After the ‘pause’ and the reminder that I was drifting away from the quieter, slower, simpler life that I
have chosen, there was another jaunt in the diary. Another cross-country trip, for another gig that was a lifetime bucket list item. I may write about that some other time.
If I do, I will talk about what happens when public transport networks come up against things they cannot control or prepare for. I will talk about the kindness of strangers. I may talk about hotels and cities and rock musicians and what I think about how they choose to display their children. I may talk about the joy of being among 70,000 people living in the moment, and their own moments. Or I may talk about the things about this particular gig that were not, quite, perfect. Or I may not. I may focus on the singing, the remembering, the witnessing, the dancing. I may simply tell you how joyful it all was…because most of it was…or I may tell you about the other parts of it.
But not today. Today I feel more like writing about today, about being home and doing not very much. I feel like celebrating a summer Sunday, a do-a-bit / leave-a-bit kind of a day.
You know the ones. Actual weekend days. The days when you are closing out last week and opening up the next. I know that most of you probably don’t get actual days to do that. I know I didn’t when I was working full time. My changeover would happen sometime late on Sunday night, when I found the bag I’d dumped when I got in on Friday. So, if what follows sounds a little utopian, trust me: I get it. And forgive me: but this is now my life and I love it.
And maybe think about it. About whether you can bring a little more of this into your weekend – or whenever your changeover days happen – between shifts – between months – sometime.
I woke up early. Only because I had gone to sleep early.
I went outside into the bright blue morning, where the cool night breeze was lingering. I made coffee, created artificial shade on my stoop, spread a table-cloth on my rusty old table, put cushions on the also-rusting chairs and sat down with my journal.
An hour of writing – something like a conversation with myself – something like a prayer to the
universe – something like a stream of consciousness – something like none of the above. Thinking in print, basically. Working through my thoughts, my judgements, my reactions. Thinking about what I want from the next few days. Reflecting. Planning.
If you journal, you know the drill. If you don’t, you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about – but I recommend you try it. Find someone who can guide you into journalling and I promise you will never want to leave it.
I start on the laundry…and during the day, get it all done: washed, dried and ironed. Machine washes, hand washes, soaks. Intermittent attention. Help from the sun.
I “made some food” to use my friend’s expression. I cooked, in other words. I did this because said friend had said they would come visit today. Then they called to make their excuses. I don’t mind. It would have been lovely to see them, but the idea that they were intending to come was a surprise,
so no surprise they figured out it wouldn’t really work. It would have been lovely to see them. It has been a while – for a given value of “a while” – but nothing depended upon it. We talked on the phone for an hour and then some. Happy chat. Deep thought conversation. We talked the way we talk, when we’re both in a good place. We both know that connection is all about communication, and we do our best to be open in our communication.
We connect from where we are. There is no better way.
The food will get eaten anyway.
The time released was its own kind of blessing.
There’s a lesson – Note to self! – any disappointment about not being able to spend time the way we anticipated, or with the people we anticipated, is immediately balanced by having that time freed up to do something else – to spend that time with someone else, or just with our own self. In this case, I got a sunny summer Sunday all for myself – a day in which to do or not do.
There was a lot of ‘not doing’.
I pootled along to the local shop, bought wine and cheese. I sat outside and made a lunch of finger food, which I ate while reading an old book – one that I think of as being a gentle read, one of those reach-for-when-not-well books, that I know I enjoy but where I can never actually remember the story.
I look at the work that needs doing in the garden. Decide it will wait.
I water where it is most needed, and leave the hose out to return to when the sun has sunk and the air cooled. I wash down the garden furniture that is cobwebbed from too long in the shed. I take photos of my garden, just as it is, just so I can revisit this moment, in this particular Summer. All the ordinariness and imperfection of it.
I fill up the water bowls for the visiting creatures.
Music strays over the back fence from the church beyond. Their services seem to start at mid-day and go on all afternoon. There are familiar tunes and unknown ones. I cannot make out the words from the voices. Perhaps they don’t sing in English. I like that the laurels are growing tall and softening the roof line. I like listening to choir pratice during the week, and the muted services on Sundays. Whatever music we play, or listen to, or join in with, I reckon it is all sung to the same aspect of spirit…the same connection we share…the same god, if that’s how you want to interpret it.
Music by-passes the brain and touches the soul – the way poetry does – the way the sound and scent of the sea does – the way a butterfly’s wing does – or the sight of a soaring eagle. There is something magical about watching those of our friends who are not remotely “spiritual” (whatever you choose that to mean) when they are touched by Spirit…when they experience one of those
moments, a wow-moment, or a deep-peace moment, or an intake of breath and pause moment. We are all connected. It is beautiful experiencing our own moments of connection, but there is another dimension watching someone who doesn’t know what’s happening experiencing theirs.
When the church music stops; I enjoy the quiet. The sound of the breeze. Occasional squabbles in the trees. Laugther from somewhere. Children playing.
I watch the bees in the golden rod and the last of the lavender. I think about the blackberries but figure I won’t pick any more today – I’ve still half a fridgeful of them. I’ll come back to them mid-week.
Eventually, late in the day, I go back into the garden and start tidying things away. I feed the plants that look like they really need help. I pick the first two tomatoes of the season. It will be a small crop this year, but oh, that smell, that real fresh, organic, tomato scent that I remember from my childhood.
I hear the blue-tits chattering.
I watch the sky, the gulls are flying home to roost. Ok, maybe it isn’t as awe-inspiring as watching the geese fly into the saltmarsh – but maybe it should be. These are my equivalent. These gulls overnight on Sweetbriar Marsh. At least, I assume they do. That’s the direction I see them heading every evening, and dispersing from in the mornings. I watch them gather in their twos and threes and sixes and sevens, all heading that way once the sun is low enough to up-light their wings. I wonder where they have been, and whether they will tell each other about what they saw as they settle down to sleep, wherever it is they sleep.
These are the things that tell me I am home…
…waking up in my own bed, recognising the room, and telling time by the light;
…the sound of distant traffic, or its absence, by which I can tell day and time;
…the quietness of the morning, after all those years of waking to the next-door-argument that I
eventually fell asleep to;
…being in my garden, the scent of it, the call of it to do the undone work;
…the space that calls me to practice;
…the earth that calls me to stand barefoot upon it;
...washing drying on the line;
...fruit trees beginning to mature enough to promise shade in years to come;
…the gulls flying home at night.
And later, I will go back out, to see what stars there are to be seen.
The main thing that tells me I am home is how peaceful I feel when I am here, when this place wraps itself around me. Especially on Sundays, when there is nothing that really, actually, needs to be done today. We all need to remember to take a rest day, a day in which we actually do rest, now and then.
