A LADYBIRD AMONG BUTTERFLIES AND SNAILS

A recent visitor to the farm was a 4 year old boy, a Noo Yawker, whose finer appreciation for the life of snails and ants was charming. Something nipped at him while he was pond dipping but once the sting had passed, he enlightened me on mosquito larvae and water boatmen - the characters in our collection. August is here, and so there is still time for Being Outside. I was sitting under a tree the other day (on my beautiful purple meditation cushion that once belonged to Sister Chan Khong from Plum Village), eating cherries, writing my beloved friend Mary a letter...

when a ladybird crawled up my arm and settled on to me for the afternoon and evening.
Before nightfall, I thought I better put her somewhere less peculiar than the crook of my elbow and the nape of my neck (she was a tireless traveller!) but I had already fallen in love. If I were a 4 year old Noo Yawker I would never have parted with her!

I have not been having an easy time of it this year. Nothing earth shatteringly original - simply the dull ache of a life with illness and the sadness that comes with the knowledge that I am not in the swim of things once more. The last time I felt so painfully out of the loop of my contemporaries was when my life with lupus first began... but I am a writer and where there are words there is a place for me. Where there are trees and the natural order of things, there is a place for me. So I breathe, pay attention and write!