freezing in nostalgia

from youthful days; muscovy, mouse and ancient yew...

Hello dear ones, do I even need to tell you how much I appreciate your presence, how I love to read your comments and anecdotes from your own lives? I know, you are all busy as bees and yet you fold away a little of your time under your wings for me! It means the world, it always will, it is the why of my gratitude and love — THANK YOU.

I was hoping to have some time spare for revamping my Substack pages, a new look for the new year sort of malarky, well that didn’t happen, it will eventually, maybe…?

I appear to have less and less time for writing, actually, for pretty much anything that isn’t a necessity! It’s bugging the hell out of me but what can I do without changing a whole lifestyle choice? And, the closer I get to retirement the clearer it becomes that this is a lifetime choice, retirement is not an option! If you are imagining a deep sigh of resignation, you’re imagining well, you’ve understood… but do you imagine that I’m smiling too?

The month of January and I don’t tend to be on great speaking terms. I begin by asking that it goes gently on the world, the world is never not in need of more gentle, more kindness, more compassion, ‘do your best.’ I plead. A calm beginning… a little snow would be appreciated, as would evening skies with just the perfect clouds to make apricity feel like a word that should be well known. They are not outrageous demands, you’ll agree, just a few requests to ease us gently into the year.

January turned away cackling and crackling with wicked glee, sent temperatures we haven’t felt in over a decade, froze all the pipes, the lane too — if only I had ice skates it would have been fun — and I am quite certain that rascal buzzard was in on the joke when I find three more of my chickens stripped of feathers and flesh, their ravaged pink carcasses frozen to the ground…

Thanks for listening January…

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the oak tree that thought it was spring…

“It is not a wholesome thing to feel in competition with time, to feel adrift in the ‘what remains’ whilst constantly dreaming of a return to all that’s already passed. It isn’t possible… a thousand times over I hear these words; they whisper in the wind, drift through the door on a woodsmoke breeze, howl in blustery leaf-litter gales down the hill, all the while I cling, vehemently possessive, to my now rather sketchy elements of youth.”

It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil that germinates the seeds to burst into bloom. —Maria Popover

I write these words in a note. They were a reminder for when I had a moment to be still, to write about time, the constant search for more, the desire for more youthful, carefree, obligation free days. They were written last Monday. In the days since there has been no silence between the notes, no stillness in the soil. Everything is moving at break-neck speed and the noise is deafening. I am holding tightly but for how much longer? Intriguingly, I discovered today that our grip, or more precisely the length of time it takes to let go, is an indicator of longevity.

My hands tighten, in automatic reaction — whether it is fact or just another digital re-arrangement of a science yet to be proved — just in case!

In the past weeks, namely those that coincide with the festive period, I have, as I always do, spoken at length to family and friends from a life long forgotten. Days and years distributed in a past I rarely think of return with a clarity unimaginable minutes before I hear still familiar voices. These conversations, filled with nostalgic tidbits from longed for youthful, carefree days, are conversations that bring joy and, while not exactly sadness, a wistfulness — the days I have left are a number smaller than those which I have already lived — and a shiver of understanding.

An old friend, reminds me of the house I grew from child to teenager to young human in; No 6, London Road, Balcombe was the address — so simple, wasn’t everything simple then? — the telephone number had just three figures, I can still here my fathers deep baritone voice when he answered the rotary phone fixed to the wall by the front door, ‘Balcombe 527’ no ‘hello’ just the name of the village we lived in and the number, it was his stock reply.

We bid each other farewell my friend and I — neither of us certain of the other’s life number. During the days that follow I am halted in time by the child I was again and again. I am running across stubble fields, laughing into the wind, shining like summer sunshine with the joy of life in a redbrick house on a farm nestled in what was once, the gentleness of a Sussex home.

The house was surrounded by garden, one half was cultivated by my father’s gifted green fingers, the other was hidden away behind a sturdy shed which housed an outdoor privy. It was accessed by a weedy earthen path bordered by broken bricks — no doubt those left after construction of the house. It was used for log deliveries, machines long past useful and many broken pieces of unidentifiable, ferrous paraphernalia. It was an unkempt children’s jungle of nettles which grew to unfathomable heights, hogweed and thistles. A bad tempered Muscovy duck lurked in the depths of all these glorious dangers with his harem — pheasants, too, fly up in a feathery cloud of startled screeches from the edges — and mice, there were mice everywhere! Whenever possible the ducks would scoop one up in their beaks and swallow it whole, a meal in one, I was horrified to begin with.

Two ancient Yew trees grew along the edge of a high bank to one side. Their vast trunks sprawled at ground level into roots escaped from the embankments in gnarly twisted forms. There were earthen caves beneath. A tiny voice — mine — would echo around mycelia and moss if it dared to venture within. A cat we named Tigwood — apparently with an abhorrence to redbrick — slept in an old pigeon nest in one of the high branches, he rarely came down, at least not before bats circling the street light annoyed him. Muscovy ducks huddled in the darkness of the spaces beneath, the earthen caves became their home with the mice and armoured woodlice and scuttling beetles. A young girl, no matter that she was small, was not welcomed.

Light was narrow and mean in that garden; the sombreness of Yew branches, the height of the nettles, the evil cocktail of a sting in their trichomes, Andrew, the mean black-feathered duck too often hidden, ready to ambush any creature unaware that it was his territory, head and neck thrust out, beak and tongue hissing like a viper, wings unable to lift him but flapping up a storm anyway. And many were the contorted piles of unwanted machines, wire and iron leaning and precarious, eerie sculptures like Japanese Mecha or Steam Punk giants, dangerous but too curiously appealing to ignore.

I have lingered long in the reverie of childhood snippets, returning and fading, returning and fading; the rag’n bone man arrived once, sat upon a horse and cart he was, which in the early seventies was not a common sight. His face was a smudged and wrinkled affair and craftiness oozed from beady coal-black eyes when he spied the old iron. ‘Take it all, or take nothing’ my father said giving the grimy creature his never anything but kind smile. Rag’n bone man, already picking through and loading the best of our metal giants replies ‘Naah, I ain’t got no use for all yer shite!’ I remember well the verbal altercation that followed, how the old push-mower was launched with such strength back off the cart it nearly laid my poor father out cold for ever. His horse didn’t flinch.

Today only one Yew tree remains, the long garden I spent so many delirious hours in is a concrete drive, no longer mysterious, no longer inviting stories to be discovered and held, retold for generations, no curious youngster will curl up in an earthen cave with feather and fur, barely the dust of bone and a childs imagination remain.

David Knowles wrote;

The ghosts of fallen trees are tender souls. Listen to the softness of their sighing as they remember the wind in their leaves.

in his most recent letter, a letter of such lyrical beauty it begs being read more than once, more, even, than twice!

When I reply I find I am still lost in nostalgic wistfulness again…

If you train your ears beyond the limestone crags southward you might hear the whispered sniggers of two old yew trees, their gnarled roots entwined with wisdoms far beyond the counting of years, red eyes rolling to the skies at the sight of an old woman trying to shape her bones to young again. She thinks she can still slither beneath them, curl up with the Muscovy’s and the mice... oh how they laugh!

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Super cold — “it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.” —Mary Oliver

BRIEFLY — January begins by wrapping its frigid blue arms around the hill, the coldest felt for many years. Everything shivers and withers… ice on ice becomes as thick as snow in overshadowed valleys and there is no sound but that of the tinkling of ice, detached now and then by vagabond wings and feet. I leave for classes on three mornings with five layers of clothing wrapped so tightly breathing becomes a concentrated effort, another life competition. Three of the layers are wool because my sheep, though covered in frost which mostly doesn't melt, are not feeling the cold. I am grateful for their woollen wisdom.

Eagles do not frequent my hill and yet on three of the coldest days I watch as a bird with a wing span far greater than Buzzard or Kite circles the space between hill and valley. I believe that perhaps much snow has fallen further north, her hunting ground is invisible underneath and she is hungry, she finds slim pickings in my chicken coup and departs on a brisk south wind. She has not returned.

Two days ago… news from Ireland, the saddest possible… rest peacefully dear friend with the voice of an angel and hands the size of shovels. Your big heart will not be forgotten.

For one whole afternoon, I am ecstatic in woodsmoke and sunbeams and ivy and moss where much magic is caught. I hold tightly to these hours, they feel like precious secrets…

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Forever counting days, with love

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This week I fell in love with; as already mentioned above, David Knowles Meeting myself coming back the ways, is, quite simply divine!

Meeting myself coming back the ways

Also, absolutely do not miss the new serialised novel Daedalia by Ben Wakeman!

Ben is a magician of both word and song, don’t miss out on either! The story will be both narrated and written from beginning to end with musical interludes between chapters… a masterpiece as only he knows how to create.

Daedalia: Start Here