Skip to main content

Life in a time of covid-19 - part 14: Venus on the horizon and Ovid. Or if not Ovid, could it be covid inside my head?

 


"Venus favours the bold"

Ovid


... Venus an hour before sunrise this morning (the dot above and to the right of the oak).


Well, I assume I'm not alone in thinking it's hard to believe it's December. How did that happen? I know December follows November, follows October etc and despite it being a weird year, it's not yet bent time. But honestly, where has 2020 gone? No, actually ... shakes head. And shakes head again. And drops head momentarily onto desk ... don't bother to answer that question: we all know where 2020 has gone. It's been swallowed up by a tiny virus. Tiny. Miniscule. Deadly. Monsters are meant to be big; they're meant to stomp and roar; to huff and puff and blow our houses down; or smell our blood while shrieking 'fe-fi-fo-fum.' They're meant to lurk beneath our beds and hide in cupboards, waiting to pounce. They should have green skin, drool slime and be covered in warts. They live in dark forests or in swamps. And sometimes come from beneath the sea or from other planets. We dream them as children and pen stories about them as adults. But the covid monster, we can't see. And it lurks everywhere. And it makes fearful children of us all. Aargh! 

Breathes ... washes hands and puts the covid monster back in a box.

Part 14  - and a picture of Venus. And a quote by Ovid. Why? Because on most days, both during this lockdown and the last, I have posted a #lockdownsunrise, taken over my garden fence. And I have posted it on Instagram, with a quote and a few words that have helped me to find something positive with which to start the day. Structure. Or mindfulness. Or focus, if you like. I've enjoyed doing it and I've loved seeing that friends and strangers have seen my posts and liked them. Never many, but to touch even a few has felt good. And, if I've learnt how to take and edit a better photograph - I hope, I've loved finding the quotes. Half an hour or so searching for words, for a story about how they came to be: who assembled them and when and why. This has been fascinating. Truly the best way for a procrastinator to start the day - looking for someone else's words and seeking inspiration from them. Putting off entirely writing words of my own. But not quite entirely - there's the explanation, the hashtags that in themselves tell a story. It's time wasting, but hasn't felt like a waste of time.

Then today, I received an advent writing prompt. Which surprisingly, I completed. And then, after spending far too long chasing the Ovid #quoteoftheday down a rabbit hole, following it into multiple branching caverns containing others who claimed the quote as their own and discovering a labyrinth of related idioms and 'what does it means' and 'why was it saids,' I decided that blogging here might be like resurfacing into fresh air. Until I remembered that even the fresh air above a word-hunt still contains covid and is heavy with the clouds of worry and fear and 'please let this be over soons' and 'lets not talk about Christmas yets' and 'yes, lets put up all the Christmas decorations nows.'

Hmmm ... Christmas in a time of covid - what will that look like?

If I've learnt anything from this morning's Ovid hunt, it's that we get what we deserve - no, not covid, I'm not saying we deserved that ... what I am saying, and what Ovid meant, is that if we are bold, and brave and work hard at something, then we will be favoured with fortune. Venus will look on us favourably. Venus is the God of love and prosperity and good fortune. If we work hard to make the best Christmas we can - safely, and within the guidelines - then we can and will make it a good one. It won't be normal. It can't be. But it needn't be bad. If we believe that, and adapt our expectations, and act in a way that protects ourselves and our loved ones, we'll be ok.

Venus favours the bold. 

Be bold.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...
Post a Comment
Read more

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful.  Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten! ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Walking, wondering and not walking at all

We all walk. I walk every day. I also lie. I don't walk every day, as in I don't take the dogs for a walk every day. Poor boys, in this season of tax returns and desperate seeking of extra work and working to pay the tax bill, they are the losers. Four-legged-friend was looking distinctly skinny in his hind legs, when I brushed his coat while he wolfed down his supper this evening (he tries to eat the brush if I take it near him at any other time, so meal times have become grooming times). Oddly, I lose out on the walking too, but this fails to have the same effect on my 'skinniness'... Anyway, we all walk. We walked on Christmas day - Littlest and I walked at the weekend - Slowly. Time to appreciate the trees. Time to encourage the smelly boys into the freezing water. Time for the sun to go down. Time to walk very, very slowly - Littlest's finger phone was engaged throughout in deep discussion with the zoo warden - da...
Post a Comment
Read more