Drive, Darling

It is sundown. Sunlight is wistfully dancing in golden floods of deep warm hues on the leaves of the evergreens outside. Clouds scatter across the sky like a tearing blanket, dousing it in colder purples and blues. I am not feeling well. Mind and heart have taken a beating and I'm wearing it; on my face, on my sleeve, in my heart, and I hurt.

I want to drive.

I can drive now. It took a while, but now I am on my own, window down, engine roaring in a pulsing rhythm that comforts me in a world that has gone a little mad. The wind swishes past my face and I let the cold air bite my nose and ears and cheeks; I let it tangle my hair. I love this; the freedom of knowing I am on my own. I am part of this incredible engine, I control it, I am powerful. I can drive. And for the moment, driving makes everything seem alright, even though some things are not, and I am home. 

 

Opera

We made fruit mince today. Christmastime is soothingly melting towards us over the horizon, so we prepare with citrus peel and brandy. November. Perhaps it is not yet time for carols, but maybe for Pavane and Christmas-flavoured adagios? We know a few good ones. And so they play.

They play the way the flavours of fruit mince mingle in your mouth. Tossing and turning in a sea of colour; reds and greens and golds, mixing, folding, wrapping into one another. I put a spoonful of raw, pungent fruit into my mouth and it turns into something extraordinary:

OPERA.

I can almost hear the voices swelling in a vibrant, incomprehensible language that somehow doesn't need translating. Dried fruit swollen in butter and brandy numb my tongue; warm it down the throat; settle it inside me. Christmas is coming. Just wait a moment while I calm the flood of '!!!' that has risen, unbidden, into my lungs and heart. Opera in my mouth. Strong, dramatic, exquisite song with a sharp, gorgeous stab of nostalgia. This is the land-ahoy moment of Christmas. Somehow, it is also opera. But don't ask me how. It just is.