I wonder what it’s like to live your life in a family that had suddenly chosen to stay mostly at home now (in the time of Covid), when they had scarcely been home for ages.

And how that would improve your quality of life and engender more opportunities for sweet-bits and savoury morsels.

And to have lived your life as a sniffer-dog for the police, only to be saved in your old age by the thoughtful interference of people who just wanted you to have a retirement.

And to remember your adopted family and the boys not as young beloved children that you grew up with as a puppy, but a transposed affection not from the shared innocence and exuberance of a common past that bonded.

In the early years, prancing around the house, playing tug of war with the stuffed-monkey and chasing the perennial tennis ball.

And still, it is a life, in the least, a life of rest, of Pavlov’s reflexes, of the timeliness and assurance of those meals – and oh what glorious meals there are!

the durian morsels (for taste, and not to be gobbled)

the mango (likewise)

the birthday-cake plates, creams and crumbs galore

the Daily banana

the dinner bowl smorgasbord of meat, liver, potatoes and carrots

the evening cubes of apples

the slow grind of few slices of orange from trusting fingers

the evening vegetable and chicken scraps from the leftovers,

oh and the rumble of indigestion and over-indulgence,

the occasional chip, and moochi, and cracker… whatever,

but no chocolates and grapes; some ancient human myth no less; the fallacy of science and the malice of man

And now the day lengthens and the senescence reveals itself, like a giant tide that cannot be stemmed, it rages through you and take the chill into the marrow, and infiltrate the sleek and black with grey yet dignified fluff, and still the capacity to preen self as only a working girl can, to keep alive for another day, to be contented, to savour the remains of the day.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 RSV

GX85 Zuiko 40-150 mm July 2020

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