Moments interrupted...

A mimosa across the valley in windy whispers...

Hello lovely ones, I hope you are all smiling on these first beautiful days of nearly spring, welcome to A Hill and I, I’m delighted you’re here.

Jean de La Bruyère once famously quoted ‘Ceux qui emploient mal leur temps sont les premiers à se plaindre de sa brièveté.¹’ if this is true, I am an expert at both!

My entire week was kidnapped! Every waking hour and minute was whipped into an unruly mess of car hunting—an unimaginable nightmare when one can’t just nip out and by a new one—insurance claims—an even bigger nightmare—classes and reports and long meetings, all the noise, hustle and bustle my day-job latently carries because holidays are over and oh I wish they weren’t!

And, because of forced too-much-on-my-plate interruptions, I miss the first leaf to burst from its sticky bud on an old, brave oak tree, the first daffodil to throw open its yellow wings! I miss the wondrous beginning of spring, nevertheless, I do have a new/old car, and, a perilously sick looking bank account!

Hence, with the too few free minutes of time I have been granted this week, here are the fragments of spring I have caught in the smallest of hopes that they touch the part of you that still knows how to smile during a week that has been tricky for many reasons other than my lack of time to notice.

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“So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts…” —Herman Hesse

It is the night of the Kingfisher escapade, whether because of my fear of being seen or other unfathomable, equally opaque reasons, once again, during hours I have no business or desire knowing—ahh, my old friend insomnia—I drag my shivery, saucer-eyed shell to the kitchen, grate ginger into a cup, speak sweetly to stove who for once is too sleepy to fight back—I know the feeling—boil some water, try to resist opening any screen, fail completely but in so doing find staring back an email notification I can hardly believe. A letter from an old friend, a good old friend; company in the small hours, a serendipitous collision of kindred, distant thoughts from New York to France and back again.

This old friend, who also may or may not have been the cause of my wakefulness, was the same friend who just happened to be the first I ever kissed, the same friend that not an hour prior to finding the email I was reminiscing about. Reminded by my earlier rather surprising naturist sighting, I am smiling into the night at another long ago day, on a different grassy bank by the edge of a forest on my childhood hill.

With the rare liberty of being quite alone we two loves were lain; bare arms, bare legs, gloriously young bare other flesh too, wrapped in voluptuous warmth from the evening sunshine as we enjoyed a taste of the same aphrodisiac no doubt those others were delighting in here on my hill; the same feeling of oblivious freedom in a moment entwined together, al fresco.

Deliriously delinquent, without fear of disturbance, we did not consider curious wildlife, neither did we consider animal tracks leading to and from the heart of deep woodland as we lay across one of them practicing our young, blind love. So eager was our desire we did not hear, either, the sound of cloven hooves wandering through the bracken just behind us, neither did we see an inquisitive Red Deer appear by our side scrutinising our lustful goings on with his huge beautiful eyes, a distasteful look on his whiskered face. Not until he bellowed vociferously into the evening light. Not until he turned as if to leave then turning again, leapt over the entire length of our bodies with enviable agility before disappearing once more into the thicket of trees did we leap from our nakedness in fear of our lives, dragging clothes and each other from a sound that echoed around the hill much like a battle cry. Our moment interrupted dissolved into suddenly, much cooler, evening light.

Eventually, trembling turned to laughter as we ran half clothed back to the car, certain, only that we were lucky it wasn’t the local gamekeeper, known to both our families and that the beautiful creature had no camera hidden in his red coat!

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“These fragments I have shored against my ruins” ― T.S. Eliot

Briefly - Overnight—if that is possible—the sky has changed, branches bulge at their tips paused in pregnant anticipation of words whispered by their woodland friends; ‘Now, it’s time to burst open!’ Feathered creatures have abandoned forlorn, melancholy winter songs, their melodies now, are upbeat and frantic, tiny wings flit and flutter as they busy themselves with their important spring work. They know it’s time. March winds are blowing away residual winter webs, lighter air filling my lungs is fresh, scented honey sweet as it drifts and sways in clouds filled with pollen in lemon yellow swirls from silvery willow. One apricot tree, and two Mirabelle plum trees are in full blossoming gloriousness, bees make tentative forays between each nectar filled bloom, soon little buzzing friends, soon you can begin your honey making.

The week is tangled in shame, mercifully not mine—breathes huge sigh of relief—there is no Kingfisher, the nature lovers are long gone, gentle hill comedy watched through an old battered lens, old news. Nevertheless there is much talked of shame, the whole world was invited to watch! Without the slightest remorse the court jesters begin their act—the same court jesters I banished from my radio but a few weeks ago—they call in the press, hire cameras to zoom in on their ugliness as they sit in plush chairs, record their sneering verbal show down to glorify their vileness—their blood sport—and we, like lambs to slaughter, do exactly what they hope for; we glorify it a hundred-thousand times over by giving them air time. We watch, aghast, speechless, we forfeit the chance of blissful ignorance of their contemptuous behaviour because we all tune in!

I wonder, now, as we drift in clouds of nostalgia, what is left? We pine for easier days, we speak and dream incessantly of years in the future that we believe were the years of our past, I do not blame us, those hazy halcyon days, the exquisite feeling of liberty, we long for them, we long for a place we remember as being safe from harm but, we are adrift in the dreaming when we cannot allow ourselves to be, there is no longer time or space for drifting or dreaming.

“Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Through the trees, across a deep ravine—that I still may fall into—there is an enormous mimosa in full bloom. When sunshine warms its sublime grace and the wind blows from the south-east I can catch its heavenly, intoxicating scent on the breeze. I consider this something to be eternally grateful for in spring.

Our planet is fracturing, so many beautiful earthlings are but simple fugitives doing their best to balance on its remnants. This week, though I try not to, I have joined them.

Twice in as few as four days, sleep is elusive, on the second night not helped by wind howling up from the valley. Just before dawn light leaks through the shutters I open them to breathe the last of night air, watch a crescent moon rise from behind the hill, listen to a barn owl calling from windswept ash, watch countless bats returning to sleep in les caves². Sometimes, wakefulness can be quite divine.

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In delirium, I send you all love

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Something I am loving…

E.T. Allen

serialised his extraordinary novel, a true story of faith and vision, this is how he describes it;

The book is an electric exploration of the phenomenon of timing, through the lens of an ordinary thirtysomething whose life is turned upside down by inexplicable, extraordinary occurrences that seem to have a mysterious pattern. A pattern that may unveil the very nature of time itself…

but it is so much more!

If you enjoyed these posts please tap the ♥️ below to help me ride the algorithmic forces that are in constant motion, it really helps! Also, I would love you forever if you consider helping me to continue writing A Hill and I either by becoming a paid subscriber or by making a donation to this secure link which keeps me and my now very sick bank account afloat! Either way or no way, I am so grateful for your visit. Thank you.

1. “Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.”

2. Cellars - under my home there are five, all but one is accessible by bats.