The Word Patina..what evokes?

Working from home can sometimes be a bit challenging.  It demands discipline at a time procrastination wants to raise it’s ugly head.  My fingers seem to wander off opening all other tabs – Facebook, email and abc news.  I like to stop there as delving into them is usually a very short stop.  Sometimes I would open up WordPress as well. And the worst one is Korean Dramas.  I don’t like the last two tabs as I know it’s not going to be a short stop.  Today is one of those days.  Work seems to be  wandering faraway, but it’s okay the deadlines aren’t here yet too.  As my son and I sometimes joke  “if it’s not the due date then it’s not the do date”.

I normally write at night, after I have done my days dues.  It’s my guilty pleasure, my small treat.  Not today, I have decided to take a day off, maybe not the whole day but at least a few hours off to do some reading and writing.

Work is important as it pays the bills.  But leisure is important because it gives a worthwhile reason to work.  That’s my excuse for today anyway.

I peek at the word prompts on wordpress and ponder which word, which subject takes my fancy.

Patina –  Evokes the memories of my Old English master.  He wasn’t our school teacher but an external Tutor the nuns recruited for the boarders.  He was tall and huge.  I particularly remember the tiny glasses that sat on the edge of his nose.

My passion and advancement for the English language was molded by mainly Four individuals.  My dad – he introduced me to many classics, Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories” was one of them.  Needless to say that’s what I read as bedtime stories to my kids.  My dad introduced me to another old relative, not sure how he was related to us, that was Mr Ganeshan.  He was amazing at picking an unusual word and describing it with gusto.  So he was my second mentor.  The third was this Old English Master.  He was an imposing figure and we were meek and humble in front of him.  Many hated his vocabulary lessons.  But the nerd in me welcomed his lessons.  Patina was his word.  Before I ponder away into memories and let you wonder who the forth mentor was.  Well it’s my hubby.  Until I met him I read many books, but mainly romance.  I didn’t mind detective stories and yes Sherlock Holmes was on the list.  Hubby introduced me to a whole different world.  Never in a million years would I have read books such as “Hunt for red October”  or the Borne series.  Not my cup of tea would have been my answer.  But he encouraged me and said just read the first chapter and give up if you still don’t like it.  Mentors come in all shapes and sizes.

PATINA – bellows out our master – a pause and the word repeated again.  Dictionaries aren’t allowed to be open until we’ve been told so.  I had no idea what it meant.  No one did, I was eagerly waiting for his explanation while some had already moved on to daydream.  He points us to the St Joseph’s Bronze Statue that dominates the room.  “The green stuff on the bottom, that’s Patina”.  Huh! what an anti climax.  That’s just mere oxidation.  He went onto explain how and when you would use that word in normal conversation.

I was young then, I didn’t think further than that about that word since then.  But seeing it on the list here, it did evoke old memories and new musings.

Memories of my dad – movies, songs, books, studies, humanity, my dad had a hand in all of that. Even him introducing Mr. Ganeshan was all part of his grand plan.  It appears that there is a film of Patina still lingering over the silhouette of my body, the untimely death of my dad, life lessons learnt after his passing, no amount of polishing seems to remove the stubborn patina.

I wonder if we are meant to cherish the Patina, rather than remove it, as if it’s a foreign body. Why not celebrate the multitude of colours as a symbol of  life, age, history, memories and lessons learnt.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/patina/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/treat/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/evoke/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/dominant/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/cherish/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/silhouette/