On A Home Visit
It has been a long time.
But when I used to live here
Did I notice how neatly
The trees seem to fit
Between earth and sky?
Did I realise
How right it all was?
The just-ness of the hills
Rising to the east,
And the is-ness
Of fields and streams.
My world of changeless certainty.
We’ve had all sorts in the last week.
We’ve had cold, bright, sunny days. We’ve had cold snowy sleety days. And today we have lashing rain and wind. It’s milder than it was, but as miserable as sin and the wind still cuts through you!
So here is a sketch for the day – cushions on the sofa to remind me of Nepal, since the top one came from there:
And here is a haiku for the day, to remind me of summer:
Amidst the traffic,
In the still airs above me,
A lark dripping down.
And a thought for the day? Another haiku, to remind me to slow down sometimes:
Obsession with time
Is climbing trees in autumn
To get down the leaves.
And today I begin the first edit for A Good Place – initially reading it through and thinking about the voice, the narration, to see if it works for me. Next, another read to look for flaws in the plot, redundancies, things to add and take out. Finally, try to knock the grammar into shape. If I’m happy with that, then it’s on to the beta readers.
Hope you all have a good day.
We have all been encouraged to think
That our time is so important.
Yet it is only when we become old,
And we have so much less of it left,
That we realise this is not the case.
We’ve been told we must save time,
Instead of using it and moving on.
How precious time is,
As if it were a commodity we might hoard
And use when we need it most.
Instead of squandering it on what makes us happy,
And filling it with unimportant things.
But I say, let what you’re doing fill your time.
If you’re washing up,
Then let your plates be the cleanest.
And if you’re looking at the winter sun on frosty leaves,
Well, let that be the best experience you have ever had.
Sometimes I have these flashes,
When I think I’ve understood something deep and profound.
And usually it means an evening drinking wine,
Or half an hour sitting on a sunlit hillside.
But I do wonder what we’re all so busy chasing.
And if you think this lesson worth remembering,
There’s no better time than now.
When I go out, I will frequently leave my phone at home. If I have no particular reason to take it with me, such as for work or awaiting an urgent call, then it is a real pleasure to be able to leave it behind.
I feel a release, not being in constant contact with everyone. I also rely upon it for the time, not possessing a wristwatch, so again, without it, I am freed from this small tyranny. Interestingly, I often know the time if I am asked, as long as I reply spontaneously, without thinking, but then, if I give it more thought, the gift disappears. I wonder if this is an instinct that we have largely lost. If so, and I ponder this train of thought, how did older, ancient peoples view the time? Presumably not as ‘nine’ or ‘three o’clock’ – morning, noon and afternoon? A time of waxing and waning light? Those more sedentary no doubt were as much tied to the sundial as we are to the clock.
At court, or in monasteries, or other relatively affluent places, they relied on candles, marked with hours, to tell the time, but the common people would have had no such thing. Here in England, the church might have possessed a clock that chimed the hour, so that those who lived near enough might have an idea of the time, but apparently these could be notoriously inaccurate, sometimes being wrong by perhaps several hours or more.
But this probably did not matter, for the rural worker would not need to know the time. The farm labourers would rise at dawn, eat something for breakfast, then make their way to the fields. Around noon they would eat lunch, and at dusk they would return home.
They had no need of timekeeping any more accurate than that.
Contrast that to today, when it almost seems necessary to justify every minute of the day. I think this is one of the attractions of taking a holiday; it seems such a treat to spend each day doing as much or as little as is desired, and not to have to justify it to anyone. And, by extension, perhaps it is vitally important that we take holidays now. Hundreds of years ago in those semi-mythical non time-dominated days, workers did not get holidays. They just had Sundays off. It is easy to suggest that we are softer now, but I think the fixation of time has contributed to lives vastly more dominated by stress, and overwork, and that holidays are essential for us all.
I know I damn well need one!
Or, following in my father’s footsteps, or something like that.
Putting up some old postcards of Darjeeling earlier this week set me to thinking. And, let’s face it, anything that can achieve that is a good thing!
I have posted before that my father spent time in India, both during the Second World War and in the days leading up to Partition. If you would like to re-read it, the link is here: My Father In India
In this post, I mentioned that when I first visited India in 1989, at least, my first proper visit rather than simply passing through on the way to Nepal, I visited the Red Fort in Delhi, taking plenty of photographs, of course.
Some while later, at home, I was going through some of my father’s photographs, and discovered that I had taken a photograph of a view of the mosque in the Red Fort that was almost identical to one that he had.
Above: the one my father had. And, below: the one I took.
Looking at the minaret in front of the dome closest to the viewer, it seems I took my photograph from the archway to the left of the one my father’s photograph is taken from, but otherwise we must have been standing in the same spot. My father would have been quite a bit younger at that time than I was when I visited the Red Fort, and the circumstances very different. But I’m sure that he felt the same sense of awe that I did.
Now there are mature trees behind the mosque, a couple of low hedges in front, and the creepers on the wall have gone.
Otherwise, the view is the same.
And because my father is no longer here, there is an extra poignancy to this; although our footsteps crossed and merged at this place, thousands of miles away, and we both must have lingered in this same spot and, who knows, possibly thought similar thoughts, the passage of time means in reality we might as well have been tens of millions of miles apart.
And this led me to look more closely at his other photographs.
There are not many, perhaps thirty or forty of them, but it is strange that when he was on leave in India, one time, he went with a few chums up to Nainital, and again there appear to be photos taken from spots where I have stood. The images are not the same, this time, but again our footsteps must have crossed.
I think the greatest regret I have about this, other than the obvious one that he is no longer alive, is that I cannot talk about these places with him. But just sharing them is good, even if it does make me feel sad.
Every now and again I get unfollowed. And every now and again I unfollow a blog. Is it a big deal? Should it be a big deal?
At first, it can seem hurtful to find that someone has unfollowed you on any sort of social media, but really it shouldn’t be. Somehow, I find that I now follow a huge number of blogs, most of which I love, and I do wish I had more time available to read them more fully and comment on them, but I don’t. This means that every now and again I sacrifice one for the common good.
But, never without good reason.
First up, one thing that does irritate me, is when I visit and read a blog, leave a response – sometimes a quite lengthy one – and never receive any sort of reply. One blog that I initially followed was like this, and when I had left several comments that were never even acknowledged, I went through their comments strings and found that they could not be bothered to reply to anyone.
Instant unfollow. I dislike rudeness.
What other reasons?
Okay, so maybe I was attracted to your blog initially by the posts about cuddly kittens and home baking, but now the focus of your posts has shifted to motor vehicle maintenance and origami, and I feel my interest is waning. It’s time to move on. Don’t take it badly – what we had was good, but we all grow and develop and change over the years, and what was once right for both of us now leaves at least one of us empty. I wish you well, but I’m leaving you for another.
A little like the above, perhaps I found your blog through a particular post that interested me, but since then it seems that every post is on subjects that don’t. I’m sorry, I gave it a few months, I gave it a good try, but it’s just not doing it for me. Bye bye.
I unfollowed one blog because every post was a long moan about other people. Sorry, there was no pleasure to be had in reading that one.
Perhaps I notice that where your blog was originally full of carefully argued points and good language, it has become home now to foul-mouthed polemics and crude language in general. Hmm, perhaps you should take this one personally. I won’t be the only one to leave.
So, every now and again I see that my own number of followers has fallen, and that I’ve been unfollowed. My reaction? I do wonder whether I have written something boring or offensive, and occasionally re-read a few of my posts in that light. That’s okay, it’s constructive and encourages me to think about what I’m doing.
Perhaps we should all hope to get unfollowed every now and again, just to make us focus constructively on our posts.
Mick Canning 