Land: Essex 10

March 5th, 2021

The days are becoming longer. I have been watching the sky darken out of my window, observing the sun as it moves slowly across the sky at the end of the day. The passage of time — the rhythm of the universe played out before me. As the day draws to a close I often find self sitting and reading, pausing every now and then to look out of the window. I am taking my time to read The Mysticism of Sound and Music by Sufi Hasrat Imayan Khan. I feel less alone when I read. As if the writer is here with me. I have found solace in the words I have been reading and a sense of recognition. The words reassure and resonate. For example: ‘Everything in the world has two movements: the moon has its waxing and waning; the sun has its rising and setting; the tide has its ebb and flow; [wo]man has his[her] rise and decline. This shows us that time is not in the watches and clocks that we have made, but time is the rhythm that is in the whole universe.’

Last week it was my birthday. I have been thinking about the passing of time, of days, of months, of years. It is inevitable I suppose — that aging makes us conscious of such things, for I am no longer young. In fact I am now quite old. The day was unusually fine — the sun shone and the light was crystal clear as we spent the afternoon on the 34th floor, watching the city below as the sun shifted and the light changed. Champagne, balloons and chocolate cake. It was a good day. But I never find my birthday an easy time. Too many memories of things I would rather forget. It always feels stressful and I was glad when the week was over and I could put the birthday cards away. I did not get to visit the Forest though, so I was determined that I would go this week. I realise that it is almost the Spring Equinox and I am almost at the end of this project. I have time to go this week and then I will visit on the first day of the Equinox and then I will be done with this writing, reflecting, listening, looking. I feel a pang of regret. What will I have to focus on then I wonder, aware that I cannot continue to explore other places related to Land at the moment. Aware that we are still unable to travel. Aware that I am still unable. Aware that I am mostly still. Today however I am going somewhere.

I am going to walk in the Forest. I am going to walk, listen, look, reflect and then write about it over the weekend. That will give me something purposeful to do I think as I get self ready, packing food and making coffee to take. Today I have no plans — I just have a sense of purpose, urgency even, as if this action will help resolve my angst, relieve my distress and make me smile. I have not smiled for ages. Not a truthful, easy smile. I miss that feeling. I must find it. I am convinced that I will find it in the Forest– it will be there waiting for me. But I get distracted by emails and requests, and while I do not respond to them, they fill my head and I struggle to leave them behind as I walk to the train station. The station is deserted and the train is not busy but as we pass the Marshes and leave the city behind I start to be present. I begin to feel present. Strange how often I am not present in my own life. I am thinking of something other than the here and now. But as we get closer and closer to the Forest I settle into my self. I start to feel the edges of my body. I have given self permission to just be now. To be the artist/writer who is journeying to the Forest to continue with her work, to walk, to look, to listen. I am reminded of the Zen koan:

If you blot out sight and sound, what do you hear?

What do you hear?

Ears and eyes open, I step onto the platform and make my way out of the station. It is colder than I thought and I walk quickly across the road and onto the Plain. The sky is white, heavy with cloud. The air is fresh and I breathe it in, enjoying the chill a little. For I know that once I am inside the Forest the chill will dissipate and I will be warmer. Inside. I long to be inside and I walk quickly along the bottom of the Plain, rushing almost. I notice the buds on the bushes have opened and the delicate yellow blossoms poke upwards, reaching for the sun. But today there is no sunlight to brighten my mood. The tone of the day is pale. I find a black and white film/lens combo and take a few pale photos. Satisfied that this represents the mood of the day, I navigate around a few walkers and find myself once again making my way through the black mud, taking the track that leads inside the Forest. The mud is not deep and it is easy to walk today. I relax as the trees start to envelop me and I walk into clearings, amazed at how different the Forest looks today. I cannot hear the road already and I stop to investigate broken tree trunks with their interiors exposed. This bark looks like sheets of card, stacked ready for recycling. And there are the boreholes of the beetles who live and thrive in this complex symbiotic community. Aesthetically, everything is pleasing today. My eyes are richly rewarded for their looking. My ears catch drifting sounds: people, dogs, traffic, even an airplane overhead but I try to hear beyond this to see if I can hear the sound of the Forest, the trees. Sounds are vague, approximate. Deceptively coming from here or there — I cannot tell.

I start to smile. It is a deep, easy, wide smile that emerges from somewhere inside me. I recognise the feeling. It is joy. Here in the Forest I have found joy. I am grateful, relieved, content now to just be. I walk through mud, I walk on leaves. I am walking without thinking. I am not aware of where I am walking for now I know this Land — this small section of the Forest — I feel safe, secure, at home. That is the feeling I realise — it is that of coming home.

I notice that the trees around me look unfamiliar. Yet I am calm. Certain even. I cannot lose my way. The bare branches of these pollarded trees look like arms reaching out and I pause to take some photos. I see the Brook ahead and cross the bridge realising that I have walked an entirely different way today. Nothing is ever the same. It is always different here. Ahead of me two women are pausing to look back the way they came. One of them says this is her favourite part of the Forest. The other says that it looks really spooky and she would not like to be here on a foggy day. They continue on their way and I walk up the hill, to the place I walked last time, where the ice pools cradled the tree trunks. A family arguing passes me and I am glad when they have passed and their voices fade. I can hear a woodpecker. I pause to listen before looking around but I cannot tell where the ice pools were. No sign of them remain. The earth is solid and new grass shoots are starting to appear. Spring is on its way — soon it will be here. Suddenly the clouds start to part above me and a patch of blue sky is visible. The light changes dramatically and the whole forest seems to be bathed in an orange light. It is stunning and I find a place to sit so I can just watch. I look up. I look at the sky. I hear birds singing softly. I listen. I am at home. At peace. Entirely content. It is blissful. So much angst lately. So much sadness. But here it does not invade my being. Here it is still and I can breathe deeply. Nothing to do but just be. I hold on to this feeling, this place for a while before walking further up the hill. Boldly, as I have not walked this far before. Again, I find self disorientated as everything looks different, but below I see the Brook and wander back to the bridge before taking the familiar track through the holly, past the ferns and I sit on the swing, rocking backwards and forwards for a while. The action of swinging seems to transport me back to other times, other places, other swings I have sat on. As a child, I loved to swing. Back in the 60’s there were enormous swings that made me feel as if I was flying. I worked really hard to get as high as I possibly could before jumping off and landing precariously on the tarmac below. Now there is black mud beneath me and my boots sink deeply into it as I jump off the swing, smiling. I am still smiling.

I take a slow walk back through the wood, sitting and drinking coffee on a tree trunk before leaving the Forest. As always, I am reluctant to leave but today I make the most of the longer day and wait for the light to start to fade before emerging onto the Plain and catching the sight of the sun dipping below the trees beyond the Golf Course. The clouds have returned and the sky again looks heavy above me. I want to remain present and to hold onto my smile, the joy I felt inside the Forest. But it dissipates as I walk back to the station and I feel suddenly heavy, like the sky. On the train, I look at the photos I have taken and am amazed at the beauty of them. I try to hold onto the feeling of being there amongst the beauty, amongst the symbiotic community that is the Forest, that is nature. But instead I am here listening to announcements about masks and keeping everyone safe. I am fatigued now by the constancy of this agenda. It has been a year and still it continues. I realise it is this atmosphere of fear and control that has made me not be present lately. I do not want to be present in this dsytopic world, where death and illness predominates and dictates our actions. Where birthdays cannot be properly celebrated. Where loss cannot be properly processed. Where it is impossible to see how I might move on. How I might integrate my losses and find a way to live with them. But I have today to remind me that there is a different way to be, to live. That I can be present and find peace and joy — in nature, with the trees, in the Forest. That I can find a way to smile. This action, these actions I have undertaken, visiting the Forest and reflecting on the experience of being there, have taken me to a different place. I have seen how I might live differently.

As the train reaches Clapton, I look up to see a young man, mask on his chin, smiling at me, cheekily. I return the smile easily, thinking of the title of a newly released album I heard on the radio the other day. It is called People Need People. Absolutely, I thought at the time. Like the community within the Forest, we are all connected and symbiotically we thrive when we are together. This is an unnatural situation we are living through now. I put music in my ears so that as I walk home I do not hear the traffic, the noise of the city. Instead, I hear the sounds made my multiple musicians and singers, all working together to produce something beautiful. This is what I hold onto this evening. This feeling of connection, of being with, rather than being without. Of being together, rather than being alone. It is hard to stave off the sadness but I am grateful that I have located it and identified my feelings. I look again and again at the pale photos of my day, at the astonishing beauty that was before me. This, I think, this is salve for my soul. These visits to the Forest have given me much. I sit listening to music, holding these things, these thoughts in my heart. I will return again and again. Regardless of projects and plans for I have found a place I can call home. For now I am sustained by this notion. For now. Time passes. Night falls. The clouds drift. The moon hides as it wanes. The rhythm of the universe played out before and within me. I rise and I fall. I fall and I rise.