A Mind in the Balance

 

 This photo was taken on holiday in Italy the day before a nasty fall

 As if I don’t have enough to do anyway in my busy life where I do my best to blend all normal daily life smoothly yet still maintain a healthy living regime. That includes training for triathlon.  I still have no intention of retiring from this course, so please stop asking me when I will, because it does get my hackles up just a bit. I still work in our small antiques business and indeed this week I have spent many hours doing just that because Steve is away for a while. He will be home again  Late Monday thank goodness, because I prefer it when he is in charge of organisation, he is honestly much better at that than me and doesn’t get stressed by it as I do when problems pop up as they have this week.

 

I also have a whole bunch of hobbies and pastimes that make me cross if I cannot do a little of all of them. I am most demanding of myself. I like to write stuff; poetry, this dairy page, emails to friends.  I like sewing and always have something on the go. All of those things please me. I find writing relaxing and am not really concerned with where it is going, although I would like to self publish a book of my poems and maybe tidy up the hundreds and hundreds of pages I have written of my life story but its all in an untidy mess, stuffed in files on this computer but carefully backed up so that it does not get lost.

 

 

 

One of the things I like to do now and again, as a mental exercise, is to translate worries or irritations into a poem, but more confusingly, I like to take a famous poem and rewrite it, as a weird sort of homage at the same time. This is the earliest one of these mental therapy sessions written in  the summer of 2013.

 

 

 

It tries to follow the pattern of a favourite  of mine, the most amazing poem by Steve Smith, her remarkable work; Not Waving but Drowning. At the time I studied this for my own well being. I was recovering from the accident I had suffered that was the catalyst; spark that lit the paper, that lit the kindling, that lit the log and burst my poetry into a permanent flame in my life. It is fairly self explanatory; I had noticed that walking with a broken and strained foot and two breaks in my arm, that it had changed my body shape with the lopsided muscle movement. I should further explain that I have a bit of an obsession with balance and prefer to  be active in sports that are two sided,  as are swimming, biking and running, as well as stretching, walking and dance.  All important to me, and all follow my balanced rule. The pattern copying poem follows here, and then the original written by a much better poet than me.

 

 

Not Limping but Frowning 

Nobody noticed me, said the woman

As she stood by the mirror glowering

I didn’t notice it happening

I’ll stop limping and frowning.

 

Poor lady, she thought of remarking

My hips no longer match

Limping on that broken leg has made me lopsided

I will the limp detach.

 

Oh bugger, tits and bum and shit

Walking straight, and in pain drowning

I have hobbled too long that’s it

And now not limping but frowning.

 

         

Not Waving but Drowning      By Stevie Smith 1903- 1971

 

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much farther out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

 

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

 

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning

 

   Not looking pleased!