I’m going to try and say more with less. Unfortunately, this makes writing harder not easier. My own reading capability has diminished in recent years which means much of yours is probably totally fucked too. No offense. Tech infiltrated brains is the obvious and glaring reason. If you’re the exception to the rule - my heartiest congratulations.
I’m house-sitting and a beautiful evening is chugging to a close here. I sit at a small kitchen table gazing out at an untamed front-garden bursting into life. Each passing April day stretches the half-light further and further into the cosmic distance. The fading light and near cloudless sky carpet the perfect canvas for the night to, perhaps, brush in a curved moon and a star or two. Or many. The possibilities seem endless and mostly good.
The sky is at peace, for awhile.
Earlier, on a lazy cigarette break, one filled with loud, busy thoughts a noise fills the air, distracting me from my distracting mind conversations. The backing vocals are invisible birds chirping deliriously somewhere beyond the old stone boundary wall. Noticing their singing helps settle my thoughts down. Like trusty tour-guides they point to the simple wonders all around this land.
Once upon a time, I knew the names of all of the birds and all of the trees and all of the flowers whenever I stopped to look out from a rustic window scene. But, now, I could fill a library with all of the simple importance that I’ve casually forgotten.
“ All life is here, All life is here “ the birds seemed to chorus in certain unison.
Back to the present, and yet another cigarette, brings another revelation as I listen to nature’s symphony gently begin to wind down into the silence of the slow approaching night. Outside, I glance in through the kitchen window at the table within and observe my laptop and smart-phones. Yes, phones plural.
What’s in this trio of digital devilry, I wonder. The fresh breeze fills my lungs with a type of oxygen that indicates I may not have pondered this question, in this particular fashion, to myself before. From this vista, just outside the glass-pane, it seems to me like the answer is: Not much and far too much.
Anxiety, distraction, negativity and the whole goddamn world.
Life isn’t in there, Life isn’t in there. The knowing birds might caw. Increasingly, answers aren’t in there either. Artificial Intelligence is in there, though. Not very impressed with me observing it from near the garden and not at the table, I suspect. I turn away from the window and absorb the quiet peace of the outside world again. Lying back against the window-sill I notice the primroses for the first time. Growing in clumps near the entrance gate-post. A memory triggers from my childhood.
Back then, as the evenings stretched, the amounts of time spent outdoors wandering through fields, climbing ash trees, breaking into hay-barns, and exploring ditches expanded too. My neighbour and I would be unearthed not by the beep of a phone but usually by whenever the worried shouts of my mother vibrated into earshot. Announcing a dinner growing cold. Her calls would snap me out of my nature trance. Beckoning in the sounds of trouble on the wind and starvation in my stomach. Sometimes, though, on perfect night’s, perfect night’s like this one, these exhilarating explorations could go on till the arrival of the moon and the stars.
Life seemed everywhere outside my kitchen window. A universe ever expanding and yet profoundly understandable and simple. When a sheepish smile and a muddied fist of primroses solved a lot of my day-to-day mischief making and hunger problems. There are nights when the buzz of my phone and racing thoughts seldom let me rest. When sleep comes dropping slow. Tonight, though, the sky is at peace and the garden is pocketed with primroses. The beauty and mystery of both consume me with stillness.
How could anyone possibly sleep on a night like this one.
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Beautifully observed Gerry.I’m on a 4 day break in rural Wexford,listening to the sound of the sea,cliff top walks,early morning swims in the Irish Sea,watching nature in its full bloom and thankfully no laptop.Ireland is a most wonderful place.I was blessed at birth by being part of this Country.
The Irish countryside is about to burst into 'frenzied joy' ... primroses, blue bells and violets. Every 'sceach gheal' aglow ... Rooks caring in the rookery... sparrows chattering merrily ... the stream singing and babbling along ... the world is truly 'charged with the granduer of God'