Second chances...

... for Knots in the String.

Second chances – we should always be given at least one. (That is except The Despicables in the US Administration). I need one because I went down the social media rabbit hole again this week, to the exclusion of a lot of other more profitable endeavours. From one link to another and another, I found myself getting tied in a few anti-Trumpian knots.

So I untangle the string, removed myself from Meta (ie: logged out) and make an undertaking not to indulge in reading current affairs for the rest of the week. Instead I play on Pinterest with medieval history, with ballet, cooking, gardening and fashion. With Tai Chi which I’ve been doing since I was 33. I find a reel

of the Beijing 24 form, which was the first form I learned. It’s mesmerising.

I also read Postcards from Canada

Enduring Messages and Connections

and it reminds me of something Sabrina Simpson

and I talked of.

We would love to send and receive postcards. Anyone interested in joining in? On building a global community via snailmail and handwriting? Of touch, feel and look, rather than the current read, click ‘like’ and dismiss? If you do, then just mention it in your comments below and we’ll take it from there.

In the spirit of second chances, I decide not to scan the digital news but to watch a quirky movie: The Way, my Way, directed by Australian film producer Bill Bennett – his own personal story (told fictionally) of his walk on the Camino. How his non-religious and in some cases irreligious pilgrimage enabled him to find himself. I wonder if I could find myself on the Camino. Then I think, no, because every day I try to find myself my way. I make a pilgrimage from the house to the beach or bush, and I muse and meditate, sometimes even think of nothing and then find myself back at the house.

In that time, I might problem-solve by accident or design, have an astounding revelation, or exist in a moment of glorious nothingness where I just gaze at a view, allowing the soft colours to wash over me and christen me anew.

In contrast, I watch the satirical action series, Rogue Heroes – the possibly true story of how the original SAS was formed and the way they performed in the theatre of war. There are moments where I laugh out loud, and there are moments which are so poignant they cut to the very quick of human existence. I watch it and I think of World War II repeating, and I shudder…

On Kindle, I read The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa – pure whimsy. In print and in a similar vein, I read More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that I want to read about bookshops. Even more, that I want to read ‘feel good’ whimsy.

I stitch two bags of hearts for delivery for Easter. My father was nursed with such compassion at Calvary Hospital’s Gibson palliative care ward, and I always try to make a bag of hearts for the patients.

@sofi.sosa00Tambien queria ❤️🎻🩰 Oxidada pero el cuerpo tiene memoria ✨ #ballet #balletdancer #trend #candygirl

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Ballet is unfortunately cancelled this week. So, I run through the Candy Girl routine while Pupishnakov sleeps and I can sustain unbitten toes. I’m unable to decide which is the most suitable clip. The kitchen one speaks to Me the Domestic. But the army one speaks volumes with its combat gear for when El Puppiro is in one of his teething moods.

I think of the music our ballet teacher has chosen for this year’s performance. It’s one of my favourite waltz pieces and despite that I have said I won’t dance publicly this year, I watch André Rieu with a cast of thousands and am moved by the music and the sight of the dancing, wondering if I should give myself a second chance after last year’s grief-stricken performance. But then I ask why? Performance matters so little whereas studio and class matter immensely.

I first saw The Second Waltz performed by the Imperial Russian Ballet – a company which seemed to disappear off the face of the earth when Russia invaded Ukraine. Perhaps they reinvented themselves with a more appropriate name. In any case, art supposedly transcends borders and the choreography of the piece was breathtaking.

Imagine if you will a chiffon skirt that lifts and swoops as it folds around me, dove-grey with a white leotard and a pearl choker. You might be wearing soft blush, pale amethyst, a babe’s blue, milky coffee or any of a dozen other colours. Ballrooms are always filled with gentle tints (except on Bridgerton!). The white tie and tails’ clad men bow, we curtsy in response, our eyes cast down. They tuck one of their white-gloved hands behind their backs and hold out the other. And we step into the swirl…

PS: Don’t forget Postcards …