Whatshot
The Colour of Water
The Colour of Water
Date: 2024-02-01
There is a madness about December. Wetry and restrain ourselves but somehow the silliness envelops us. The mallstingle, the bells jingle, and we feel the urge to stock up. Long forgotten arethe months of exercise, diets, yoga. It is a slow build-up. A bunch of litchis.How can one not. The bobbled fruit stare at you with a redness that puts Trumpto shame. The ice-cream that flows over the cone with a thin layer of carameland dotted with nuts cannot be resisted. And then the mince pies. Bought forXmas, but gobbled on the way home. The finale. Lunch on Xmas day. Yorrkshirepudding. The thick sauce dripping into slices of roast, veganism forgotten fora day.
January.It's 6am on the beachfront. Bodies squeezed into fresh lycra pump and bend,sweat and froth. Gyms are full, the promenade is busier than ever. The month ofresolutions - a fresh start, no drinking for a month, maybe longer, Veganuary.Work harder, work less, travel more. Read more books! The stress ofexcess.
Resolutions.The cliched slogans; 'no gain without pain'. The determination is palpable/themidriff inflatable. Everything is an oxymoron. Cigarettes vape into smoke. Redwine with zero alcohol. Soya boerewors. Coffee without caffeine. Milk withoutfat.
Butthen as we slip into February, like politicians after an election, theresolutions are tweaked, diluted and finally abandoned altogether. Yoga matsstand lonely. Like the hair-line, the promenade thins. Our mantrabecomes;
Eet-sum mor in the trolley/Alcohol to make us jolly/Hedonism is not afolly
Still.There is something about the year's turning, as RS Thomas would have it: 'thenew grass shall purge you in its flame'. It presents us with that numericalcalendar record which is held so dear, the disciplining sense of a new day, anew year, a fresh you. Always, an anticipation that one will become more thanits' parts.
Myown new year hobby is watercolours. There is something about a brush in yourhand, the blush of colours, the sense of capturing a moment, the joy ofdiscovering creativity. Forever. One thinks of Monet. Painting the same sceneover and over. New ways of seeing emerge. The water lilies painted at dusk areso different from the dawn. The Rouen Cathedral provides new revelations.
Monetmakes us realise that to capture a landscape in the colour of water is to knowhow fragile and changeable life is.
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