I don’t think the quaver in your voice at the end of this moving chapter was embellishment for the reader was it..? I am gulping back tears David… no, in fact they are flowing freely!
Good grief, the wrench of person from land and animals is so hard to disguise…
As always I am caught by your so perceptively emotional and metaphoric words my friend - just beautiful… and heartbreaking.
Hi Susie. I am a bit of a teary old fool :-) I often start to quiver and quaver when I read things and normally stop and redo them. But for this one I had three or four goes and never managed to keep my voice steady. So it just had to go out as it was!
Thanks so much for your recent recommendation to Adam Nathan - he was in touch and says he will include that bit in the project somewhere along the line.
Thanks for reading and for your kindness. You live by a tidal river - now, there's the makings of all the dreams we'll ever need :-) When I was a child I once fished for a week on the just-about-tidal reaches of the Torridge in Devon. Only, I didn't know that the pool at the bottom of the stretch was tidal. I fished down that pool a dozen times and then at the end of the week there was a slightly higher than normal tide. I was wading deep, going over the now familiar rocks and feeling the push of the current like a tune I could hum, a different note with every step. And then the river stopped. It STOPPED! I've never since ceased to believe in, and search for miracles.
So much in this reminds me of where we are (at the other end of the UK in the Blackdown Hills) - small farms trying to wrestle nature into shape over generations - and lots of blue rope! So beautifully written.
Oh, the Blackdown Hills. I had almost forgotten their subtlety and surprises. Thank you for reminding me. So many corners and crannies of this wonderful island where we could spend a lifetime and not know the half of it.
Can one purchase history? If so, then I believe you did. You bought a dream. A beautiful story, David. I more than visualize the appeal.
“So I took possession of it. Or it took possession of me.” Torn to leave and torn to stay. I wonder how it feels to write about your Croft sitting in your new homestead. Setting down your pen and looking back over your shoulder to the words from your past. I am glad to know you both purchased a new dream.
i always listen to you read your posts. the depth of the feeling drops me into your story as your language takes me on the journey. i am appreciating this Riverwitch series between you and Sharon already. What a gift you are offering us...this insight into the intertwining of your lives on The Croft and now all these years later. grateful.
All the love we pour into a place, as we tend it with our two hands, does it remember us, I wonder? Because surely we leave a parts of ourselves behind there when we go. I hope reflecting on this lost love helps both you and Sharon move through the grief that remains. I am traveling to Iceland next year and reading about all the large boulders who were named long ago by the folk who live among them.
I'm sure places remember us - hopefully with a bit of an indulgent smile as they forgive us our foolishness. Coo. Boulders with names :-) We once had a very dear chicken who grew old and died, peacefully enough. A little brown Araucana. For a long while we had referred to her simply as Old Lady Chicken. Somehow we felt reluctant to bury her in the usual manner. A long way up the mountain that rose behind the croft was a great cube of a glacial erratic. We decided that she wanted to be sky buried and so I carried her up the slope, opened up her skinny little body and laid her on the rock. It was such a big rock and so shaped that it would have been hard for a fox to reach her. A buzzard or possibly a Golden Eagle ate most of her, we believe. So there is a rock up there on the mountain that, while we live, is called Old Lady Rock.
I'm conscious, as I read your beautiful words, of how a piece of earth can claim us, and change us too. I'm thinking a lot about place and belonging, and what that means, especially as someone whose deep ancestry lies far from the country of my birth. I guess, in part, belonging is a choice, to allow a place to claim me, and to give myself to it in turn.
I don’t think the quaver in your voice at the end of this moving chapter was embellishment for the reader was it..? I am gulping back tears David… no, in fact they are flowing freely!
Good grief, the wrench of person from land and animals is so hard to disguise…
As always I am caught by your so perceptively emotional and metaphoric words my friend - just beautiful… and heartbreaking.
Hi Susie. I am a bit of a teary old fool :-) I often start to quiver and quaver when I read things and normally stop and redo them. But for this one I had three or four goes and never managed to keep my voice steady. So it just had to go out as it was!
Thanks so much for your recent recommendation to Adam Nathan - he was in touch and says he will include that bit in the project somewhere along the line.
Beautiful writing. I learned and felt so much. Thank you.
Thanks for reading and for your kindness. You live by a tidal river - now, there's the makings of all the dreams we'll ever need :-) When I was a child I once fished for a week on the just-about-tidal reaches of the Torridge in Devon. Only, I didn't know that the pool at the bottom of the stretch was tidal. I fished down that pool a dozen times and then at the end of the week there was a slightly higher than normal tide. I was wading deep, going over the now familiar rocks and feeling the push of the current like a tune I could hum, a different note with every step. And then the river stopped. It STOPPED! I've never since ceased to believe in, and search for miracles.
Yes! I also grew up by a different New England tidal river. Magic is everywhere.
So much in this reminds me of where we are (at the other end of the UK in the Blackdown Hills) - small farms trying to wrestle nature into shape over generations - and lots of blue rope! So beautifully written.
Oh, the Blackdown Hills. I had almost forgotten their subtlety and surprises. Thank you for reminding me. So many corners and crannies of this wonderful island where we could spend a lifetime and not know the half of it.
Can one purchase history? If so, then I believe you did. You bought a dream. A beautiful story, David. I more than visualize the appeal.
“So I took possession of it. Or it took possession of me.” Torn to leave and torn to stay. I wonder how it feels to write about your Croft sitting in your new homestead. Setting down your pen and looking back over your shoulder to the words from your past. I am glad to know you both purchased a new dream.
Yes, you are so right - as I get older I realise that 'buying' a piece of land is just signing up to look after it for a while, as best I can.
Well, David, you've done it again - beautiful piece!
Thanks Patricia. A bit of a fork in the road - thanks for sticking with it :-)
i always listen to you read your posts. the depth of the feeling drops me into your story as your language takes me on the journey. i am appreciating this Riverwitch series between you and Sharon already. What a gift you are offering us...this insight into the intertwining of your lives on The Croft and now all these years later. grateful.
All the love we pour into a place, as we tend it with our two hands, does it remember us, I wonder? Because surely we leave a parts of ourselves behind there when we go. I hope reflecting on this lost love helps both you and Sharon move through the grief that remains. I am traveling to Iceland next year and reading about all the large boulders who were named long ago by the folk who live among them.
I'm sure places remember us - hopefully with a bit of an indulgent smile as they forgive us our foolishness. Coo. Boulders with names :-) We once had a very dear chicken who grew old and died, peacefully enough. A little brown Araucana. For a long while we had referred to her simply as Old Lady Chicken. Somehow we felt reluctant to bury her in the usual manner. A long way up the mountain that rose behind the croft was a great cube of a glacial erratic. We decided that she wanted to be sky buried and so I carried her up the slope, opened up her skinny little body and laid her on the rock. It was such a big rock and so shaped that it would have been hard for a fox to reach her. A buzzard or possibly a Golden Eagle ate most of her, we believe. So there is a rock up there on the mountain that, while we live, is called Old Lady Rock.
I'm conscious, as I read your beautiful words, of how a piece of earth can claim us, and change us too. I'm thinking a lot about place and belonging, and what that means, especially as someone whose deep ancestry lies far from the country of my birth. I guess, in part, belonging is a choice, to allow a place to claim me, and to give myself to it in turn.
Thanks Carri. I guess you've nailed it there - it takes two to dance :-)
Loving this, David. Thank you for sharing it. It’s so evocative of our croft, our fences, our outcrop of lewisian gneiss
Thanks, Lesley. Those big old lumps of rock - they've seen a thing or two :-)
Haven’t they just. You can almost feel the age seep out of them..