Still here at my friend’s house, being treated with exceptional care. Rachel’s an excellent cook, there is fabulous British tv each evening (‘The Other Bennet Sister’, ‘Gavin & Stacy’, ‘Amandaland’), and my feet are getting a happy break by shorter walks in sandals. I have so few clothes with me, and none of them really appropriate for walking around a city; Rachel immediately raided her closet and brought me a generous collection of everything I’d need to feel comfortable.
My first task was to research and obtain new shoes that might irritate my feet less. I walked up to the nearby shopping street and spent a lot of time in the specialist shoe shop, and I think I’ve got it sorted. On my 2 mile walk around the neighborhood, I realized how easy it is to slip back into autopilot: getting things done, racing around, checking tasks off a list. I know this area, I’ve been fortunate to visit Rachel and her family often over the years. It feels like a second home. And that is a very special thing; I don’t take that welcome and security lightly. Yet because I’m so comfortable here, its familiarity blurs the wonder and the noticings. I’ve just spent the past five weeks intimately engaged with my surroundings: the flowers, the sky, the ground beneath my feet, the temperature, the light, stone walls, hedges made of trees, quirky signs, the shapes of paths, birdsong. So many new things I had to stop myself from taking photos every step or jotting down things I didn’t want to forget in my notebook at every turn. But yesterday I found myself just rushing up the road, mind a million miles away, curious thing after curious thing just zipping by. I recognized so many of my surroundings that I wasn’t actually seeing them. I came to understand that it’s not easy to pay attention, that it takes a dedicated discipline to notice things, to find things interesting. There has to be a balance of moving through the world in order to accomplish necessary tasks, and also stay aware of the mundane things that can crystallize into great beauty and importance. I have to work on this.
I started yesterday by stopping for a good while by overflowing wisteria, enjoying its intoxicating fragrance. How generous of the homeowner to plant and take care of these blooms so everyone walking down the sidewalk a few months every year gets to enjoy this delight! After my shopping errands I was happy to find my favorite café in the area, ‘Coco Noir’ is still here, so I had a coffee with free biscuit, and picked up some of their chocolates for a small thank you for Rachel. I love picking out their chocolate treats to make a specialized box. On the walk home I stopped by my favorite house, just across the street from my friends’, the home where J.R.R. Tolkien lived for many years. That is a place I always stop when I’m here, and I imagine him in his home there thinking up more fabulous stories from the Shire.
Later I sat in the sun with Rachel, on her super comfy garden furniture, just spending a good long while looking up at the sky, the trees, the clouds and sun. I don’t think I’ve allowed myself that much staring at the afternoon sky chatting with a friend time since I was a teenager. Just musing together. Today the resident red kite appeared, so there was more sky gazing. This time, though, it wasn’t so peaceful, but full of intrigue between the dueling kite and a magpie for the garden territory. Jamie and I think the kite has a nest nearby it is protecting; its whistles and cries sound disturbed and anxious. The two birds were chasing each other, and taking turns sitting on a high tree perch in the middle of the garden. Magpies steal young chicks of other birds, and the kite seemed worried. It was all quite exciting.
Later, after the sun went down, it grew chilly and I pulled on my new sheep wellie socks that I couldn’t resist buying when we were in Hay-on-Wye. So there are the sheep for today.
