The Whispering Fig

Summer dwindles, seeps into autumn. Time is like a snake, it sheds sandy bathing suits for the scent of burning wood, a skin made from cold, damp earth. Before we left the forest this summer, I gathered figs, plucked from trees, and gently cradled the soft, warm flesh in my palm. I thought, a fig is a promise, a delicate kiss, a secret purple smile. So easily damaged, so soft, so welcoming; a fig seems to beat with a human heart. Split me in two, the fig whispered; just take a bite.

the baby came....

The baby came. A bud of wisdom. A flower of hope. We drift together in a muddle of time, running on a thread of feeds and sleeps. I try to eat, drink and write with one hand. "She is so tiny" everyone says. "You forget how small babies are". We marvel at her delicate, miniature limbs. Tender. Ferocious. Cradled in my arms. She has changed lives. In a blink of months she will be transformed. For now each day, hour requires an Everest force; meeting the mountain, smelling the flower, tasting the breath of fresh life.

Rilke's Double Kingdom: Coming back, going forward, stepping around

Spring is here this week, soft as the smell of warm baked cake. Gentle temperatures and tulips decorate our days. I've fallen from this blog, had my head in hospices, death, funerals and grief; dark, intimate spaces. I am also pregnant. So, I've been traveling in two directions, living in a place akin to Rilke's Double Kingdom. Orpheus comes and goes perpetually, as the poets come and go, roses blooming, falling and dying, only to bloom again. In the double kingdom voices are mild and eternal, mourning  becomes music. So, maybe, I'll be saying goodbye to this space. Maybe, I'll step around here a little while longer. There are so many goodbyes and new beginnings...

Black beans and Vermeer

I was cooking black beans yesterday. Piles of black diamonds in an inky broth, studded with a carrot, a bay leaf and silky strips of leek. 

Suddenly, I thought of Vermeer's domestic scenes; dull, "dead coloring", over-layered with glazes of red and yellow, locked into place with a touch of pearl.

Served with greek yogurt, Jamaican hot sauce, cheddar cheese and a sprinkle of spring onions they tasted delicious too!

granite flesh

December is here. The year is almost turning and the word flesh has just come whispering in my ear. An Old English poetry-word for "body" was flæsc-hama, literally "flesh-home." The French say we can be bien dans sa peau, to feel right inside your skin, to be comfortable in the body we call our domicile. These days I am encircled by bodies travelling through illness and growth, spinning pirouettes on the tightrope of  life.  I recently visited a rock collection in a Musée d'Histoire Naturelle. Hunks of granite, ancient earth flesh carried the memories of a million other days. Softly, spoken words. Sshhh..they murmured, we are still here.

Half-hidden november mornings

Today, I nestle in a half-hidden morning, tucked inside the taste of croissant crumbs and a return to bed, after breakfast. Returning to bed is always good. I curl like a cat into the spirals of dull clouds that line the sky; autumn is here. Two busy months have spun my body into a peripatetic pace, measured by alarm calls, train coffee and limbs reaching out to strangers,  the logos trying to twist a rope, upon which we may walk together. Today, I unwind the cords, unpack the bags and dismantle the relentless clock. I sink into the sofa with detective novels, listening to The Godfather:Love Theme while I think about eating raclette; melted cheese and pencil grey skies. Movement and repose. 

the reclusive room

Am away from home, in a hotel room, where the bathroom tiles are edged in Air Force Blue. Night has fallen and trash TV fills the space between the walls; a mild, restful, gaudy background buzz. I am draped or slumped upon the bed; my limbs burrow between a phone, a damp towel, a loop of cables, a winter hat, a blue leopard print umbrella; I am waiting to eat a pot of rice pudding, spoonfuls of comfort laced with cinnamon. Next to me, there is a much-thumbed magazine that I purloined from reception, as a plump young woman with empty chocolate eyes said "Bonne soirée".

I am here, admiring the curve of light falling from the standing lamp, colonizing this makeshift home. The Air Force Blue bathroom tiles remind me of my grandparent's house, the heady scent of the lavender hedges that lined their short garden path. But, nothing else here belongs to me. Anything could happen. There is a freedom in this anonymous expanse, a dreary land where everything is to be invented, again. "Aren't you lonely when you travel?", people ask, I always smile. Movement was written into my childhood and I developed a passion, a taste of wandering, I own a thirst for lone ranging that has yet to be quenched. This borrowed, short-term occupation is my interim caretaker; a fleeting hearth for my frame. Fleet from the old English to flit, to float; in this hotel room the flash of a bird's wing across the sky would have to be called evanescent.