079 Patience

 

" Patience "

It has been a mental and physical battle just to replicate where I was a week or so ago. Sometimes success, sometimes failure but either way never with the ease of before. So when like today I push myself to a point I am in a bigger hurry to get away. I hate the return. The walking away is the hardest part. If I never had to turn around I think I could keep walking but I do. It's the return which brings all the doubt. It's the second leg where the finish must be faces with distance and time against me.

And so it was tonight. I got to the old Ludo and it was enough to step there without lingering physically or bathing mentally in those past images from yester year imagining all those happy people down there. More poignant today because it was so warm it felt like summer. No time for that though. I was on my way practically before I'd arrived. That was until something made me stop. The old iron gates. One time people would have waiting in a crowd or a queue for someone to open them. Now they are old and rusted and forever open. The locks are worn where once they were new. They would have clunked as the big metal key turned while held breaths exhaled in anticipation. They were guardians but now they sleep, abandoned. I was so drawn to them and this new narrative that I got out my phone to take pics. The gates had character if nothing else. 

I'd take photos within and so took some out and as I did so became aware of a spider. Something new to photograph. With my camera a breeze in macro mode but now I have to rely on my phone. I nearly gave up. I just could not focus and anxiety kept building. But I kept at it and the anxiety subsided. Finally the camera on my phone focused as I did which in itself is a pretty spectacular thing we probably all take for granted. It just needed patience. Anxiety needs patience too. It needs to be accepted and accommodated without being the major player. It needs to be without giving it too much credit for existence. It needs to coexist rather than dominate and sometimes that can happen naturally when nature takes over.