Hello dear ones — that means all of you — how was your first week of autumn?
With zero thanks to unspeakably dire weather — and lack of flippers — I have been limited to crossing off all those chores that get pushed to the bottom of my list, otherwise known as administration.
French administration — imagine swearing emoji — is nothing less than a bureaucratic nightmare of apparently limitless red tape, telephone transfers and refusals. It gives me goosebumps and panic attacks, causes me to spurt torrents of foul language(s) and once — mistakenly — throw a cheque for 5000€ on the fire — I was mortified! Enough said, for this month at least I am à jour/up-to-date; emails, correspondence, telephone conversations with bots — why do they never understand the question — all are dealt with, nothing has been burnt and the expletives have been mopped up with the tears. And my apologies to all French readers, I adore you and your beautiful country, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t but really, your filing systems need to catch up with the century!
Onward, with a smile… although how is it almost October already?
Transience…
The Swallows and Swifts are all flown leaving only winged memories of their shadows darting across the meadows, a silent promise to return.
And, now, always the last to leave, the House Martens also have taken flight, risking life and wing to settle in the more temperate climate of distant African places I know not but wish I could follow.
I walked every evening at the beginning of the week, not wanting to miss a second of their celestial airborne agilities limbering summer wings in readiness for their journey, their feet never touching the ground as they gather sky food in tiny mouths. I know they are preparing for flight and they know I’m watching them do so, they know I am dazzled by their almost balletic manoeuvres of wing and beak, their speed and elegance as they twist and turn, I hope, maybe, they stayed a day longer than they would have for the sheer joy of showing me…
I hope, also, they hear me whispering, ‘goodbye, safe journey little ones’.
I hear music playing across the valley, a mournful bluesy tune I don’t recognise played on a harmonica, the notes float over tumbling water in the swollen river but otherwise there is no other sound, even the birds are silent. I am reminded of a childhood home, my father playing harmonica to my mother and his three girls, all of us the loves of his life, a talented friend in Ireland who wrote a song for Rosie when she was born, a blues festival in Hayfield, Derbyshire where I lived on another hill.
I am uncertain how long it lasts but feel bereft when it is no more — I wish, briefly, knowing the impossibility of such musings, I had inherited a tuneful ear, to play to the loves of my life, to teach them the secrets inside the notes, to teach them that music is light and love and hope. That every song holds a day or a moment, a touch in our memories just waiting for sweet reminding.
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
My beautiful boy has a friend, a first love friend. I could tell by his shy smile into silent messages on his phone, by the different way he is holding his body, by his dreamy brown eyes. I have watched quietly, from a distance, his transformation, his growing into adult size, shoes, clothes, meals, conversation. This day, 15 years in the making, gathering emotions and attitudes under the flailing, fragile wings of adolescent change, has crash landed in his heart. He is smitten. I knew, better even than he the inevitable explosion of stars, the butterfly heartbeats, the sleepless nights, the distancing from family and I watch with fear and love and heartache, knowing I must only be a silent hug if he needs it.
Oh how that empty space left behind hurts…
The greatest enemy of freedom is self. I can count on one hand the number of days I have occasion to observe people in the course of a year. The life I have chosen is wholly unsuited to simply sitting outside a cafe or dawdling on a park bench pondering the world as it drifts by. On Wednesday, regardless of lists unticked and logs waiting to be stacked, despite the rain, I stop at le marché for no other reason than to feel a part, albeit temporarily, of a very social tradition. I am surprised by such varied colour and textures long forgotten, surprised that I am not when so many smiles greet me. I leave with the memories of them in my pocket and two huge beetroot in a used paper bag.
Autumn has yet to show its gloriousness, there is a languidness in its installation, as if someone forgot to hit send. I wait with impatience — now there is little chance of the much hoped for Indian summer — for the hill to be clad in the designs and colours of the season; for the golds, ochres, carmines and mahogany, the scent of apple pie with just a hint of cinnamon, or spicy butternut soup, for leaves falling preparing for decay, roasted chestnuts — so hot finger tips are burnt — and sweet scented bonfire smoke from orchard prunings; apple, cherry, peach and plum. I wait for autumn mists.
“The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.”
― Virginia Woolf,
Yours impatiently waiting for golden, with love
PS I hope none of you have noticed the constant changes to my website here, you didn’t? Thank goodness! If you have my apologies, I loved the hare but he was too fussy - entirely my own fault due to being in a hurry so until I have enough free moments all squashed together to achieve the effect I had envisioned, the daisy stays. I’m trying to cut away rough edges… tidy up, make more professional, do I even know what that is? As if anyone really even cares…
A NECESSARY THANK YOU
to , for his beautiful turn of phrase which I have brazenly stolen and used, from the title of his book The Memory of my shadow.
If you, my readers, would like a copy either in audio, paper or e-book just click on the link above in green (underlined if you are using the mobile application) or below. Ben writes from the heart, his stories will touch every emotion you have felt and others you never even knew you possessed.
Thank you, friend but I am so not worthy of your praise. When I compare your prose to mine, I feel like I’m shaping words with a chainsaw while you use a feather tipped brush. This was such a lovely piece to wake up to on a Sunday.
But what will you make of the beet roots?