A hot day. Let's call it summer. The wisteria has finally recovered, busy new growth has almost completely overtaken the frost damage. All of the roses are in bloom, the first veg are harvested. I am married to a gardener.

The sun was not yet up, and the lawn was speckled with daisies that were fast asleep. There was dew everywhere. The grass below my window, the hedge around it, the rusty paling wire beyond that, and the big outer field were each touched with a delicate, wandering mist. And the leaves and the trees were bathed in the mist, and the trees looked unreal, like trees in a dream. Around the forget-me-knots that sprouted out of the side of the hedge were haloes of water. Water that glistened like silver. It was quiet, it was perfectly still. There was smoke rising from the blue mountains in the distance. It would be a hot day.

Edna O'Brien (The Country Girls)



The past couple of days have been filled with sheer exhaustion and huge portions of the day I just spend sleeping or dozing. I try to not think why this is so.
And yet, I am so restless.
I hear my mother's voice somewhere from deep inside of me, her disgust with my lack of dedication, the way I just do nothing, letting myself go. In an attempt to shut her up, and like the good daughter I was I am not watching tv before sunset. She would certainly also disapprove of my laptop even if I showed her that I mostly work and read on it. Proper literature, serious news media and all.

In brief moments of absurd clarity I realise that I am no longer the person who needs to be afraid of her judgement. It's only a memory.