Mouse Magic
May. 29th, 2023 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootYesterday my brother sent me this picture. I'll stick it behind a cut in case any musophobes pass this way.
He also told me he had put poison down! Poison! I nearly jumped out of my seat. The trouble with poison is that loads of beasties will try it in the spirit of 'will it fit in my mouth.' Poison is horrible, and traps are grotesque. I get that sometimes there is no option but until that point, I'm an advocate for any alternative at all. We're all leaving, let's make it as pain free for each other as possible.
He then informed me that he was taking these characters down to the train station. I approve: lots of nosh and fewer neighbourhood cats though foxes bide where the wild woodbine and buddleias fight for control of old railway tracks. Besides, if they don't like it, they can always catch a train to Deptford or London Bridge. This is only partly a joke, I've seen mice get on a train, though I suspect they're entirely negligent about buying tickets.
Weird thing is that it's all a bit synchronicitous. Mice are turning up a lot for me now one way or another; a sudden recurring theme.
Taking them as symbols, trying to work out what they might mean in my lexicon of the unconscious; some kind of access to my knackered creative backbrain. Mice are explorers and they can get in pretty much anywhere, so in terms of permeating this solid writers block, they feel like a useful sign to nibble and gnaw away at it. The little beggars can chew through anything.
Also to enjoy small things but not to sweat the small stuff. If only! I must shop. No way around it, I have no time for podiatrists before we travel so I'll take two sets of shoes, summer shoes with a bit of heel, plus new nearly flat sandals. Lord. These things are always completely irritating, the bit between the toes that rubs, heel straps that constantly nuzzle one's ankles, stupid decorations that look great then graze the top of the foot! I have to find sandals that won't -
and here comes the break.
Russ came to me needing cough linctus and more throat lozenges, so I left this post right there, and went to town by the little woodland enveloped in cow parsley and hawthorn bloom. There is something intoxicating about Hawthorn when it fills the air, and every breath sweeps me up. In Botswana the scent of the land was wild sage, dry in the heat, so astringent it smote ones nose and lungs, fresh, awakening. Here the thorn flowers have an almost soporific effect. Small wonder so many talk about sleeping under a hawthorn bush on the Eildon hills to meet the Queen of Elphame, and I would love to have been left to dream about such things, about my intention of going up there myself, of elf encounters and otherworldly quests and strange beings who promise you gifts you may/may not want; or to remember Botswana and the sage that was so sharp and clean it felt like you were breathing in a purifying new life, or dwelling on my brother's mice and how he can get rid of them kindly, or just being where I was, wandering along in the green looking out for deer. But no. No,no, forget all that, forget dreams and relaxing into the beguiling scent, forget the enchantment of the woods.
Because there was a man.
He was walking in front of me very slowly, so I slowed down because I didn't want to be in front of him. He stopped and stared at the burn for a bit, and I had to pass. I looked at him. Old, I thought, I could take him maybe, if I had to. But men do have that extra physical edge, years promise neither strength nor weakness. His was a craggy spongy face, features folded and pushed in together. I suddenly felt my dreaming just click out, hypervigilance taking over, my pace much faster, the realisation that my foot issue destroys the possibility of running away. I was aware of how near/far he was behind me (now walking again, of course) I could hear my heart's rapid pounding, my fists clench; having left Russ in the house I hadn't even taken keys with me. Honestly, I never learn. When I've tried punching exercises in the past I become aware of an issue I have, pulling back just at the last as though afraid of hurting someone. I would like to get past that, to clench my fists and be able to use them efficiently. If I was myself just as I am but somehow transported to the US, I might well wish to carry a gun*. Being me I would then lose it in the bottom of my handbag or shoot my own foot off.
Everything eased when I saw people ahead. Turning back he was a long way behind me now. Relieved, I went and got the shopping then came home. We are what 13 years in? Why doesn't this hypervigilance fade? Perhaps I don't want it to. If I'm in danger I want to be awake, tiring and tiresome though it is when dreams under hawthorn call me. I want to be in a danger-free world, not a world where I am just oblivious to danger. I don't know how to be cute and quick, daintily darting from here to there taking care to stay out of everyone's way.
Let's face it, I really lack Mouse Magic.
*I know, I know.
He also told me he had put poison down! Poison! I nearly jumped out of my seat. The trouble with poison is that loads of beasties will try it in the spirit of 'will it fit in my mouth.' Poison is horrible, and traps are grotesque. I get that sometimes there is no option but until that point, I'm an advocate for any alternative at all. We're all leaving, let's make it as pain free for each other as possible.
He then informed me that he was taking these characters down to the train station. I approve: lots of nosh and fewer neighbourhood cats though foxes bide where the wild woodbine and buddleias fight for control of old railway tracks. Besides, if they don't like it, they can always catch a train to Deptford or London Bridge. This is only partly a joke, I've seen mice get on a train, though I suspect they're entirely negligent about buying tickets.
Weird thing is that it's all a bit synchronicitous. Mice are turning up a lot for me now one way or another; a sudden recurring theme.
Taking them as symbols, trying to work out what they might mean in my lexicon of the unconscious; some kind of access to my knackered creative backbrain. Mice are explorers and they can get in pretty much anywhere, so in terms of permeating this solid writers block, they feel like a useful sign to nibble and gnaw away at it. The little beggars can chew through anything.
Also to enjoy small things but not to sweat the small stuff. If only! I must shop. No way around it, I have no time for podiatrists before we travel so I'll take two sets of shoes, summer shoes with a bit of heel, plus new nearly flat sandals. Lord. These things are always completely irritating, the bit between the toes that rubs, heel straps that constantly nuzzle one's ankles, stupid decorations that look great then graze the top of the foot! I have to find sandals that won't -
and here comes the break.
Russ came to me needing cough linctus and more throat lozenges, so I left this post right there, and went to town by the little woodland enveloped in cow parsley and hawthorn bloom. There is something intoxicating about Hawthorn when it fills the air, and every breath sweeps me up. In Botswana the scent of the land was wild sage, dry in the heat, so astringent it smote ones nose and lungs, fresh, awakening. Here the thorn flowers have an almost soporific effect. Small wonder so many talk about sleeping under a hawthorn bush on the Eildon hills to meet the Queen of Elphame, and I would love to have been left to dream about such things, about my intention of going up there myself, of elf encounters and otherworldly quests and strange beings who promise you gifts you may/may not want; or to remember Botswana and the sage that was so sharp and clean it felt like you were breathing in a purifying new life, or dwelling on my brother's mice and how he can get rid of them kindly, or just being where I was, wandering along in the green looking out for deer. But no. No,no, forget all that, forget dreams and relaxing into the beguiling scent, forget the enchantment of the woods.
Because there was a man.
He was walking in front of me very slowly, so I slowed down because I didn't want to be in front of him. He stopped and stared at the burn for a bit, and I had to pass. I looked at him. Old, I thought, I could take him maybe, if I had to. But men do have that extra physical edge, years promise neither strength nor weakness. His was a craggy spongy face, features folded and pushed in together. I suddenly felt my dreaming just click out, hypervigilance taking over, my pace much faster, the realisation that my foot issue destroys the possibility of running away. I was aware of how near/far he was behind me (now walking again, of course) I could hear my heart's rapid pounding, my fists clench; having left Russ in the house I hadn't even taken keys with me. Honestly, I never learn. When I've tried punching exercises in the past I become aware of an issue I have, pulling back just at the last as though afraid of hurting someone. I would like to get past that, to clench my fists and be able to use them efficiently. If I was myself just as I am but somehow transported to the US, I might well wish to carry a gun*. Being me I would then lose it in the bottom of my handbag or shoot my own foot off.
Everything eased when I saw people ahead. Turning back he was a long way behind me now. Relieved, I went and got the shopping then came home. We are what 13 years in? Why doesn't this hypervigilance fade? Perhaps I don't want it to. If I'm in danger I want to be awake, tiring and tiresome though it is when dreams under hawthorn call me. I want to be in a danger-free world, not a world where I am just oblivious to danger. I don't know how to be cute and quick, daintily darting from here to there taking care to stay out of everyone's way.
Let's face it, I really lack Mouse Magic.
*I know, I know.
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