Saturday March 4th 1972
Transcription…
4.3.72
Thrushes. Important to me. A bird of great beauty - mistletoe or common, remember in the damp, brown hedgerow at bottom of garden in Ch. Or. Rd. near the lane and the playing fields, between the trees, under the bushes in the grass and very quiet. Thrush means a song, a welcome of morning, a flurry of feathers, a sharp quickness, a grace of animal, a warmth, a life.
Saw one this morning, splashing and fluttering in a little grassy hollow in the lawn which had filled with snowy rainwater, diving and tossing and shaking and flickering…
[Good to know that some totems last a lifetime…]
Saturday March 4th 2023
We’re helping our golden retriever Wilson into the back of the car but he seems strangely resistant and immediately jumps out to stand close to B, one of our neighbours who has just arrived. She engages with him immediately and he places himself in such a way – sitting, forelegs straight, head up but nestling towards her – that she can stroke his head with ease. Later she says, I think they know. Our cats have been responding in the same way.
She goes on to explain to us that her daughter has just been diagnosed with cancer, and it’s aggressive, already in her lymph nodes. She’s working in terminal care in oncology, so her work confronts her with her fears. She is in shock but already has been booked in for surgery. She has had a tough time recently with a relationship that broke up. But she has a new boyfriend who is sticking with her.
B’s pain was obvious in her face, strained and taut beneath her bobble hat. She said that her husband has taken it badly and doesn’t feel he can come out yet.
