The September Calendar Moth

My favourite month has just arrived, right on time.  So I am seeing another September. They are all a bonus for me now.  To be fair, they always were, but you don't think about that when you are young.  Well, unless you are the poet Philip Larkin. He never forgot that it would all end in his death.

He will be SO happy if and when he is awoken from the dreamless sleep of death, not only to see this lovely earth again, but to know that this time he is not dying, but living.  And living joyfully too.

Anyway I note that we chose a picture of a rather horridly named Blood Vein Moth for our September calendar. The moth is lovely, of course, but the name is not.   Like so many moths with Autumnal colours, it could have been called The Autumn Leaf, or Autumn Gold, or. well - just to pull a name out of a hat at random - The Lovely Susan.

This is making me think of the fascinating task that Jehovah gave Adam of naming all the animals.   And isn't that what all work should be, creative and satisfying, and completely worthwhile?

We live in such a damaged world system now, yet even so it is easy to see how satisfying creative work can be.  In a small way, I enjoy doing this blog.  Trying to find the right poem, the right photo, etc.  Trying to make it interesting for anyone else who wants to read it (even though our lives are so quiet in this latter stage), while making it a useful reference for us.

I slept well on Monday night - thank Goodness - but it was a night of strange and stressful dreams.  I was at a massive Dental Clinic, worried because I had forgotten to bring my head, so how were they going to clean my teeth?  The Dentist was so drunk he could hardly stand up - so he may not have noticed the missing head. And the Clinic was full of ducks, and was set in a kind of Wetland Sanctuary, which included badgers in a pond, diving like otters.

And then I was in a massive train/bus station, trying to find a number for a taxi to get me home. No matter what I did, or who I asked, I could not find that number - and it began vaguely to dawn on me that this might be one of those frustration dreams...  after that I seem to have decided that, in that case, as it was a dream, I would be able to walk home, and I left the baffling Dentist/Station/Bus Terminal situation and set out to walk. There was snow on the ground, I remember, and I had no idea which way to go.

So what does that all mean?  According to Sigmund Freud I guess it would be all about sex, as he seemed to think everything was.  I have always thought that probably said more about him than about anybody else, but then I am not a psychiatrist.

I guess at that point I must have woken up.

We got a phone call from Roger on Tuesday afternoon - a lovely surprise, but also a reminder of how things change.   Roger was a constant guest in our expat years, and one of the regular Ramadam lunchers too.

And we have stayed with him in South Africa - when he took us on a tour of the lovely Cape, driving for days down that amazing coast.  And he has stayed with us here in our retirement by the sea many times. But this time we are not seeing each other.  He is only here for a few days, to help a member of the family through a difficult time, and neither of us is up, to say, meeting halfway for lunch at the moment.

I was able to send love to Anne and to Bruce though.