Sunset in amber

This light is like honey.

     I'm lying on the 10 year old bed, the covers that I've never seen different, but each year smell of the same faint washing powder.  I remember these curtains too.  I drew them once, tried to capture their dear twee honeysuckle pattern.  Felt-tip and black marker was too harsh a representation of these twirling fragile flowers.

     Through the net curtain, the stones of the wall and the bark of the tree are gilded in the same leaf against the sapphire of the evening sky.  A wry smile darts across my lips at the thought of a falling down stack of dry stone and an old man tree made precious by turn of phrase and the setting sun.

     I take out my headphones.  Listen.

     I can hear a lazy dusk chorus getting into swing.  Nature, the cruel gentle mother, knows it’s soon time for dark.

     I've written about this enough times before.  My favourite time of day.  Everything old, everything new.  Day to night, light to dark, when the familiar forms and shapes around are made scary and wild, dynamic and thrilling.  I want to go outside, feel the warmth on my skin and the chills down my spine, that inexplicable anticipation at the day’s turn. 

     But I don’t.  I stay inside like a good girl, secure, with my senses dulled by these four walls around me.  Why?

     I don’t truly know.  It’s not for lack of a companion – this time is best alone, or with that rare good friend who knows not to talk.  I think maybe I've grown complacent.  In a world where the greatest wonders are seen on screen, I have grown content to be a passenger, just another member of a captive audience, rather than risk playing a part.

      So I gaze out the window, and wish that this amber light could keep me trapped just a little while longer.