Sometimes you just don’t have the words. What someone tells you and expects you to respond to is just so far outside the norm or what you can fathom in reality that you can’t respond. You can only shake your head and wonder how things spiral and descend to such a depth. I am rarely stuck for words, but I am right now.

Or perhaps I am stunned out of words by the arctic chill of the interior of my house. The previous winters, the house was kept cozy and warm but the underfloor heating has been malfunctioning repeatedly this year. It’s just too cold in this place to live with this. I’ve danced and jumped and run around the house all evening to keep the cold at bay; now I am making hot water bottles, piling on the blankets and plugging in a space heater to make tonight comfortable. It may be time to look at some other solution while waiting yet again for a fix.

And to end and hopefully sleep, I listen to Glasgow’s Bubblegum Lemonade & read some very old French poetry.

Souvenir
–Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Quand il pâlit un soir, que sa voix tremblante
S’eteignit tout à coup dans un mot commencé;
Quand ses yeux, soulevant leur paupière brûlante,
Me blessèrent d’un mal dont je le crus blessé;
Quand ses traits plus touchants, éclairés d’une flamme
Qui ne s’éteint jamais,
S’imprimèrent vivants dans le fond de mon âme;
Il n’aimait pas: j’aimais!