(In)glorious days…
the delirious middles of sepia elsewhere...
Hello dear ones, have you had a beautiful beginning to the month of October? Have the leaves begun to fall around you, littering the ground in their patchwork of myriad umber decay?
I have felt both light and colour beginning its changing over these last few days, catching scents of slowly advancing autumn decay, enticing, warm and a little repugnant also, each passing day a step closer to those longer and darker. I have mixed feelings, as I always do but winter will set in regardless of my indecisiveness, love it or hate it, the seasons are unraveling as they should, at the speed Mother Nature chooses, my very un-vital role as bystander an insignificance to her. Regardless, Autumn motes have been drifting to and past me in the misty morning light — here, are just a few, rather belated words gathered between the busyness of normal.
Oh but I wish I had more time…
In delirious middles of — sepia — elsewhere.
On a weekday — I forget which of those that blend into form the week it was — I leave the house wrapped in too many clothes, there is a chill in the air far sharper than should be felt for these early days of October. I shiver as I let out my three remaining chickens, give a silent prayer to five other feathered egg-layers lost to natures carnivores through spring. I turn under the walnut trees, their boughs bent low laden with empty husks dripping in nights deliquescence, turn again through mist entwined trees along the barely visible path through my stolen woodland. Remember;
I am a thief of nature… of a beguiling patch of light and dark that sits at the bottom of our field.
Where my reclaimed lane joins that of the commune, an old plum tree has fallen, not by reason of inclement weather but through the sheer weight of its fruit laden branches way back in a sullen July that should have been summer. There is an unanswered query over who should claim it, as if anything living and breathing, much less a tree, can be belong to anyone! Until it is resolved I must skirt around and through it’s ancient brokenness, I call to my sheep as I navigate its sad demise — once again they under threat, am I shivering because of temperature or fear of what I might find — every morning fearful, checking for signs of the dreaded Blue Tongue virus sweeping through flocks across Europe, sighing inwardly then outwardly with relief to find them their usual bouncing1 selves, jostling at the fence for the handful of grain I give them each morning.
They are happy and thankfully healthy.
I rub each one behind their ears, Sonny, Milly, Juniper and my little orphan Jersey in turn, tell them, vehemently, they are adored not simply because I do but a memory of waking to killing fields still haunts me. They already know but speaking of love can never be over done, certainly not to those we love.
On a Saturday morning; I wander for miles, aimlessly following mist phantoms over dew soaked fields, deep into silent woodland and along lanes not used by anything motorised since, unable to withstand the weight of endless spring rain, it slipped into a then raging river never to be seen again — the cost of reconstruction under fierce debate is not resolved. At this time of the morning walking through questionable sibylline debris, here the quiet is profound, nature has already begun reclaiming that which was hers with an adept efficiency.
Through a manmade stand of pines mist ghosts, shimmering behind each tall trunk, compose theatrical scenes, light and dark shadow puppets at play. As if this vertical timber stage was designed with only them and their flirtatious songs in mind. They circle, float, glide and disappear only to reappear falling from canopies motionless in the twilight; bewitching to me, life giving to tall pines planted too close to breathe.
I lose irrevocable minutes agape in wonder within these lighted forms, these spectres that devour all sense of humanness. They have their own ideas of representing nature, a redefinition softer than my own, only fleetingly earthly. They have their own language, tangible and beckoning to be understood.
The matter that we know — the stuff we can see and touch — comprises a mere 5% of the universe. All the rest is dark matter. We can’t see it, can’t touch it, can’t discern what it is made of or how it came to be. And yet dark matter is what holds galaxies together, what keeps the regular matter in place so that we may live.
—Maria Popova
I wonder if mist — not to be confused with fog, for surely fog is dark matter2 — is in fact light matter?
Still on Saturday; I spend a ridiculous amount of time catching giant pears gently coaxed from their branches by husband and forked stick and much more gathering up fallen walnuts into buckets. Both are a bountiful harvest this autumn. I wish I had not read recently of past traditions, infinitely more convivial than that which I will entertain when the time arrives for shelling and preparing. All are laid in racks to dry or ripen with a sigh… sometimes, more and more often, it feels lonely up here, I thank the gods for Blue Tits and Sparrows and the shrieking Bluejay that won’t leave without having the last word.
On a Sunday — yes a Sunday! —I am completely overwhelmed by outside obligations. My hours, when nothing seems more necessary than dillydallying on another morning in another mist, in another time lost in the realms of the banshees, day dreaming of opening mail that needs no reply, evaporates into sepia brume before I notice that the morning is gone, it is too late for silence.
Again — is there any other time to walk, to feel unquestionably devoured by a moment, than in the silence of a Sunday morning — sighing I accept the inevitable.
I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements. — Henry David Thoreau
In never-ending hope of more time in sepia delirium
Susie xx
Some things I have loved his week;
’s essay ‘In defence of Fog’ is a sublime step into a variation of grey matter that will seduce you entirely… I’ve linked this post three times on this letter - you’ll understand - Go! invited us to a virtual birthday party for who cannot be described briefly - suffice to say we would be lost without her treasured presence;
Ouessant sheep, the breed of my four woolly loved ones, often bounce from all four feet when running, like all lambs do when they frolic, I could watch them for hours.
Do read Kimberly’s post, not only is her essay outstanding in quality but extraordinary in eloquent content.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-147538458?r=1mrn9s&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Sepia delirium! What a wonderful title.
When I read your words I am more acutely aware of the shifting seasons, especially because we sit in opposite hemispheres. It feels not a moment ago when the summer was nowhere to be seen for you and I was lamenting our winter and now the summer has been and go in Europe and we are seeing spring appear and be known (albeit with a lot of rain here and there).
I especially loved this paragraph, Susie. It made me want to cosy up and walk into a room with a fireplace and chat and enjoy the harvest.
"Still on Saturday; I spend a ridiculous amount of time catching giant pears gently coaxed from their branches by husband and forked stick and much more gathering up fallen walnuts into buckets. Both are a bountiful harvest this autumn."
I read Kimberly‘s piece earlier. It seems you’re both lost in the fog this week. Great minds. I’ve been lost in my own fog of work, which is sadly far removed from a field shrouded in mist. I would much rather be gathering, walnuts and catching pears, reading your work and the work of my friends here is something I look forward to now more than ever.