'Friday is Fish, is everybody happy?'

Actually didn't have fish yesterday, although severely tempted by a bag of chips on my way home after a full day of teaching in Turnham Green. £1.30 for a bag of chips!!?? (cue trembling elderly voice ..''I remember in the old days.....") However they did smell good , but inihibited my urge as it isn't pleasant for others on the tube platform to watch me gorging and I had had a light supper already...
When I walked up the stairs in the morning (thinking of stepping in to cardboard boxes- not) to the second floor of ArtsEd I was in gloomy thought. The weather was cloudy, cold and gray, I was tired.....and then I came across young Tariq a first year drama student, practising his lines loudly as I walked by. It was very random, something like 'He didn't understand why I wanted to cross- dress and the purple waistcoat was so important!' and I walked past grinning at the absurdity and my blessings to be working in such a creative place. Mood changed completely, and the day was fun and easy - lots of teaching assistants made the second year classes seem more like an Alexander training going on - so much help for them, in a non-doing way. The hour for lunch which is required to be filled with clearing up one classroom, walking 15 minutes over to the Catholic Centre down to road, and preparing the next one seemd to happen in acres of time , and the humous falafel wrap was quite tasty. My darling MA students in the afternoon were just quietly getting on with it, lying down thinking of their upper limb, using us teachers well to come up and out and into the world. That's the important thing - into the world. Using the present connection to the outside world, to release us out of the cage of our habits.
Imagine if I had been so caught in my cloudy gray cold mood this morrning, that I hadn't heard Tariq?
I was also working on spirals in my MA tutorials. Getting them out of the 'cardboard box on two legs' and 'we should only get up out of the chair in the 'proper' Alexander way' syndrome. What joy to see them spiral up out of and spiral back into the chair, still with this clear 'up' direction...
Next I visited my dear friend Jane in the early evening who lives nearby. It happened she was recovering from a cold and having trouble with her neck. She is an actor and director and has such sensitivity that despite terrible pain and restriction she was able to release a little. Just the warmth of someone's hands touching lightly can be so soothing. And I did enjoy the chicken casserole too!
Life is full of choices sometimes. Today, Saturday, the choice of what film to see with another friend that suits us both. Ian Dury it is. And what a beautiful blue sky I can see as I write this- uplifting after all the days of clouds....I quite like clouds - watching them change shape, but the light is different. And I do like the light of a clear blue winter sky. The rooftops of London sparkle in the sunshine. Specially with an early frost.