At five I walked from town to home, after doing some supermarket shopping. It was still clear; the evening cloud hadn’t dropped and the sun was lighting up the creases and peaks of far off green mountains. Unphotographable; beautiful. There were lots of people out walking; kids were throwing a ball around; two groups were gathering for court. A woman paused on a grassy patch, untied her bilum, laid it on the ground and resettled the baby in it before retying the blium around her head and continuing on.
I looked again at the mountains, at their soft green and the pale light which highlighted their crumples (we have such gentle mountains here; no fierce crags). I could hear the occasional car, insects chirping, people talking, the rustle of my shopping bag, the swish of my shoes as I walked through the grass.
What will I remember of this? I will remember people, certain adventures, the feel of the spaces I live and move around in. But … the actuality of the experience is bigger than me, now as I am living it. I live inside my head a lot, sure, but what I see and learn here, what I do, who I’m in contact with, the dailyness, the living – here, amongst these mountains, with these people, on this land: this experience is something I can’t map or articulate; it’s something I can’t quite grasp. It’s larger than me. I don’t know what it might mean.
I’m struggling to articulate even this. But it’s good; these moments of wonder, which almost verge on awe, are reminders of what it is to be alive, caught up in it all but pausing for a moment.
**
That or I’ve been working too hard. Also possible. But enough musing; dinner + book club are on this evening; alan bennett’s latest - the audio version, which i hope will be ... fun and not to nana-ish.
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