14th January...later

Right now, my feet are cold, my throat is tickly.  The clock ticks.  It is dark.  The weather is described as severe even though the snow didn’t stay.  Inside, I feel numbed from filling in forms and seeing the word ‘No’ next to ‘Vacancies:’ on Childcare Provider lists.  I feel lost for not knowing how things are going to turn out, things that I need to sort by an unspecified but looming date.  I think I need to eat because I haven’t eaten since this morning - a hearty Full English, with sausage and bacon and eggs and beans and mushrooms and black pudding and hash browns and half a tomato and farting ketchup and a pot of Earl Grey tea that poured me 3 cups, and toast (shared with lovely 8 month old Eva), that’s kept me going all day.  But I’m still not sure if I’m hungry yet.

I want to just be in the moment, not worry, not think so much about things I can’t physically do anything about right now, but my feet are cold and my throat is tickly and the clock ticks audibly and it is dark and I don’t have the right clothing for severe weather.  The latter fact accentuates the feeling I’ve been having lately, of being unprepared.  So I want to escape, I look around for a distraction but I know I’m looking around for a distraction so it doesn’t work.

In the Vauxhall Teahouse Theatre this morning, where I had the hearty Full English, I heard the theme to Downton Abbey on the radio which was tuned to Classic FM.  I looked up from my plate and felt the oddness of hearing the music and being where I was, without seeing the images that usually accompany them.  But for a few minutes, I was there, occupied by memories of those images, except I couldn’t place where I was in the story.

I could choose anything to be occupied with now, put on a song, pick up a book, put on a movie, see if there are any episodes of The Big Bang Theory on E4 (my favourite distraction at the moment), make toast.  But I can’t place where I am in the story of my day.  It’s as if I’ve lost my page.