online: 13 april 2009 modified: 14 april 2009 13 april 2009 old and new
east of Kenwood
...two honking geese fly over this part of the heath... where i am sitting in a bower, deep in a hawthorn hedge...
...how quickly about half of the trees have changed from bare to leafy... and beyond the trees i see the Post Office Tower (part of a microwave network)... today it is just discernible in the misty air...
...as i came here i passed a single blossom growing from the root of an old cherry tree... a metaphor (in the I Ching, hexagram 28, moving line 2) for someone who develops new or youthful activities in old age, perhaps in partnership with someone younger...
...a small bird stands close to my feet and, after looking at me for a few seconds, flies into the hedge above...
...i listen to other birds singing and to the soft footsteps of people walking on the earth path before me... and when i make a small sound (by unconsciously moving a foot on gravel) a passer-by looks up immediately... most of us, i think, are perpetually but unconsciously alert to any sounds or signs of human presence and proximity...
...at which a golden retriever comes to sniff at my fingers which continue writing this on the touch screen...
evening:
i walked back along the eastern edge of the heath... close to where i lived in 1989-91... scenes that i used to know well but which have changed somewhat... trees that have fallen, reed beds planted in the model boating pond, wet ground that has become more swampy, hedges that have grown... and other things that look or feel different from my memories of twenty years ago...
...leaving the heath by bus i was surprised to see someone i know getting on... it was Jascia Reichardt*... she is a subscriber to daffodil (my newsletter) and tells me that she still reads it... i seldom meet someone who does and i feel encouraged...
...i came to the heath today to think about what i am doing ... but these thoughts and events took over and i haven't decided anything... (but perhaps my doubts are being resolved spontaneously?)
*Jascia Reichardt curated the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at the ICA, London in 1968 and has written extensively on art-and-technology (see wikipedia
)
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