Dirty hands

Today was hard. It was also bleak and ugly. I've struggled to keep my chin up, and to continue believing that, behind it all, the sky is still blue.
Insipid and rancid, are the other adjectives that fritter away at the raw edge of my mind.
Alex and Colette have just left. They came to pick hard-green-velvet figs from the overladen tree at the back fence, there by the veld.
My hands are now horribly tacky with the hideous fig milk; we filled a green Woolworths packet with the milky-sticky fruit.
I fetched a ladder from the storeroom. Alex climbed up and into the heart of the tree. She's one determined French woman.
We walked around the garden, and past many of Steffen's touches. He's very much here today. But not.
Another storm threatens on the immediate horizon, the umpteenth today. I long for it to break loose.
I'm sitting by my window on the garden. Time to make coffee and read. I was given an unexpected respite today, I'm probably squandering it with procrastination. But, I suddenly remember while typing these words, I am human. Very much so.
I press a spade deep into the hard earth packed around the kilometer-long tap root of my procrastination; I shovel out more questions than answers.
Alex left me a bottle of green fig preserve on the kitchen table. The green baby globes in the murky bottle are from my tree.
It's very hard work making green fig preserve. Alex does stuff; she gets her hands dirty.
Maybe it's time I threw myself into the fray...and got my hands dirty?
The storm-chilled breeze cools my arms, and ironically the first hard drops fall as the thunder becomes more muffled.