O clear-eyed serenity, you rare unicorn

Serenity comes when I least expect it and it goes away just as I get to like the feeling.

Right now in the midst of Christmas it is here and I have no idea why and it is probably to do with the Promises, very real but elusive. I have always preferred sensations and phenomena I can control ( well, I would, wouldn’t I?) and this white unicorn in a snowy forest clearing is hard to spot. I feel calm and filled with onder and as if I can handle everything that comes my way gracefully. Very unusual!

Thanks to all of you who posted yesterday and I hear you.

 

My first unexpected gift for this Christmas was opening my inbox and finding that my much loved friend and blogger Annie K was back on line on both her blogs! Thrilled to have you with us again!

And it is cold and rainy here in the mountains, wonderful for the garden and a rest from the fierce heat.

 

Yesterday I made 25 pizzas, bargain-basement mozzarella but homemade tomato sauce and fresh basil leaves from the garden and took them around to disabled children in a home here in the village. I also took along my excitable puppies who showed off like crazy and reduced the place to bedlam. More pizza topping on heads and laps and the walls than eaten. But the red and yellow and green colours made everyone happy.

 

A neighbour has just brought me a jade green bowl of dark sweet plums from his tree. I am so touched and happy. Tonight I shall be making a pot of moules marinieres ( sorry, can’t do accents) with fresh mussels and garlic and fish stock for supper, accompanied ( as they say in proper recipes) by crusty bread and a green salad. Perfect for this hemisphere. The house is filled with blue hydrangeas and white agapanthus which looks cool but festive. Handel’s Watermusic is playing.

 

I am not often filled with serenity, but I am sober. I once wrote in a journal about finding myself ’unpleasantly sober’ at a dinnerparty where there was no wine.  And it was an unpleasant feeling, as if I had had the limb for enjoyment amputated, limping through a meal drinkless and bored. Now sobriety is just a way of life and that other monotonous and dread-filled existence seems unreal and very far away.

 

Love to all and take care out there. Don’t be scared to ask for help if the unicorn is being stalked by a tiger.

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