What is there left to say? What can I find that is not stale from being baked and stored a thousand times by a thousand people, truths that have no doubt shown their validity to someone but that come to me today as merely words shorn of nourishment? What is there left in the cupboard that I still believe in, that has stood the test of time and preserved an edge that speaks of things my being longs to hear?
What words are ever going to feed my inner world now I know how to rest wide open, how to listen to the waves and wind? Words are not required right now, they are vestiges of an older time when I struggled to understand and was searching for a reality hidden under rocks and leaves. I am exulting in my freedom from the noise and must be careful not to populate my mind again with verbiage and endless rambling so must be careful not to fill my hours with reading lots and lots of words.
Feeling my way back into the world of words I feel rather like a crysalis transforming from one life to another. I need to drop the silence without losing it, I need to invite clarity without losing the space inside. It is a delicate balance.
End of summer
As I sit out on my balcony in the afternoon sun I see the end-of-summer migration, the drone of countless cars following each other home after the holidays along the motorway that cuts across the hills. There is the sound of rushing back to the life one has created, the life one would be lost without. There is the sigh of leaving behind the warm sea and wide beaches of southwestern France for more northern latitudes. There is the sadness of knowing that free time is short-lived and there seems no other way but to spend life working. And all this is held within the stillness of plane, holm oak and Mediterranean pine, and under a cloudless sky.
My summer break was a break from the chatter, an interruption of my daily likes and of my feasting on Substack blogs. And now coming back to it all is quite different. I notice the writers who write about writing, and spend their time advising others on how to write. I wonder whether they have anything but that to say. I notice those who share beautiful poetry, either their own or selected from others’, and I love them for it. I marvel at those who write informed think-pieces that help my mind expand. And I follow the ups and downs of American politics from the convenient distance of a foreign land.
And what do I have to say now that I can pour into this mix, whose value is not merely my own self-expression but the resonance it has with others’ minds? What object should my attention alight upon within this vast new space, what topics are calling? As yet, I do not know.
The Inuksuk
istock photo
The image I wish to share with you tonight is this: that of the Inuksuk. It is a symbol of friendship, a large stone landmark built by the Inuit in the arctic regions of North America to guide travellers venturing across the endless snowy landscape. They can be seen from miles away and provide bearings in infinity. The word literally means “a thing that can act in the place of a human” and the stones are indeed stacked in a way that resembles a human figure. I find the Inuksuk very moving. They are a labour of love for the benefit of others, they could be life-savers, the best friends one could have in such a place, standing tall and strong as beacons for those who wander.
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aw. loved this. "There is the sigh of leaving behind the warm sea and wide beaches of southwestern France for more northern latitudes. There is the sadness of knowing that free time is short-lived and there seems no other way but to spend life working." I know that many of us no longer need a vacation from our lives- glad to have found you. Inuksuk- a symbol of friendship. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks you so much for your words that resonate my same wondering about going back to noise and talking, especially talking, and all the scrambling that does to my own délicate balance of calm and clarity. Silence is so comforting, so easing, so relaxing I resist the losing of thathat talking brings.