love set you going like a fat gold watch

Hello! I hope this (somewhat cloudy Tuesday) finds you well. Here are a few recent noticings:

[One.] I was walking to the library last week. It is in the middle of Glasgow – a place of exhaust fumes, grey buildings, people gliding past each other like shadows – and I was thinking about nothing in particular when a bus drove past. The wind it stirred up caught in my hair, and hundreds of cherry blossom petals were swept up from the side of the road and started to dance along beside me. I don’t even know where the tree was... but the petals were beautiful. Cherry blossoms are one of my favourite things about the spring. 

[Two.] We were eating dinner last night (griddled chicken with salad and poppy seed bread) and I looked out the window. There, meandering past our house, was a tiny girl in pink welly boots and her Gran. The Gran was trying to hold an umbrella over the girl’s head to keep her dry, but the wee girl kept stopping every few minutes to jump in puddles. It's funny (in a not-meant-to-be-corny way) how things that we think of as a bit of a nuisance when we’re older – like puddles and snow – are the source of great excitement to small children.

[Three.] I was studying the other day in the ‘school room’, stumbling my way through T.S. Eliot’s confusing/nonsensical poem ‘The Waste Land’, when my ears heard a lovely sound: the running of water, the click of the kettle being turned on, the scraping of the teapot lid being removed, the cupboard doors banging open and the clinking of mugs being taken out. The sounds of tea being made, especially when you aren't expecting it (but are desperately needing a cup), are musical.

[Four.] Another kind of music (as in actual music): my brother and I were listening to this song recently. Haunting. Best listened to with the sound turned up, on a really good sound system (i.e. not the computer. We listened to it in the car, and could literally feel the music).

(The title of this post is the first line of Sylvia Plath's poem 'Morning Song'. A rare poem of Plath's that isn't full of disturbing imagery.

♥

The pictures are from: Susannah Conway's website. Her pictures are simple in a lovely way.)