Lost in diversions.

Because this isn't my planned post, is all so random I can't think of a suitable title!

Dearest readers, a warm hello as always and welcome to A Hill and I to new subscribers, thank you for being here with me.

I have been tormenting myself recently—and frequently—with the chaotic manner in which I post my newsletters to you; trying to maintain any regularity of day or time or design seems to be far beyond the reach of my equally chaotic life. I have been/am hoping, eventually, a vague rhythm will form—hope lies eternal doesn’t it—meanwhile, my autumn break is racing by at the speed of light, I have been fiddling and fussing and filling my head with new ideas yet still had barely a spare second of free me-time to implement even one.

I know, we’ve been here before…

‘Carry on regardless’ do I hear you say?

‘Thank you, for your goodness and understanding!’ I reply, ‘I am trying.’

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Villefranche de Rouergue - August 2023

Lost.

It is a rare occasion that I have need or desire to venture into a city—drive further than a few kilometres from home even. In this I consider myself very fortunate but it does rather complicate those days when necessity leaves me no option.

I am obliged to drive to Rodez—the capital city of the Aveyron—for a medical appointment¹. Just as I leave, one—just one—magpie alights in a black and white flash of feathered flutterings in the Tilleul Lime opposite the terrace where I am already hovering hesitantly, before leaving. An ominous sighting, which trebles already mounting trepidations of leaving normal. The uncontrollable clamouring of superstition—one for sorrow—and uncertainty prickles my already prickly skin—that star dust again—I turn, beseechingly back to my husband frozen with fear.

‘Hold on to your inner calm… don’t let go’ he mouths to me².

‘Hold on, don’t let go, don’t let go’ I repeat.

A deep breath, I’m calm, I can do this…

There are three roundabouts as I enter the city of Rodez, I know exactly the exits to take on each. At the second I am diverted from the road I need for the appointment, am thrown into an instant fog of panic, my hands are shaky and clammy while I try to watch the road, hundreds of other cars also diverted, steer and find a new route on a mobile GPS I never use because I never go anywhere. I can’t, I don’t know how it works—why are these things so complicated—turn onto a road that says toute directions, which takes me onto a road leading straight back to where I began at the diversion. A disastrous move—panic mounting— I am now already ten minutes late—I’m never late—shaking with frustration and anxiety wishing only to be home, or at least on a country lane I know.

I swing around the fading floral mound that serves as the roundabout again, very slowly, ignoring every infuriated glare and hoot from other, probably equally frustrated drivers, take a different exit hoping for something, anything—a diversion sign would be useful—I recognise. Nothing, worse I am heading away from the city. I pull over, bang on the hazard light button, take a deep breath in an immense effort to calm my mounting prickly nerves—star dust ever present I notice, even in the city—tap the address into the GPS on my phone again.

‘Hold on to your inner calm… don’t let go’

A red sign flashes up on the screen, below it, ‘get directions’. Oh yes please!

I follow a flashing arrow on the map onto roads I had no idea even existed to the back of a modern building with a private car park—I let out my breath—with no free spaces! I drive right round again, tears are threatening. I am 25 minutes late. I do the only thing I can think of; abandon the car haphazardly half on, half off a grass verge, quickly gather myself and necessary papers into a vague form of calm and orderly control with as much country bumpkin elegance as I can muster, step out from my ageing VW, walk the one-hundred steps to a bespoke glass door, open it with surprising ease and step into a different world.

I feel instantly alien; the building feels chic and clinical and geometric. I try to look worldly—with the confidence of a shrew—cling to my good fortune of being able to return to a place filled with dust and dirt and undulations, present my apologies to an ageing but still very beautiful, impeccably efficient secretary. She looks at le with a smile devoid of warmth, takes in my too obvious flustered, so not-chic dishevelment—with a regard only secretaries perfect—and politely tells me all appointments are running 30 minutes late.

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“Parents in Gaza are picking up pieces of their children as I pick up LEGO off my floor and I cannot be distant and objective.” —Natalie Ward

Wednesday 23 October - (journal note - reality has too many sides - written while walking)

Reality has too many sides. Many are broken, those that remain imbued with the shards of their shattered pieces are intangible, if I hold them too long, they burn into flesh and bone, I close my eyes in pain, I pray for fortitudes that don’t exist, I let the pieces fall. I cannot open my eyes and I fail to pick them up.

I am profoundly ashamed but I still cannot look.

The burden of guilt is unbearably heavy in the knowledge that vicissitude can never be overstated. I am powerless to make that happen; that I am not alone in this inability and that those that are able, don’t, adds to the weight.

I cover spring bulbs with earth, knowing they will bring joy…

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You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! — Hermann Hesse

Storm clouds and courgettes…

I take the track curling through the tall ash trees. I do this twice a day, having stolen maintained this small woodland for almost four years I want every square metre of its earth, rock, tree and plant to know I have loved it. I pick up a branch, add it wistfully to the cabin I made for Seth—when he was still a boy, not a young man in love—wander onward to the meadow to say goodnight to my sheep one last time before darkness swallows the day. The air turns suddenly, and completely, still. Before I have left the cover of ash canopies a ferocious wind whips the tops into a wild frenzy—I like very much that when the wind blows, one side of me stays warm, I wonder if trees feel the same—I can see ominously bright, ballooning storm clouds forming over hills both near and far.

I gather the last courgettes of the year, they are tiny—just how I like them. My husband will be delighted, not that they’re tiny but that they are finished for another year.

Within minutes of walking back in through the door to a kitchen filled with the scent of chestnuts and chocolate, huge, fat raindrops fall, thunder rumbles far away in the distance followed seconds later by a sky lit up by sheet lightening that doesn’t stop until the early hours of the morning. The night is long.

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Saturday 26 October - My journal is blank, I am already pining for all the hours lost to dark evenings. Again, the night is long. Sunday is short but perfect. 

A belated wish for a wonderful last few days of October and onward into November…

With love

Susie x

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Some things I have loved this week;

Renée Eli, Ph.D.

has written in day to day detail of the heartbreak and loss of livelihood and life in the wake of Hurricane Helene, her account is more graphic than any photograph could ever be.

…helicopters continue charting course overhead on continued rescue efforts as bodies continue to be found and supplies continue to be shuttled to difficult-to-access communities in need. The impulse is strong to say something meaningful in the wake of Helene. Stronger still is the recognition to resist making meaning where meaning is not yet made.

Five Days in the Wake of Helene

Natalie Ward

writes from her heart and soul. Her essays are immaculately researched and intelligently written on usually topical subjects we are all aware of but often incapable of controlling.

I feel so that I can mourn the destruction we help create through war and exploitation.

How to live in a world that continually breaks your heart?

1. Doctors and medical professionals are also on my avoid whenever possible list!

2. Let’s call this my understanding of what he actually says which was ‘get a grip’!