Radiant morning with fish cup, 12 April 2020

A rushing wind from the south west loosened a piece of tin on the shed so that it made knocking noises just before dawn. I dreamt that the noise was people thumping at the door, and that they had come into the house and stood eerily against the light at the foot of the bed so that I couldn't see who they were. But I woke to a shining morning, the phantoms gone, children calling like birds in the next backyard, looking for Easter eggs. The phantoms are like people on Zoom, blurry and sometimes sounding indistinct, their faces distorted by the angle of phone or computer. I hope we don't get too used to seeing people this one-dimensional way. It reminded me of the dark silhouettes seen by the imprisoned people in the story of Plato's cave. They thought the shadows of people passing against the dim light of a fire inside the cave were the whole of reality, never believing anyone who had managed to get outside the cave and returned to report on the astonishing burning light of the sun. They preferred the safety of the world they knew.  It will be a new world out there when all this is over.

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Radiant morning with fish cup',Watercolour on canzon paper, 15 x 21 cm 12 April 2020