The wonderment of inexplicable things

I may have blogged about this before but after an episode yesterday I was inspired to write on the subject again . . .
Many things are inexplicable: what is outside our universe? - where does space end? what happens at the end of it, etc; where do scissors and pens go? why do 'the elected' in small towns like ours allow the building of yet another supermarket, and so on. But one of the most un-explainable things must be
Homeopathy.
I woke early yesterday with a nasty bout of Cystitis, and spent the whole day hobbling about in loose clothing or lying on the sofa with hot water bottles and dogs. I decided a fast might be good so opted for lots of water and bicarb (ugh) but gave in after lunchtime and ate some rice and a banana.
I tried a homeopathic remedy - Cantharsis, remembering it had worked years ago - unfortunately to no effect.
By bedtime nothing had changed and I was dreading multiple trips to the loo and stalking about in the semi-darkeness downstairs moaning softly.
Thinking about the previous time and the remedy that had worked, I looked up other suggestions: Aconite (monks hood plant, and very toxic); sepia (extract of ancient photos?) pulsatilla, and Nux Vomica - I love this one. Poisoned nuts, I seem to remember, from the Strychnine tree . . . mm.
Anyway, I settled down in bed with hot water bottle and book on disappearing/disappeared London; took took two small white pills (nux vomica) the size of a largish pin head washed them down with a large pinch of scepticism, and then forgot, immersed in my book. Did you know that the word 'Spitalfields' comes from the fields that used to surround a certain hospital in that area of London? And that spital is a shortened version of the word hospital. Incredible.
Fifteen minutes had passed in reading and I suddenly learned something equally incredible (on a small me-scale at any rate). The pain had gone: GONE, completely. No urge to do go, not burning sensation, nothing.
This morning? still the same, all discomfort gone (so far). So, how the Hell does it work? How can a suggestion, a ghost of an extracted thing mixed with water and a tiny bit of sugar effect the body thus?
I don't know, and I like that - something else that science cannot explain, a bit of everyday magic we can all use.

                                  

                                                                     Getty Images

time and distance

I often stand still when somewhere completely quiet and try to imagine the mayhem of, say, Oxford Street on a day leading up to Christmas. Or inversely stand still on Oxford Street - causing ardent shoppers to push past with a brief look back: mad, obviously - and try to imagine a placid and empty hill in, say, the foothills of the Pyrenees.
It seems almost impossible that these places exist when you're not actually there. Then I start thinking about members of my family and friends - what are they doing at this precise moment when I am standing gawping at a blossom-loaded tree? sorting out the cupboard under the stairs? eating a cheese sandwich? sitting with a cup of coffee and wondering what their family and friends might be doing?
Then I might start thinking about The Big Question, or one of the big questions, - what is Space exactly; what is beyond our solar system and where does it end? But it can't end; what is holding it all in place and is space a series of giant boxes or spheres; a vast set of Russian dolls - probably not best to think about it at all.
Anyway . . . I happened to notice a number of planes passing over our patch of The Earth this morning; more than usual in fact. I stood for quite a long time considering the fact that unlike the Oxford St/Pyrenees thing I could see the plane at such a huge distance, and, people on board, eating peanuts, drinking tea or trying to ignore the child kicking the seat behind them, could look out and see, not me, probably, but certainly our house.
I always spend any flight with nose pressed to the oval window looking out on the passing millions of dwellings wondering if people are looking up and thinking about who might be on board and what they might be reading/eating/ drinking. Air to land psychogeography? or just nosiness on a grand scale. Anyway, again, time to put the kettle on and stop avoiding jobs to be done.