scream down the desert

One of the most persisting and pervading day dreams or dream pictures I have is that of driving my car down from a plateau into a huge, empty landscape, the road rolling straight ahead of me, the sun beating down, the windows wide open, hair whipping in the slipstream, blasting music, not a single soul to be seen anywhere, just endless nature, sand, gravel, rocks, plants, maybe some birds of prey gliding on the thermals and the endless open road before me.

It’s the embodiment of freedom, the mental picture that keeps me going because I know, deep down, that one day I will drive down onto that plain at the fastest speed I can, with the most heart-rending, howling-at-the-sky-worthy music turned up as high as I can take it, and when I’m at the point where I will feel as though shortly I will explode into a thousand pieces and shatter the universe, I will stop the car, screeching and whirling up dust, and jump out and let out an almighty scream to shake the world in its foundations as it reverberates from the mountains behind me and in one tiny moment I will be a part of everything, every particle of this world, of the rocks, the water, the wind, the people, even you, and I will split your heart with the beauty and the magnitude and the free-whirling mystique of this world and leave you changed forever.

 

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the light of autumn

What is the difference between the light of summer and that of autumn?

There is a difference, I can see it. Where summer is bold, autumn is hazy. Where summer glares, autumn mellows. And where the light of summer picks out silhouettes in blinding brightness, boldly slashing pictures in light and dark, autumn’s light drips gentle gold, letting it sink into the colours and bringing forth the details between the contours.

Maybe the difference is  that of extremes crumbled, of experience gained, of subtlety discovered.

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on a hot summer day’s end (word picture)

I sit on the terrace. It’s been sweltering and humid all day. I’ve kept the doors and windows closed so it would stay nice and cool inside the house.

Now the sun has disappeared behind the hill, although the sky is still high and blue and hazy clouded. It’s cooled down some after a five-minute-summer-rain. My skin feels sticky.

I drink endless glasses of water. I feel restless. I wish the flies would let me be.

Snatches of poetry run through my head. Words that adequately describe the feelings of sitting on the terrace on the evening of a hot summer’s day, watching the swallows dip and weave, listening to the blackbirds singing, feeling flies settling on my sweaty skin and wishing for something to happen. I cannot remember the poems, nor the poets, only flashes of their work.

The red-pink roses look good against the clouds gathering on the horizon. The goldfish in the pond move lazily just below the surface. There is no wind down here, although the clouds are moving closer fast enough.

I love this place, and yet I’m restless. Will I ever be satisfied with what I’ve got?

I hope the swallows will be able to stuff themselves tonight. I like swallows. I don’t like flies.

A plane cuts its way through the sky, sunlight glittering on its silver skin. It hums along in eager pursuit of a different place to be. The swallows stay put, close to their nests, even though they zip through the sky on their fast wings. The goldfish don’t zip. They just drift.

The edges of the clouds are white, tinged with a rose-golden hue. I hope the swallows and the planes appreciate how pretty they are.

 

 

afternoon (a word picture)

As I was lying on the springsoft meadow, flies buzzed about my ears and the dandelions looked down into my face, wondering what I was doing amongst them, shaking their heads in slight bewilderment, but smiling brightly nonetheless. What was I doing?

I was watching the wind erode the tracks that the planes had cut into the hazy sky.

 

the bracing sea

Suddenly you are snatched out of time and for a few moments, in which you don’t dare breathe or move and stare unseeingly into the distance, you become acutely and physically aware of the unreality of everything around you.  In that space of time your mind is suspended above the humdrum chatter that usually fills your brain and everything you are touching, everything surrounding you, everything in your mind is totally, absolutely unreal. Made up. A story you tell yourself so as not to have to look too closely at the stark, painful truth: that you are alone. That you are not doing what you want to do. That you are not living like you want to live. That you will die without ever fulfilling your full potential. That you’re not even trying to fulfill it. That nobody will ever know you. That you are alone.