Escape from harsh reality…
There is a harsh reality elsewhere just now, and I understand if no one reads what I’m writing, but here goes anyway. It may just help a little…
There is a harsh reality elsewhere just now, and I understand if no one reads what I’m writing, but here goes anyway. It may just help a little…
“I went down in the afternoon
to the sea
which held me, until I grew easy…” Mary Oliver
Another one is about to bite the dust.
There’s music thumping outside and people yelling. That’s the difficulty with having New Year in summer – everyone celebrates outside and to hell with the neighbours.
We left the coast because the population has bred like the plague (one wonders if that’s literally!!), had hoped the ‘burbs in the city would be empty like they have been every other year. But then this is a Covid year and everyone seems to be eschewing the super-spreader locations and ‘playing’ in back yards.
Today was one of those days that reminded me of what the coast is – a summer’s day which releases special memories that go back 70 years.
The morning began with heat that seared the face and bare feet and the drawn out click and hum of crickets in the underbrush. I walked my dog along the beach and he dragged, not really interested in smells, just swims – his seriously wiry coat not what a dog would want to wear when the temperature was up to 32 degrees by 10.30. But the sea was as blue as the sky – they joined at some nebulous floating horizon. It’s the same whenever it’s hot – everything shimmers.
It’s madness in the cities on this little island. Madness, I tell you. People driving like crazed loons, minds anywhere but on the road, crowds in the supermarkets and stores and so on.
We went to the city for two days but then fled the angst as if it were a noxious fog.
So, it’s almost summer. Despite rain, rain and more of it! The wettest in living memory.
Thus spring has meant preparing for summer because when one lives on the coast, summer after all, is pre-eminent.
‘Sweet sweet burn of summer and summer wind… ‘ (KD Lang)
This month has crept up on me.
I’m due to release a new book at the end of the month, Reliquary and it’s a job which requires a certain amount of dedicated energy.