Yesterday I was feeling shaky. I was feeling the kind of ill where you're five minutes from home and there's sweat on your brow, your whole body aches and you really do think for just a minute ... that you can't walk another step!!! My convalescent six year year old accompanied me to drop off my youngest boy at nursery (otherwise we would not have left the house at all!) and once home again I placed everything that I thought I might need for the following two or three hours all on a side table within easy reach. I went to the airing cupboard and grabbed my newly hand knitted and hand made square patch blanket, made with love by my mum! Just like the one's that we had as children made by Grandma Peppermint that would always make their way out of the cupboards when we were either ill or feeling blue ... and as soon as I wrapped that blanket around my shoulders I felt every vulnerability in me rise to the surface. It was actually a relief, very freeing.
There's something about being ill that always makes me reflective, perhaps it's simply that I slow down enough to think of things outside of the daily hum. I've been thinking a lot about how I can take better care of myself, how I can slow down, how I can simplify life, how I can enrich it. I guess with the start of a new year it has naturally led me to be pensive about the bettering of my life and whilst I'm recovering and still feeling this child-like vulnerability I am embracing it, embracing it all .... even if I do feel a bit cak and a bit ick!
