Walking on Walnuts.
and the gentle splendour of oyster coloured autumn sky...
Hello dear friends, welcome new subscribers and every one of you who pop in for a peep and pop out again. You are all a breath of fresh air or maybe like being handed a huge and fragrant bouquet of flowers, whichever… both are loved and I thank you, deeply and sincerely for sparing minutes of your precious time to be here. I know just how precious it is…
I am lost on a road I should know by heart but no longer recognise. With all the business of end of term chaos resolved, too soon the clutter and pandemonium, the tears and fears of the start of a new year have begun. Already, though I am only one month returned, I am counting days until the next holiday. Whichever road I took when I first decided to teach I am certain it wasn’t as bumpy as this one. So much has changed yet so much more stands still.
I deliberate often over the idea of a simple about-turn to retrace my steps to the uncomplicated bohemian lifestyle I came here for, except not only have I lost the map—if I ever even had one—but time is slipping like water through my fingers at a terrifying rate and now, those sweet, small voices are calling incessantly and I no longer have the heart to ignore them. Forward is the only feasible direction, if only there were fewer bumps and even the vaguest pin-prick of light in view…
What I am trying to say is this; because I have found myself once again on that busy and so bumpy road, because once again I have said yes to too many wonderful ideas and projects that have settled in my heart, made my head spin with a tingling jumble of ideas that whisper of change and refuse to hush, because even at an age when I should know well enough to decline politely I still can’t find that simplest of words, the foreseeable weeks will leave little time for wandering, or wondering. Meaning, if I manage to write anything at all while in the process of sorting and arranging tingles into feasible ventures with legible sentences, it is likely to be short, hopefully soothing like the cyclamen scented breeze carried in an Indian summer. An ode to the first days of autumn that will continue along the same flow Of Hope as those back at the end of June when I also fell headfirst into the fogginess of a completely unforeseen—but should have been—lack-of-time, work related lacuna.
I could ramble on in my usual long-winded preface— oops, I already did—but the hour is too close to that which decides these eyes can no longer focus and need to be closed…
I hope you enjoy autumns first words…
I want to tell you how summer has surrendered, gracefully and quietly to the inevitability of autumn days. How the sky sits above me, a pale silk veil of colour no longer discernible as simply blue or grey but more oyster or pearl or teal. How the sunflowers whose heads have twisted, face to the sun through their few short weeks of glory now stand—all glory faded—in fields tarnished gold and bronze, withered heads bowed in unison, in collective gracious thanks to the earth that nourished their roots forgotten until their god sang the final chorus of summers song.
I want to tell you how wild clematis curls through hedgerows wearing leaves already faintly stained with cinnamon and ginger like puffs of feral smoke. How the earthy scent of fields, ploughed in readiness for winter barley hangs in the freshness of early morning air, woody and warm, inviting a feeling of slowness, of curling limbs in preparation for slumber.
I want to tell you how on the evening of the last day of summer, while watching autumn prepare for morning, I followed the descent of the last titian slither of an enormous sun trickle behind deep olive-green hills. How I know it won’t be the last I see but I wept anyway—what sort of old fool weeps over a sunset?—as if in sinking, it might never return, how it felt apocalyptic. How I realise through a blur of melancholy, it was, in fact, just another miracle of natures cycle beginning, and, how as I sat in the tear-filled gathering darkness of that last sunset, three bats flew so close to my head I could feel the breath of their wings on my face, how they returned time after time with the same winged breath and it felt something like a small Pipistrellus ceremony. A sonnet or song… Perhaps to the end of summer, perhaps to the coming autumn days…
I want to tell you how August left a great sense of emptiness over the land, how the leaves were so disturbed by burning heat they fell too early to the ground. How now, when they should be thinking of nothing more than becoming their most glamorous crimson and umber selves they are sprouting green leaves as if spring has already whispered, ‘it’s time little buds, do your thing!’.
I want to tell you how I waited and watched every telegraph line for the swallows to line up in readiness for their great and courageous journey southwards but not one alighted. Yet, they are gone.
I want to tell you how the quince are ripening, how each of them with their white fluff on lemon coloured skins hang like pitted sunshines from their branches like small lanterns lighting grey days. And, how four eager sheep creep so cleverly beneath low boughs, place one foot to rest on the trunk, then the other and throw back their heads to reach each tart fruit before I or the wind whisk them away. How, the truth is, neither I or the wind ever stand a chance anyway.
I want to tell you that I caught sight of the hare with one black ear and one white ear, that his woodland screams were just imaginings, that my heart isn’t a broken part of me. Alas, he is too long absent, departed with summer like the swallows and swifts and house martens.
I want to tell you how every path in my garden is a nutty obstacle course, around the edges of each field, all along the lanes on the South side of the hill and though I try not to—like avoiding stepping on the cracks of a pavement—I cannot help it, I am walking on walnuts.
I want to tell you this September feels like the longest month I have ever lived.
I want to tell you, again and again and again how hope, my own, is still an ever glowing necessarily optimistic light—small perhaps in comparison to the great grief and too real cruelty in the world but inextinguishable—how I will never stop praying that somewhere, someone in need, may be finding their way by it.
With forever love and hope and far too many walnuts,
Some things I fell in love with this week and last week and the week before…
is just beginning her new and exciting legacy project; “An Almanac for Belonging — A Seasonal Companion from Camont” loaded with tips and recipes and love from her home in Gascony.
Always and forever adored
—no other words needed… he just is, and by-the-way, I am not alone on this!
“When my granddaughter was eight years old, she went away for the first time to overnight camp in Vermont. I had found a marvellous book This Is A Poem That Heals Fish by poet Jean-Pierre Siméon with illustrations by Olivier Tallec.”
a delightful and touching recreation of both the story and illustrations.
Tears falling for crimson leaves, for what is not and for what is. Tears for the hare, I had my hopes up there Susie, but then needed to re read to check behind your words. Hope lingers....
Unsteady ground - walnuts underfoot. Setting suns, time ticking, nature's cycle cycling.
The sheep, their feet on the tree trunk. I smile at a sight I would love to see.
Thank you Susie. Take your time in this season of slowing down. A Sun Rise will always follow a Sun Set.
Much Love from Spring in NZ. xx❤️
You had me with the hare. Well, way before but my jaw dropped with mention of the hare. And then I had to read the paragraph again. I’m still rooting for them. Je t’aime.🐰
Tis the one year mark of the hurricane. I hugged some friends but mostly stayed quiet while I organized my art supplies. ♥️