Raising her eyes up and away from the warm suds of the washing up bowl Leah looked mindfully at the three windows that neighboured her own.
“One, two, three spider plants,” she counted.
Leah pondered and wondered if her new unknown neighbour also picked baby spider plants off the mother plant and they too also enjoyed the tiny pleasures of nurturing a new generation of spider plant. She also observed her new neighbours oversized washing-up detergent bottle that stood major-like next to what she thought might be the mother plant. It was grander, fuller and taller than the other smaller plants in the other two windows.
It was, yet again, another day of ‘stay at home’ proceedings and Leah had already begun her habitual list of daily chores. Make the bed- remove every wrinkle. Cushions- all four soldier like and strait. Curtains opened to import as much light and cheerfulness as can be obtained followed by showering with divine organic tactile soaps to mindfully escape from the outside world of hourly tv news updates and constant global propaganda. It was another same-old same-old day. And until now, she had been quiet and accepting of it all.
Leah rinsed and dried all the glasses and plates and put them neatly away in their usual places leaving the cutlery to self-dry on a tea towel.
“Hate drying cutlery” she muttered. “It’s not entirely hygienic anyway” she grimaced trying to alleviate her own self guilt of laziness.
She desperately needed a walk; away from the kitchen and away from the rut of constantly thinking about food, and fridge and stressing about the kitchen floor being long overdue for its now regular routine of hoovering and mopping. How sad her life had become. And she hadn’t even for a moment realised it up until now. And yet through all this, she did find a certain comfort in knowing that her days were now predictable; safe of sorts, and structured to such a point.
Those days of setting an early alarm clock, downing a fast breakfast, and having to be virtuously patient during moments of persistent tail gating were now hazy memories of how things once used to be. Both Leah and Skipper were now living their lives at a gentler pace. The once seriously dressed lawyer now compared her new life to that of a script from a ‘How to be Mindful’ self-help book as she had mastered her own art of being mindful and felt certain that she could convincingly write one quite effectively herself.
With a deep sigh, and a complete air of optimism, Leah slowly stepped down onto the black and white tiled floor of her new and intriguing Art Deco porch and gently lifted Skipper’s old tatty leather lead up and off the short row of cast iron hooks. The benevolent brown eyed spaniel now adorned a very bright blue collar: a new seaside look that Leah thought would aptly suit her faithful red-haired companion who until about a year ago, barely got more than a rushed soldier- like march back in London.
“C’mon Skipper.”
