Twilight With Jackdaws

About a million jackdaws flying across the fields to roost in the tall trees below the chapel, in the twilight. They come in waves, in loose, tattered groups, the opposite of synchronised, making the loud harsh cries of the corvid family. They come and they come and they come, as I stand staring up at the sky above my head, and I begin to think they will come forever, almost to believe this, then slowly the groups grow smaller, then a last few stragglers, and that's it, the sky now empty. Their cacophony rises and mingles with the sound of the church bells from the other side of the valley.

Shaken

I am here and four months have passed. The bilberries are coming to an end and soon the blackberries will be ripe. I look forward to September's sense of new beginning. I have moved my work to the large, sunny practice room in town. I have created a space in which I feel at ease, and so can my clients. The process of 'leaving home' with my work has stirred my depths, with memories of another 'leaving home' surfacing and demanding to be remembered, felt, understood. 1978, when my parents separated and I left the house where I'd grown up, the town, the school, and my father. It's been a process that has shaken me to the core, and I've survived once again. Ready to love and forgive myself everything I thought was somehow my fault. More growth, more change. On we go.

Hello again.

April Come She Will

.... and go! So much for the April blogging challenge. There have been other fish to fry and I have kept meaning to come here and say so. I have found a room in town for my therapy practice and it's been an exciting and rather tense process, looking at a few possibilities, weighing up pros and cons, saying yes and saying no and then getting clear. It looks like I'll have it from July, which gives me time to prepare, mentally and emotionally and in the IKEA sense!!

I'll try to get here again in the next few days, but there seems to be a lot to do and think about before we go off on holiday on Friday. Skiathos beckons.... So if I don't get here before, I'll see you when I return.

In other news - clearing four inches of snow off the car yesterday morning was certainly a memorable finale for an exceptionally cold April!

Love after Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Back

A lapse in the project, caused by the indisposition of the laptop on Tuesday evening, which threatened to be terminal so L swung into frantic backing-up mode as we hadn't done any for some time and felt at risk of losing all kinds of documents and photographs. In fact, the machine has at least for now made a full recovery, but it is ageing and who knows what's around the next corner?

And yesterday I just didn't get it together, partly because I joined a meditation group in the evening, and upon my return, though peaceful and happy, felt entirely devoid of inspiration.

In other news, I am looking at business premises around town, with a view to taking my work out of my home. A radical step if it happens, and I think it will, and I suspect it will be a turning point. Finding the right place is a tricky thing, especially determining the general quietness of the building, and sound-proofness of the walls.

And ... I am the almost proud first time owner of a smart phone. Not so proud to have twice inadvertently phoned my sister whilst trying to enter her various numbers. The back of my phone is red.

And I'm reading Wallace Stevens

and Knausgaard of course.

Energy

Today I planted out broad bean seedlings, as the wind began to stir their bluish green leaves. On our walk, the lapwings and curlews were evasive, and we saw ten lambs running up and down a field as if in a race. The sun was warm, the air still cool. We are beginning to think about our Greek holiday in May, which now feels close!

Wordless Saturday Night