Entries tagged with “writing” from Blog Write

Old James stands at the bottom of his garden, leaning his tall stooped body on the gate. The beam from the lighthouse intermittently reveals his face. His hair, white and fine, reaches down to his collar. His soft blue eyes, hooded by bushy eyebrows, look over the western sea to where the sun has set, leaving a faint pink afterglow. In his gnarled hand, he holds a pipe, the aromatic tobacco smoke giving some relief from the incessant attention of biting midges.

He listens to the sounds of the night. The tide is on the turn and the oyster- catchers are noisily piping, as they feed before the sea reclaims the mudflats. Overhead, a curlew whistles it's plaintive call, which echoes over the moor as the bird heads inland.

The river flowing from the mountain behind his house is in full spate. The dark peaty water rushing, roaring as it spills over the falls into the sea pool where the tang of fresh water drives the waiting fish to a frenzy in their attempt to head up to the spawning grounds high in the headwaters. He hears the whistle of the dog otter and knows that some of those fish will not make the journey tonight.While his eyes and ears absorb the sights and sounds, the nostrils on his long aquiline nose quiver as he savors the smells. The rich cloying scent of bog myrtle, the salty tang of the sea with a hint of rotten seaweed left above high water by last nights storm, and the antiseptic smell of peat smoke coming from the chimney on his whitewashed cottage. He looks up to the dark sky, a tapestry of stars unblemished by the intrusion of city lights, a new moon just rising, queen of the night; and his lips move in a blessing as his mother and her mother before her had taught.

Hail to thee, thou new moon,

Guiding jewel of gentleness!

I am bending to thee my knee,

I am offering thee my love.

I am bending to thee my knee,

I am giving thee my hand,

I am lifting to thee mine eye,

O new moon of the seasons....

James's life is full of ritual; every task has it's own mysterious, otherworldly aspect. His nature imbues even the mundane with sacredness.He stands erect; his arthritic fingers fumble with the buttons of his flies. He turns his back into the wind and starts to water the gatepost, the flow of urine bifurcated and hesitant. It is not so much an old dog marking his territory, more a libation to the old gods of his people. James looks down the bay towards the empty houses. The peninsula was once home to 1700 people, now his is the only house lived in all year, the others now dark and lifeless where once they were bright and full of life. Sometimes too full. Over 250 years of famine, war, land clearances and forced emigration have failed to quench the flame of life that kept a tenuous hold on the land. Now, the peoples need to find work elsewhere, the sale of houses as holiday homes and no children being born to replace the aging population has pushed the area into an irreversible decline.

He trudges back towards his cottage, the lamp in his window drawing him home, as it has on many nights, even when thousands of miles and an ocean away. He bends his head to enter the low doorway, and as he steps over the threshold the cottage envelops him in it's embrace.

The warmth does not come from the fire in the hearth; it is inherent in the fabric of the building. It is the warmth that is generated in the memory and combusted in the heart. The warmth that is as old as the land itself. It is the warmth of blood. James rakes the fire, causing sparks to dance up the chimney to be borne away on the sea breezes. He is drawn to a faint scratching at the window, and sees a moth fluttering against the pane, helplessly enthralled in it's Icarus-like quest to reach the light. James turns off the light and opens the window to let in the night.He eases his weary frame into the old horsehair chair by the fire, and looks around the room. 

The large oblong table where generations of women folk had worked their cloth. Sat around the table waulking the urine-soaked weave. Thumping it, pulling it, passing it around. And all the time chanting the eerie waulking song. The metre of the words, the beat of the rhythm and the thumps of their hands all synchronised. A woman's ritual. Like so many women's rituals, as old as time and alien to men. Childbirth, death, pain and sorrow. Joy and breast milk. Female things. Like the moth and the light. Attractive; yet with a destructive element. The weaver's loom --the treadles and wires broken -- is now silent. Though the memory of the rattling as his father and grandfather worked it were still strong in his ears. As a child he fell asleep to and woke up to the noise. It was as sure as the rising of the sun, and as crucial to their survival. The weft and waft of life's tapestry. The spinning wheel over by the south-facing window. The only things it spins now are cobwebs and memories.The violin on the wall is now silent. His arthritic fingers no match for the memories of once youthful dexterity. Oh the dances that fiddle has seen. The laments it has cried. It was once full of airs -- and graces.

It is a reminder to James of decay. The decay of the land and his people. Their mores and art. Their language and lore, and his own failing body. He looks at the photographs on the mantle. Hugh, his son, in the uniform of a soldier. Like so many ancestors, now buried on a foreign field, having died fighting for a country that was not his. Then there is Mary. His darling Mary, sixty years by his side. First at school, with her hair the colour of corn and skin burnished brown. His nut-brown maiden. Then as his wife, mother to his children, confessor to his soul and bringer of light, his Anam cara. The light of her soul and the exuberance of her spirit have shone through James's darkest nights, guiding him to the right path.He gets up and taking the photo of Mary in his hand he holds it up and compares the likeness with Mary's face as it now is. She still has beauty he sees. Her hair has lost its colour but the white adds to her dignity. She still has the high brow, and her cheekbones though sharper still give her face distinction. Her nose is perfectly shaped and her lips have lost their fullness, but still kissable for all that. He places a gentle kiss on her lips.

James settles back in front of the fire, staring at the blue-green flames dancing in the hearth. Like the fairy dancers in the northern sky, first one colour, then another. As if they are daring you to chase them. To follow them up the chimney and away across the sea. He is so very weary, and falls asleep.

One hour before dawn, the birds start to sing. The sun is sending tentacles of light over the eastern horizon, as if testing the air, undecided whether to rise this morning.A tall handsome man, and a beautiful young woman with golden tresses walk arm in arm from the cottage and go towards the western shore. There is a lightness to their step and there is something ephemeral in their look.

In the cottage the fire has burnt out. The dancers borne away on the wind. The one that was Old James is still in his seat, and the one that was his Anam cara, Mary, lies in the coffin resting on the trestles.

Now all the houses in the peninsula are empty. But the stories and sounds, the memories and joy, the sorrow and pain and the souls of the people are still there. Waiting.