online: 16 november 2013
modified: 15, 16 november, 1 decmber 2013
15 november 2013 stillness and danger in the wintry sunlight
seven sisters ponds
... first morning walk for several weeks... i'd forgotten how warm and inviting is wintry sun when there is no wind... and gossamer and flying insects are shining like sparks... and leaves are lit up like colour transparencies... casting their colours and shadows upon each other...
...and now the gentlest breeze sets twigs and leaves and gossamer shimmering while the water surface remains still (being covered by a floating micro-plant or algae)... not many birds... just a duck, a moorhen and a robin (perhaps the robin i've seen here before)... today it comes within 2 or 3 meters before flying up into the trees behind me... and then after a few minutes it returns... while i whistle gently...
...increasingly dazzled by the changing angle of sunlight reflected from the water surface... and i'm glad to continue this record of moments in a city forest... while also listening to urban sounds... from aircraft... from roads... and from electric trains...
...on the way here i passed several large trees blown down in autumn winds... it's difficult to envisage winds strong enough to split or snap thick trunks... and roots... and branches... but now i'm remembering the gale or hurricane we experienced in october which made it difficult to close an outer door against a wind said to be of 80 mph (or about 130 kph)... and the astonishing and tragic recent sight on tv of whole towns in the Philippines blown flat by a typhoon (assisted by a windblown sea wave several metres high)...
... contemplating all this (as the warm sunshine fades and a cold arctic wind resumes) i realise that these relatively small changes in the atmosphere are pleasant to some inhabitants of earth forest and city while disastrous to others... (to people, trees, houses, mown lawns, or threads of gossamer, or flying insects... and plenty more)... i wonder if we have the nerve or capability to adjust our views and habits with respect to atmospheric change without sentimentality but with informed imagination?... big question!...
...now the sun has moved behind the trees and the air feels colder... i've sat here for an hour and a half while eating a picnic lunch and writing this... a connective report enabling i hope right thoughts and actions in our collective circumstance... 'only connect' ... 'living no longer in fragments' (as E M Forster put it in a famous paragraph of his novel Howards End, chapter 22)...
...and as i write that a large yellow leaf with many holes (caused by disease or insects?) falls gently from above to rest upon the ground before me...
...as i walk away a man is cutting (artificial?) stone with a circular saw (with diamond teeth?)... which is creating a cloud of perhaps deadly dust... against which he is wearing a cloth face mask... perhaps ineffective but not too tiresome or obstructive... i recall the unpopularity of 'health and safety' rules that can seem more to protect employers than to help those who do the work and run the actual risk...
...returning through the forest i stand aside to let two black horses gallop by (or canter?)... along the road through Sandy Heath... ridden by a policeman and a policewoman...
...and later 'good morning sir' says a man a little younger than myself...
'hello again' says a woman with a dog... (we first said hello about half a mile back and came here by different routes)...
...such brief encounters between strangers could become the recognised ingredients of a new and wider sociality... now forming in the face of global dangers... and via 'social media' such as this...
...got home tired... slept half the afternoon... then rose again to cook and eat... before transferring this to (the editing software called) BBEdit... intending to sleep on it before putting an improved version online tomorrow...
...this is it!
...and now (on december 1st) i'm enjoying correcting or improving this... small changes at the scale of action... i feel that all else is secondary... or superficial!...
homepage
© 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 john chris jones
You may transmit this text to anyone for any non-commercial purpose if you include the copyright line and this notice and if you respect the copyright of quotations.
If you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at publicwriting.net