Curtains

I am home alone tonight. Dare I admit that I enjoy my own company perhaps a bit too much, and sometimes the peace of a silent house is enjoyable. Not that I dislike my family. However, you can afford yourself personal pleasures without the pry of other people. I sat down at the kitchen table, watching Lady Bird on my laptop (what a brilliant film by the way) and ate a bowl of cereal. It got soggy quickly because I left the oat milk out and room temperature is actually pretty warm now that it’s summer. Anyway, I was enjoying myself and returned upstairs when I heard loud noises coming from outside. They were dull thuds and bangs. It has been a long time since New Year, but I didn’t think I was that unfamiliar with the sound of fireworks. As it turns out, they were fireworks. Yet, looking outside, for the first few minutes of these noises I couldn’t decipher them because the sky was still. They weren’t shrill enough to be gunshots, unless far in the distance; certainly not a comical God reaching his arm down from heaven and whacking a huge gong… Wow – don’t such images enlighten you at this time of night. I closed my curtains fearfully and it amused me. We have this instinct to draw the curtains when we’re afraid of what might be outside. Flimsy fabric becomes a force of protection, but we know they don’t physically shield us. It only guards what we are able to see. What we can’t see, we worry less about? What we don’t see can’t hurt us? We know these sentiments are true in our lives because we selectively divert our attention, for better or for worse. It’s not a bad thing; it just happens. If our brains had the capacity to be able to comprehend the state of the world frame by frame, we’d be far past extinction. On the other hand, if we can see something, we fear less because our imagination isn’t generating multitudes of false alternative scenarios (take the natural fear of the dark, for example) Aside from all of that contemplation as went to fill up my water bottle, I am so lucky that whatever those noises could have been it wouldn’t be guns and screams. I live in a place where there isn’t a threat of violence. The only scrapping I hear at night is between the neighbourhood of cats. I am really grateful for that but I don’t think about it as much as I ought to – about how lucky I am. I will be going to sleep now as I have plans early tomorrow (and holiday lie-ins do no good for your rhythm) [but you do it anyway]

I wanted to leave you with my scramble of thoughts. Looking forward to reading this over in the morning and thinking, ‘my Lord, why did you think this was acceptable for all internet users to access’ And I’ve just realised I want to write extended metaphors about curtains (this is, however, entirely autobiographical. My life is that exciting)

Good night!!

Catherine x

P.S Autocorrect is trying to convince my that ‘peace’ isn’t a word. The influence of John Lennon slipped past computers it seems.