Saturday February 1st
I am writing on a blue sky Saturday. The window is open for the first time this year and birdsong trickles in through bright air. The intensity of late afternoon sunlight shifts as though filtered through projector slides. Waves of breeze trouble the ivy-choked tree beyond the back wall. I find it a peaceful moment to curl up in.
**
An old man in the cafe shuffled slowly - achingly slowly towards a table for two - but a rival, wearing not one but two flashy medallions, walked quicker and took the seat opposite. The old man, now without an option to retreat (he had limited manoeuvrability) took the seat he was aiming for anyway. The men sat eyeballing each other, the medallion man with his elbows on the table. The old man smiled weakly but it was not returned.
When paying for his coffee, the old man tried to fish small coins from a small jiffy bag, eventually pouring them on the table for the waitress to sift through. I had the tickling urge to offer to pay - but didn’t. I wasn’t sure how a gesture like that would be received - would he be grateful or feel diminished? When I looked up again from my paper the old man was gone. The medallion man remained. I saw the medallions were shark teeth.
**
An American man on the morning bus said, as discreetly as an American can, into his phone “I don’t want to discredit your colleague but do YOU have any advice on how to make the birth-giving happen?”
**
I read a nice thought on reddit - something along the lines of “We must forgive our past selves, care for our present selves, and make life easier for our future selves.”
**
I’ve just cleared the half-full jars from the fridge - gloops of relish, pesto, and stir-fry sauce down the drain. They’d been there for half a year or so and I know absolutely that they would never be used - but they exerted a strange hold on me. I think I was too shy to throw them away because they would judge me for being wasteful. And so they stayed in the top plastic shelf of the fridge door, judging me for being chicken, for not facing inevitable realities. They are in the recycling bag now. At least that’s something.