BR070 Ella Watering

I slipped out of bed leaving Jilly in dreamland. We hadn't shut the thick curtains in Ella's top room and the sky was showing pink with the dawn. I found some of my old slippers in the closet and pattered downstairs to the living room. All was quiet. Going down to the chilly kitchen I put the kettle on and made myself a pot of tea. I cleaned up all the signs of my activity and took my cup of tea back up to the living room. Through the glass doors into the conservatory I could see Noobie, the little Garden Monkey, sleeping on a branch of a potted tree. I opened the door quietly and took a seat looking out at Ella's beautiful wintry garden. I wanted to think.

What had I been going through emotionally? Or physically, for that matter. My odd, dreamy, overcooked and oversensitive state yesterday. Everything had just seemed normal and then it wasn't. Suddenly I heard something behind me and turned to see Ella Pussycat coming through the door. She picked up a watering can and filled it at a tap. She didn't say anything but she nodded to me and smiled. As she watered the plants along the long window she hummed to herself.

I went back into my reverie. It felt as if there was a new understanding hovering above me, tantalizingly close and ready to be grasped. But what was it? What was the meaning of my odd state, if it had any special meaning?

"I'm glad to see you listening to yourself," said Ella. "Sometimes, Jack, your head is so full of a number of things that you seem to forget where you are."

"I do feel a lot of responsibility on my shoulders," I admitted.

"There are moment," said Ella as she put down her watering can and came and stood close to me, "when you have to let go or your body lets go. Now that your body has let go a little it may be urgent for you to act immediately."

"But how? What should I do?"

"I recommend you go out to Woody Spit, out to the orphanage and hang around with the kids."

"But it isn't the weekend."

"That doesn't matter now, Jack. Cancel everything at the Jackster plant this morning and drive out today and just be with the kids. Climb trees and sail your boat. Play the piano. Milk the cows. Make a little space immediately and then you can listen and hear what it is you are trying to say to yourself. The important thing is not to lose this opportunity."