I had a nice, festive blog post in mind, but instead what you'll get is a selection of extracts from my mind, as of now...but rest assured there will be some Christmas 'things of beauty' before the week is done.
This always happens. I get more excited about Christmas in late November than I do when the real thing is almost upon us. Somehow this year there is a sense of unreality which I can only attribute to the current calmness of my life. I am not in a rush. I have time. I do not have to balance working and homemaking. I have lists where I can actually tick off actions, one by one, in a normal, sane manner. This is indeed new territory for me.
I like it.Meanwhile someone closest to me, namely my lovely husband, is working
like there is no tomorrow. The contrast between us incongruous. I sense this may be one of the perils of being a housewife (my albeit temporary status). He is a whirlwind and I am a constant. I am the eye of his storm; the oddly quiet, alternative world of our home, as the rest of his corporate world swirls around. Suffice to say, it's a tough time to be corporate.
I finally watched the film 'Black Swan'. It's a great film, I can entirely see why Natalie Portman won the Oscar. But what has stayed with me as well, a little like an unwelcome guest, is a fascination with how her body looked. How thin she was. How all ballerinas have that grace,
that look, which is almost prepubescent. I found myself wondering what it would be like to be that thin again, as I once was, aged about 15. Now of course I am a healthy, fit weight and after my children I have curves in places there never used to be curves. Thanks to a lot of training in recent months, I am now fitter than I have ever been; but conversely I weigh more. Gone though, is that waif-like quality of youth. A dancer's body...is it wrong to silently covet such an unobtainable thing?
And so this week continues, children counting down, while I try to keep a grasp on the real meaning of the season. My answer to everything: walking in the great outdoors. Now, with the addition of the puppy, walking is an everyday pursuit that I inflict on my family.
At the weekend, I woke early and my son and I did rounds of the fields behind our house before the sun had come up. It was an icy morning, crisp and fresh and oh-so-bracing. At times like those, I am so grateful for my impetuous decision to get a dog. Without him, we would not be charging round fields before sunrise on any given Saturday morning. Maybe when I made the choice to get him, I knew somewhere deep inside that we needed him. We
needed something him our little family.
On Sunday, we went to a beautiful, stylish drinks party in a beautiful, stylish house. A wintery afternoon of canapé perfection and champagne flutes. It was lovely. The fact remains that loveliness for me does equate to beautiful things; elegant places and little details. I notice all the details in a heartbeat. And so it goes for me; one day in wellies, the next in heels. I like the contrasts... :-)
