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random post!
Jan. 25th, 2007 01:25 pmThere are snowdrops blooming in our garden. I am planning another visit, soon, to Cambo Snowdrops—I have been looking forward to it all month.
Since I'm so useless at posting anything current I thought I'd share something from last October, when we went to Northumberland with Gramma. This is served straight-up out of my journal for 6 Oct. 2006.
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I went for a walk on the beach by myself again this evening, compelled by a formidable rainbow over the green gabled roofs of the original Armstrong Cottages which face this one. It was... just indescribable. I realized that part of the reason I don't enjoy everything as much as I ought to is that I am constantly writing it all down in my head as I go. Also, I am constantly (this is related) trying to think how I will preserve it, how to record it—photos, notes, souvenirs—
"I stray alone, here on the edge of silence,
half afraid, waiting a sign."
The "waiting a sign" is different (but again, related) to wanting to preserve the moment. "Waiting a Sign"—the Sign, whatever it is, is a significator enabling you to preserve the moment (BLARF! BLARF! BLARF! The Academic Speaks.) —But it's true—you stand there on top of the dunes. Golden light is drenching everything on the west side of you, and the ridge you stand on. On the east side, all is pink and blue and dove grey and lavender. Ahead of you there are two columns of rainbow, one suspended over the sea and the other over the little village on the headland. Around you, marring the landscape, are all man's defenses—castle and crag, gun turrets, lighthouses, breakwaters (I found an ancient iron ring sunk into the Whin Sill rock of the headland when I walked out there)—below are birds and pools and waves breaking—and you think, I need a sign. I need to see something special. A special bird, a hawk or a puffin; or some other kind of animal, a seal or a dolphin—so that I can always remember this walk as "the one when I saw the seal."
Eventually I stopped taking the same picture of rocks and gulls and lighthouse and reflected sea and sky, thinking: I can enter this scene. Instead of trying to preserve it I will climb down the dune and walk across the sandflats and be part of it. But—it made me feel a little sad, or rueful and foolish anyway—the scene all ran away from me when I tried to enter it—the whole flock of gulls took off, and the pink water just disappeared as soon as I got close—even the tide was on its way out!
I walked out to the very end of the headland and thought, as I did so, that it would be nice to pick up a very special shell as my "sign"—my "gift from the sea"—and I picked up a tiny green snail shell, the prettiest kind, with a pink whorl at the tip. And because Sara had accidentally got some live snails the other day and felt sad about it, I turned this one over to check that it was empty—and it wasn't empty. It had the tiniest little orange and white hermit crab living in it!
Well! You know, I thought, this is the missing chapter of Gift from the Sea—The Hermit Crab! This is the shell of the person who leaves home again and again, who has to make a new, comfortable, beautiful home in someone else's abandoned house. This is the shell for the one who chooses where she will live, who can always make a home out of her surroundings—and it is also the shell of continuity, the shell that proves that there is life after death, that change is inevitable and can be good.
Since I'm so useless at posting anything current I thought I'd share something from last October, when we went to Northumberland with Gramma. This is served straight-up out of my journal for 6 Oct. 2006.
--------------------
I went for a walk on the beach by myself again this evening, compelled by a formidable rainbow over the green gabled roofs of the original Armstrong Cottages which face this one. It was... just indescribable. I realized that part of the reason I don't enjoy everything as much as I ought to is that I am constantly writing it all down in my head as I go. Also, I am constantly (this is related) trying to think how I will preserve it, how to record it—photos, notes, souvenirs—
half afraid, waiting a sign."
The "waiting a sign" is different (but again, related) to wanting to preserve the moment. "Waiting a Sign"—the Sign, whatever it is, is a significator enabling you to preserve the moment (BLARF! BLARF! BLARF! The Academic Speaks.) —But it's true—you stand there on top of the dunes. Golden light is drenching everything on the west side of you, and the ridge you stand on. On the east side, all is pink and blue and dove grey and lavender. Ahead of you there are two columns of rainbow, one suspended over the sea and the other over the little village on the headland. Around you, marring the landscape, are all man's defenses—castle and crag, gun turrets, lighthouses, breakwaters (I found an ancient iron ring sunk into the Whin Sill rock of the headland when I walked out there)—below are birds and pools and waves breaking—and you think, I need a sign. I need to see something special. A special bird, a hawk or a puffin; or some other kind of animal, a seal or a dolphin—so that I can always remember this walk as "the one when I saw the seal."
Eventually I stopped taking the same picture of rocks and gulls and lighthouse and reflected sea and sky, thinking: I can enter this scene. Instead of trying to preserve it I will climb down the dune and walk across the sandflats and be part of it. But—it made me feel a little sad, or rueful and foolish anyway—the scene all ran away from me when I tried to enter it—the whole flock of gulls took off, and the pink water just disappeared as soon as I got close—even the tide was on its way out!
I walked out to the very end of the headland and thought, as I did so, that it would be nice to pick up a very special shell as my "sign"—my "gift from the sea"—and I picked up a tiny green snail shell, the prettiest kind, with a pink whorl at the tip. And because Sara had accidentally got some live snails the other day and felt sad about it, I turned this one over to check that it was empty—and it wasn't empty. It had the tiniest little orange and white hermit crab living in it!
Well! You know, I thought, this is the missing chapter of Gift from the Sea—The Hermit Crab! This is the shell of the person who leaves home again and again, who has to make a new, comfortable, beautiful home in someone else's abandoned house. This is the shell for the one who chooses where she will live, who can always make a home out of her surroundings—and it is also the shell of continuity, the shell that proves that there is life after death, that change is inevitable and can be good.