In the quiet of the morning
Fighting off start of term blues and a serendipitous meeting with a fox.
As a child I woke every day at an ungodly hour of the morning. Unable to stay still a moment longer in bed I would creep out of my room as quietly as possible so as not to wake my two sleeping sisters, up a flight of stairs and gently shake my (still young enough to party) mother until she was too wide awake to even try and sleep again. Undoubtedly there were days when she dearly wished to. Invariably though, she would rise with me, stumble around the kitchen searching for kindling to light the stove, make my breakfast and her own and the day would begin. Even if was still dark outside, which it almost always was. But for our whispered chit chat those mornings were completely silent. I never questioned the hours that passed as we sat in the kitchen waiting for the light of dawn to flood through the four huge sash windows. I remember only that there were many of them and it was the time of day I loved best.
Even in the few but rather wayward years of my late teens and early twenties, ironically the age of my mother when I was a that wakeful child, when wild partying took precedence over absolutely everything else - hedonistic days that are now beautifully blurred and undoubtedly somewhat twisted memories, quite likely best forgotten - I was always the first to stir. Bleary eyed from lack of sleep and over indulgence of whatever flavour the evening had taken, I would often find myself miles from nowhere with little chance of finding transport and no money to pay for it anyway. So I would walk home, through the night into dawn and beyond. I was never fearful of the dark or the sounds of the night. Perhaps lingering inebriation helped that, I don’t know… but watching dawn spread its light across the Sussex hills was a magic I can still recall now and without doubt the prelude to a lifetime of preferring to walk at silly hour.
“sunbeams everywhere and mist floating like freshly minted souls”
― Haruki Murakami
Friday evening.
Two weeks have passed like all others at the start of the school year. An assault of unaccustomed noise, schedules, bells shrilling, lost students, chairs scraping on linoleum floors and that unmistakable odour of school bags and books that seems to linger despite the epic industrial cleaning that happens through summer holidays when the corridors and classes are silent. Oddly it always reminds me of chalk, though all the boards here are white now, chalk very much a thing of the past. I hated that screeching, scraping noise writing with chalk made anyway!
Regardless of my anticipation and knowing, I am nonetheless exhausted - already - when are the next holidays? More so than usual due a stupid and frustratingly limiting injury to my foot the Friday before. I have a love hate relationship with my feet (as reminded by my sister earlier in the week) the list of damages I have caused them is long.; the worst being 52 separate fractures to my left foot, which meant spending the last two months of my first pregnancy on crutches, my leg in a plaster cast up to my knee. Maybe I’ll regale you with that comedy in the future, I don’t recommend a pregnancy on crutches though…
Yesterday, Friday evening, couldn’t have been more welcome, as I drove up the winding lane, dried leaves flying in the mistral, it felt as if autumn were serenading my return, lulling me gently to a more peaceful and calm weekend.
My first weekend in months with no plans… it felt good - despite my painful foot!
Saturday morning - early.
I wake before dawn, old habits die hard even without the shrill of an alarm. My foot feels stiff, unwilling to comply with the instructions being sent from my brain. I try a few tentative steps, slowly taking the three stairs to the kitchen and put on the kettle. Drink a mug of warm ginger tea with added turmeric in hope of easing the inflammation, open the shutters. The night sky still hangs like heavy blanket over the hill, the last stars twinkly against deep indigo. I can just decipher lines of mist floating, ethereal and ephemeral in the valley.
My foot is beginning to loosen as the pain and stiffness slowly subsides, not completely but I’ll manage. I give it an order to behave!
I can’t help smiling as I wander off down the lane. Not the still blurry eyed smile of a twenty something young girl zigzagging her way home from a party, the girl who saw so often the magic but had no understanding of its importance but the too close to sixty year old me. Older in years, maybe a little wiser too (maybe??) but still young at heart, awake, alert, clear headed and breathing unseasonably warm mid September air as it wraps me gently in its embrace. A trillion glistening droplets swirl before me as the mist and soft pockets of moisture tumble up and own the undulations of the hills. Catching between the leaves and branches of the trees the dawn light reveals literally thousands of cobwebs, their fine filaments hanging like jewels from every faded plant, blade of grass and line of barbed wire fence.
I am not sure if Mother Nature knew how badly I needed the calm of such a morning… perhaps she did, perhaps she didn’t or perhaps it was simply my own subconscious appreciation of one of the many extraordinary gifts she leaves us to help relieve stresses and frustrations after a busy week? No matter the answer, I felt incredibly grateful for every gorgeous layer of this particular gift appearing before me; I feel euphoric as I wander deeper into the anticipation of dawn and all the misty magic it brings.
In places visibility is quite limited, sounds are muffled by the density of moisture in the air. I don’t hear a deer approaching and nearly jump out of my skin as it leaps over a low hedge of spiky blackthorn covered in withered vetch, landing almost on top of me. I’m not sure which of us is most startled but she certainly wasn’t stopping for a chat! Recovering from the shock, I head towards the back of the hill passing the chateau, hoping the dogs are still sleeping but grabbing a stick just in case they’ve risen as early as I have. Out of the woodland that lines both sides of the lane a pine marten dashes out, sees me through the gloom does a strange little dance in the middle and dashes away again. Seconds later she reappears. This beautiful sleek youngster is acting bizarrely, she repeats her comings and goings several times, stopping each time briefly in the middle of the lane, almost dancing, almost playing, as though she had an imaginary friend. I’m sure she had an intention in her head somewhere — not apparent to a mere human of course — she didn’t stop to explain. Eventually she disappears in that fabulously feline way they have, for the last time.
Succeeding in passing the chateau without incident, I meander on and around the low, much greener slopes of the hill. Cattle, curious at such an early presence in their field, come to bid me good morning. At least this is what I understand, however, this time it is me that hurries away as the face of the bull and then his huge body materialise in the gloaming… I may be scatty but I know my place in the hierarchy of a field of cows!
It was beginning to feel like a busy morning…
The mist clears then, the suns rays gathering up the mist in serpentine whirls of peach and rose to evaporate in the sky; a lighted alarm to wake those still sleeping, likewise for nocturnal warriors to return to their places of rest. I quickly climb the last slope before the final descent back to the house, my thoughts elsewhere now that I feel myself to be a safe enough distance from Monsieur. Out of the corner of my eye I see something moving slowly amongst the wild carrot heads and the arid grasses and am quietly surprised to see a very distinctive bushy, white tipped tail following the ripples. I watch the fox for a while, intrigued as to why he hadn’t scented my presence. He stops and turns, looks straight at me and continues on his wily way.
I am curious. It is a rare opportunity to spy on a fox and this one seemed to be showing a rare complicity. I once again joined the lane where I started and continue walking, the fox walks with me. Twenty metres below in the low scrub of woodland bushes admittedly but brazen enough to look up from time to time as if to check I was still following but he neither runs or appears frightened, nor even particularly wary of me. If I stop so does he, almost like a game which we continue for several minutes. Eventually the lane curves, the woodland and fox left behind me and I walk the short distance to home feeling completely relieved of every frustration and stress the previous days had burdened me with.
Uncanny behaviour from the most canny of all creatures I think you’d agree but it made my morning feel even more calming, as though another important link between myself and the wild inhabitants of this hill I live on had been serendipitously created.
Five minutes later I open the gate to the yard and am immediately greeted by eight black woolly faces all bleating at once. Faces that should be in their field!
Dawn has passed and with it the peace and solitude of the wild but the strange behaviour of the fox stays with me all day…
Just before I go, here is something I loved this week… wrote so eloquently about writing on subjects we love - her words resonated so profoundly I thought I’d share them with you. Thank you Janelle.
Nature Notes, memoir, gentle musings ... your writing doesn't need a name for me to relish the way the words unfold, matching the slow unfurling of a new day. The episodes with animals set us humans in the right context, sharing the land with those who know it best, always one step behind them. Love the interwoven reminiscences ... there are more stories to tell, of course ... or not, if they decide to stay behind a knowing smile of personal remembrance. Lovely stuff, Susie.
Barrie
Wonderful meandering through the past and present, always delighted to be involved in your wanderings over, through and about The Hill. Your various encounters with animals and wildlife are lovely blessings, especially with the fox. I'd be skipping the rest of the day, light in heart and spirit. Thank you my Dearest Soul !