HOUSEBOUND
For the last few days I have been laid low by a bug of some kind. I am housebound. A compensation is that I can look out of windows. The picture above was taken at 7.55 am, just after sunrise and facing east. It shows balcony railings touched by golden light. What’s outside isn’t clear. The railings seem like golden bars in a magical confinement. Am I being tested?
Later, I stand on another balcony, a little after 4pm. I am facing a little south of west. I feel partially liberated as I am able to encounter the sky in its different moods. It’s late afternoon and still two hours from sunset. But the clouds are louring and the sun on a descending trajectory.
All of this will change next Sunday when our clock time falls back. Sunsets will start around 5pm and then get earlier, in exchange for the temporary gift of an earlier sunrise.
Yet the balcony flowers, so lovingly tended by my beloved wife Elaine, seem to be unchanging to an onlookers view. It isn’t true of course. They are assiduously pruned. Pots are changed. Yet they are a lasting aspect of the apartment. It’s not a prison at all.
