2.10.33 - Recording the passing of days
There is something quite splendid about a still autumn day, like we had today. The rooks and jackdaws were settling in with the quickening evenings, and their cries filled the skies, just as the smoke from the fires drifted across the forest.
Children whittled, ran about, sat on hammocks, played in the basketball court, swung on trees. We no longer tell them what to do, but like two forest ladies, we cook over the fire and produce knives, ropes and tarps. They run over to us, around us, laugh and call. We chat, bear witness. We are here, in the season. It has been kinder since the storms left.
I have started to record and sketch in my journal. I only draw what I have seen. The leaf of a horse chestnut. A fungi. Stag. The arrival of the swans. Something has started and something has gone. When Michaelmas has passed, the sighing of the leaves in the trees begins.
A Pale Tussock caterpillar slowly made its way up the beech tree, wriggling painstakingly, beating all odds to deliver itself out of harms way. Somewhere tonight it will weave a cocoon and settle in for the winter. There it will pupate, dream of spring, when it emerges and discovers its wings. A freedom... does the caterpillar know? Does it within itself understand that the compulsion which drives it promises this unimaginable change? How is it possible? We do not marvel at it because it is what we understand, are used to.
Later today, I will cook spaghetti meatballs for Ghin and Oisin. Then a hot shower and a short doze in front of the TV before I take off to bed.
Then tomorrow morning, I will arrange my Atlantis story and play the piano. Life is beautiful and simple.
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