what stopped me today
Say the thing that stopped me.
The sun was shining,
but there was no lift in the day.
At first I thought it was simply a dull morning. Then I looked more carefully.
There was blue in the sky and light on the mountain, yet everything still felt flat somehow. The colours seemed muted, as though someone had quietly turned them down.
The farm had delivered difficult news the night before.
It has a way of reminding us how quickly an ordinary day can become something else.
As I stood there, I found myself looking for proof that the heaviness was real.
That’s when I noticed the aeroplane.
Normally it races across the sky, leaving a long white vapour trail that seems to appear almost magically behind it.
This morning it simply hung there in the sky.
The sounds were different too.
After weeks of busy chainsaws clearing trees brought down by he storm, all I could hear were the slow and heavy rumble of tractors and earth-moving machinery working somewhere beyond the trees.
Even the birds seemed mellow.
Nothing had stopped.
The plane was still flying.
Fallen trees were still being removed.
The birds were still singing.
But I could not tell whether the day was carrying the weight…
or whether I was.
What stopped you today?