Awaiting a Favourable Wind.

I was watching a DVD tonight in which the phrase ‘purity of heart’ was a leading theme. It’s one of those concepts which are difficult to define – if definition is possible at all – and yet it has the ring of something grand and meaningful about it. So I took to wondering (as I always do when I encounter a concept which is difficult, if not impossible, to define) and it led me to a recollection.

A long time ago I made a promise to somebody and kept it when it was called in. Doesn’t keeping a promise indicate purity of heart? I really don’t know because things went badly from there.

It plunged me into a period of torment which echoes frequently to this day, but that’s all right because I was the architect of my own fall and can have no complaints. The problem is that I wasn’t the only one to suffer. Innocents suffered too, so what should I have done?

*  *  *

The sky has been unremittingly dark and gloomy today. The wind has been cold and fresh, the air laden with drizzly rain. There was a sick robin in the garden this morning which I could do nothing about, and there was a dead mole on the lane which would have looked as cute as moles always do had it not been for the unnatural red ribbon streaming from its open mouth. Add mild waves of nausea and periods of intestinal discomfort, and the day has been more dolorous than most.

I do so wish I could escape from this run of remorseless dolour. It loads my shoulders with that suffocating earnestness of which the doldrums are well stocked. I’ve said often enough that I dislike and mistrust earnestness. Oh for the days of ditties, ironic humour and general silliness. One day, maybe.