So it's a sunny day, and all we have to do to get the grass cut - is jump-start the mower. Last night. Statement: "It's good to be doing this as a family." Response: "We never do this as a family." Laughter. Now we do this as a family, all of us, sitting round in a big circle, talking, finding laughter, the barbecue flaming up and giving us crunchy, charcoaled sausages as a consequence of the oily marinade. Salads, jugs of Pimm's, the speakers propped in the open window. Bob Marley. Voices from the past.
Down in the house, clearing out cupboards, boxes to storage, boxes to charity shops, boxes to eBay, the bonfire and the vanloads to the dump. Clearing energy by recourse to the movement of physical things. Rooms opening out, spaces revealing themselves to be larger than they were. Light that wasn't there before; the pleasure of only finally noticing obstacles by their sudden absence. The blocked initiatives suddenly in prospect.
That question from a week ago.
"So why did we come here?"
The immediate answer.
"You have always known."
And my companion, departed from the empty church with the dry leaves blown in through the empty windows, moved on from the wild, tangled garden to the open fields, not waiting because I am with her, no longer in need of patience. From here, we can both see the horizon.
"Let's go, my love. Let's find the river."
Down in the house, clearing out cupboards, boxes to storage, boxes to charity shops, boxes to eBay, the bonfire and the vanloads to the dump. Clearing energy by recourse to the movement of physical things. Rooms opening out, spaces revealing themselves to be larger than they were. Light that wasn't there before; the pleasure of only finally noticing obstacles by their sudden absence. The blocked initiatives suddenly in prospect.
That question from a week ago.
"So why did we come here?"
The immediate answer.
"You have always known."
And my companion, departed from the empty church with the dry leaves blown in through the empty windows, moved on from the wild, tangled garden to the open fields, not waiting because I am with her, no longer in need of patience. From here, we can both see the horizon.
"Let's go, my love. Let's find the river."