A Tempest Between Four Walls

The good ladies at Bluebird Blvd and Buried Words And Bushwa are having a blog carnival this week called “Show Us Your Weather”. I dearly enjoy their blogs, so here is my nod to their carnival and my weather. It’s been a busy week, so my nod will be brief.

In sunny Queensland the sky is blue and the primary colours gleam with the sneaky mystery of their makeup. There is no breeze, no rain, not a drop of humidity for my nose. Just crisp, clear and still blueness, with enough cold to make my fingers tingle as I snuggle my chin a little deeper into my scarf.

A brisk flight of stairs, a bounce or two waiting for my coffee and the ruffle of discarded layers as I am swallowed by the hospital’s glass doors. And the warmth starts. Slow at first. I feel my cheeks flush around the same time as the coffee hits my stomach and radiates outward. A cheerful word or two with a total stranger and the spring appears in my step. By the time I hit the ward I am smiling and the coffee is only half gone.

From here on in, it’s anyone’s guess what the day will bring. My soaring mood develops an alter ego that fluctuates with tales that flit by me in slaps and snippets. One baby grins, another may not survive. A teenager seems to have an unfair but random combination of terrible, horrible diseases. A well child hugs me around the knees. A sick child grins and gives me a high five. Bad news chases good news, which chases bad news as surely as the midday warmth will fade at four.

As a student, tiny academic victories and supervisors’ compliments make the day roar with triumph, and are quickly overshadowed by the thought of graduation. My apprehension grows as the impending onus grumbles, a dark thunderhead obscuring the horizon. And I am listening and I am learning and I am watching and following, always following, and keeping up.

Any sane barometer would be exhausted.

From inside, the outside looks still. It moves at a steady, reliable pace while the hospital hares recklessly onward. The clocks play tricks on me. Why is it 2pm already?

And somehow, somehow… it’s time to go and I walk out into the real world and it’s chilly again and it takes me an hour to get home and in that single hour nothing new happens. And I have a moment to reflect on the weather, with its squalls and dappled light, once more.

If you would like to read more, join in or need to have words with your weather man or ours, you can view the other carnival posts here.