and earlier in the day, understandably preferring Ivory and definitely not quietly settling for my quick morning routine, bringing him relief but not the obligatory outburst of energy and joy that makes us adore our sweet little boy and all he’s bringing to the table, like his through youth untainted handle on exploring above all, a true visual gold mine while most cows are locked up in their winter sheds, leaving their fields wide open and finally accessible to find new old passages, connecting dots that seemed lost but prove easy to restore, wandering.
For all the things we’re trying to teach this magnificent, meticulously morphing creature that found his own way to our broken hearts without fail – read: providing clues on how to live with us and yet remain happy, a lot less easy than it seems – this trail to freedom he’s unremittingly taking us on, blissfully unaware of its aftermath on these days of separation and confinement, is a true and much appreciated gift I cannot hymn about enough.
