Train (Updated)

Update: I also love synchronicity. Today's issue of the Guardian contains an absorbing article on Edward Thomas. Poetry. Therapy. Ecology. Makes me want to read more.

I love train travel.

Apparently a serious expansion of the rail network is planned for 2020 or thereabouts. Good. In addition to the high speed lines though, what about re-opening at least some of the branch lines that were closed (thank you Dr Beeching) in the 1960s? They will probably be needed sooner or later.

****

It is indeed late June, so an unashamedly famous ode to a now-defunct country station about an hour's drive from here, on one of those vanished local lines. The poet, Edward Thomas, was killed in battle in 1917 during the First World War. (He was born in the same year - 1878 - as my grandfather: the latter had a defect in one eye and so was excused the call-up).

Adlestrop

Yes. I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Some one cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and around him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.


The context of the war has turned the poem into an elegy for lost innocence and a world that never really existed. Yet its real theme is the wonder of the present moment. And the power of the unexpected.

A sudden halt. High summer. A hiss of steam, and the observation that (I think) makes the poem: the clearing of the throat. The song of the blackbird.

It takes shock or ecstasy or good company to jolt me into the present moment, application and some kind of faith to live in it on a daily basis, if only for seconds at a time. Even as a child - little worrier that I was, living in a stressful home - I found it difficult. No guarantees. No wonder so few manage it. No wonder I tried to escape.

One minute, one second at a time. Feel. Breathe. Sing.

Photograph uploaded at Poems and Prose by Kendrive.The original station sign, preserved in a nearby bus shelter.

Tuesday

Aimless doesn't work. I like having a fairly firm structure to my free days, though I often tell myself the opposite. Tuesday began early with a trip to the bicycle repair place (I fell off the bike, very publicly, two weeks ago - no bones broken but the machine wasn't so lucky) and ended with an evening yoga class.

Somewhere in between, to the local arts centre for a lunchtime viewing of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical animated film about a young girl with a taste for the music of Iron Maiden, growing up in Teheran from the 1970s to the 1990s. Witty, harrowing, tragic and at times downright comical, with a political edge. I learned a surprising amount that I didn't know previously about the history of Iran and the rise of fundamentalism. One quibble: ten minutes could perhaps have been cut somewhere towards the end; the last half hour was a little too long for me.

French with English subtitles but there's a dubbed English language version out there as well. Definitely recommended.

Household gods

The ritual:

5.30am. Our neighbours are still asleep. We climb the stairs together, but as we near the landing he scampers ahead. He has eaten. I have my mug of hot black coffee. The study faces east and on June mornings like this it is flooded with sunlight.Still in my dressing gown I switch on the laptop and scan emails, blogs. He stretches out in his usual position on the window ledge, next to the brass figure of the Lord Shiva as Nataraja, the dancer.

Four-armed Shiva dances the world into enlightenment. The cat, felis catus, relaxes in the sun. He is, lest I forget, a creature of the goddess Bast, patron of the sun, women and secrets. He watches me intently. Now and again I return the favour, entranced as always by the way he folds his front paws inwards. Neat and tidy.

A few hundred yards away an early train clatters past. After a while I close the computer and head for the shower.

The cat stays where he is.

****

Summer solstice. In the abundance of such clear, generous light, everything seems possible, all barriers surmountable. Of course life isn't like that. Darkness has its own time. Dreams are shattered fairly regularly. Physical and emotional blockages imprison as deep as any dungeon.

Persistent delusion then? I don't think so. For good or ill, this is what light does.

Five

1. Seriously large leaves. Magnolia macrophyllia, or Big Leaf Magnolia,a native of the south-eastern United States and one of the hundreds of trees from around the world at the local arboretum. Sunshine. Walking in the woods. Feeling heard. Listening in return. Good advice. More pictures on Flickr.

2. Friday 13th lived up to its reputation. A catalyst of a day that ended in tears. My colleagues are as hard working and caring as any I have come across but good management is vital. An organisation simply can't function without it. That's all I'm saying.

3. I meant to blog about this extraordinary photograph and article when it first appeared last month. The subject is a Premiership footballer who had just scored a decisive penalty goal and who had lost his mother earlier that same week. The author is The Times's art critic. On the quiet I'm a follower of soccer, but even if you aren't, do read it. The commenters debate whether the piece is celebrity-fawning or superb artistic analysis. My inclination is towards the latter.

4. The shoulder pain has lessened. Oddly enough, apart from the deep tissue work, what seems to have turned it around was tackling a full body massage myself and not listening to the internal voices that told me I shouldn't because of the injury. I went ahead. The friend was effusive. I loved it and am almost pain-free. We're doing it again.

5. I need to register as self-employed.

River

I'm lucky. I knew I wanted to live near the river and now it is just a five minute walk away, bordered by fields where cattle graze.

Sometimes we regard it with apprehension. If enough rain falls in Wales, then sure enough a day or two later we are flooded. The reason these fields have survived being snapped up for housing is that they do double duty as a flood plain. No insurer would look at anything built on them.

I remember the first time I saw it in spate. It is terrifying. Angry. What shook me was the volume of the noise made by the rushing water. Stained reddish-brown by the topsoil gathered from flooded fields, the river boils and it roars. Whole tree trunks and branches are caught up, swept through the town and onwards downstream as swans, ducks and humans retreat to higher ground to wait out the torrent. Mostly though the Wye wears a tranquil face, a fisherman's and a canoeist's delight. At one time it was used for navigation - the path in the photos below was once a towpath - but no longer. Dog walkers and hikers now keep the grass short.

****

The internal combusion engine holds sway. The powers that be have recently decided that a major bypass should be built to cross the river just beyond where the cows are grazing in the bottom picture, near a rookery and the nesting site of a pair of buzzards. It will take years; the plans will be protested for many reasons, not all of them scenic and aesthetic. I'll do my part with local environmental groups, but I suspect the outcome may be inevitable.

Now I walk these fields with a sense of foreboding and try to to imprint on my memory the solitude, the sound of running water, the exact detail of a leaf, a bird. All of them ephemeral.

Love of place. Not dissimilar to love of a person.








The usual advice: it really is worth clicking to enlarge the photographs.

Links:

River Wye, Wikipedia
Wye Valley, Wikipedia
Wye Valley, AONB
CPRE transport page

Timing

The massage therapist, F, has discovered the cause of the shoulder problem. Tight pectorals. Those of you who read Dale's blog will know that he addressed this condition recently and I'm here to tell you that he was spot on. The pain is in the right upper quadrant of the back, spreading over the shoulder to the right arm. The range of movement of this arm was becoming increasingly limited and I was getting far too accustomed to permanent discomfort.

Lo and behold the pectoral muscles on my right side are contracted and as tight as piano wire. At the end of an excruciating but wonderful session I sit on the couch, legs dangling, wrapped in thick white towels. F kneels behind me and pushes his knee into my thoracic area at the same time pulling the shoulders. This is how you need to sit, he says. Keep those shoulders back. Do yoga. Do the Camel. The Locust. When you are standing, don't fold your arms in front of you. Give yourself regular massages where the pectoral muscle joins the sternum. And I always thought I had good posture.

Deep tissue massage with a male therapist seemed the path to take because I sensed the problem needed some heavy-duty physical work. F is good. He looks to be in his thirties, a bit shorter than me, chunky. In addition to skill and strength he possesses the gift of making his female clients feel safe. Open and friendly but everything strictly appropriate. There's more work to be done, and possibly some ultrasound, but I am encouraged.

Of course there are twinges of guilt and even shame to go along with the physical ache: this shouldn't be happening to me as an (occasional) massage practitioner. I shouldn't have been this neglectful of my own body. Oh well. But it has to be admitted, an unbeatable way to understand in depth the working of the individual muscles is to develop a problem or two yourself. A gold standard Anatomy & Physiology refresher course, you could say.

The title of Dale's post also strikes me as significant. Opening the heartspace.

****

The sun is high in the sky: the golden days of summer are here.

Herb Garden

Lemon balm. A recent gift. I made my first tisane from the leaves the other day. A light, lemony flavour. It won't replace coffee but very pleasant.


Valerian - flower detail. About five feet high as of this morning and growing. For medicinal purposes you'd need to use the root.


Nettle. A so-called weed that grew under the fence from the neighbour's garden. Next year - nettle soup. (This link is particularly good. It seems I've just missed Be Nice to Nettles Week but I think I'm obeying the spirit of it).



Chive. The flower can be used in salads. For me, a bit too much like eating a work of art ....

I'm starting to love my garden, to be excited about it, much more than I ever thought would be the case. To be surprised that the majority of these these plants will grow and flourish in spite of my ignorance and lack of skill. The ones that don't I learn from.

Consider the lilies indeed.