Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

-Mary Oliver

I was sick on Monday- the sickest i’ve been in a while. Food could not be kept down and Jon came home from work to drive me to the doctor, who said it was probably a virus. I had an injection, threw up two more times and then proceeded to sleep away most of the day, only having a sip of Gatorade or ginger beer now and then to sustain me. Today, i still feel weak and am trying to muster up the energy to shower and then do some grocery shopping.

Jon was a sweetheart the last two days, putting aside his deadlines at work to care for me and attend to my every need. He let me lie on him for hours on end, held my hair back as i threw up, fed me toast when the smell of food didn’t actually make me heave, bought me some organic bananas, got up in the middle of the night to get me a drink and give me my medicine and never once told me to not come too near to him in case he fell sick as well.

Unfortunately, this reminds me of the sort of carer i am when Jon gets sick. I usually tell him that we cannot hold hands or kiss since God forbid, i get sick as well and then the whole world would crumble. I also tend to start on my “come on now, just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you have to stay in bed the whole day and feel sorry for yourself” attitude, which of course, when you yourself are sick, realise it’s the last thing you want to hear.

In the last two days, my husband has shown me what it means to care and really love. Somedays, i chastise him for not buying me flowers more often or doing the laundry or cleaning the house. But i’ve come to realise that we love differently. And that’s really ok.

In other news, we are going into winter. Most mornings, i wear my gloves when i go for my walk in the park. Also, a cup of hot chocolate has never tasted so good. Jackets, coats and scarves are strewn everywhere. And  i got a new black hat! Really, winter doesn’t seem like the end of the world anymore.

In other, other news, we watched “Ghosts of Girlfriends past” last week. It was a horrible movie. DO NOT watch it, even if you love Matthew like i do. That’s all.