Time travel

Unpacking my childhood books today brought with it that distinctive musty scent of age speckled pages;  evoking a memory of a place I had all but forgotten.

In my godmother's house was a room where time stood as still and silent as the stopped clock slowly tarnishing on the marble mantle piece.
Tall windows, half shuttered and draped with damask, lent a cool air to the hottest of days; creating dust motes to dance in the muted beams of filtered sunlight that fell upon a worn turkish carpet.
The air was heavy with the weight of passing years; causing us to slow and become as shadows, creeping quietly under the watchful gaze of ancestral portraits.
This was 'granny's' drawing room; where the echo of a genteel past could be glimpsed in the silver frames of smiles long since forgotten, that stood, fine filmed with dust, upon an untuned piano.
Under domed glass were the delicate mouldings of baby hands and feet; slightly macabre, yet fascinating in equal measure; as were the stuffed birds forever fixed with wings spread and beaks open wide, to ornamental branch and leaf.
With cautious hands we would run our fingers along the beaded fringing of glass table lamps, and peek inside photo albums with creaking covers and musty pages; sepia filled with images of the long departed.

Finally, curiosity sated, we would soft step back down the passage way and out into the garden; seeking daylight and the warmth of the living once more.

Tall trees

Under tall trees, there is stillness. The sounds of the forest fade, and  air falls heavy; enfolding all things in a blanket of quietness.

Motes dance in fragmented beams of sunlight fractured through a shady canopy; bathing the day in a soft stippling of green light, as if viewed from underwater.
Time is meaningless; slow unfurling leaves of delicate ferns and the subtle march of ants foraging through cracks and crevices of ancient tree trunks, mark the minutes in a rhythm all their own.

This is a place of quiet contemplation; where every breath seems to come from the trees themselves and each thought absorbs into the fabric of still silence.

 In these cool, calm spaces, peace is absolute; allowing the soul to rebalance once more.

Spinning spiders

There are silent watchers in the garden; spiders, canopied under leaf and stem who wait, ever patient, for what the day will bring.
 From the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of one dangling, soft swaying in the breeze like the pendulum of an ancient hallway clock. With a twitch of spindle leg it twists and climbs the delicate thread to anchor once more in its gossamer cradle.

Webs adorn each plant, their fine threads shimmering in the sunlight. Some are long vacated, drifting into dull dustiness and ragged edges with no spider to maintain their intricate spirals. They are not mourned, but simply abandoned as the spider moves on weaving its very existence anew each day; never faltering when its web is destroyed, creating and recreating its past and future.

Snail trail

On still summer nights, when the sun drenched day had left a haze of heat rising skyward, and windows were thrown wide to beckon in the briefest of breezes; my mother would lie awake listening to the slurping of hedgehogs in the vegetable garden. With snuffling delight, they feasted upon those slugs and snails that had silently crept from under hose-dampened leaves to dance beneath the moon.

As a small child, I would investigate the 'slug traps' put down to entice both slugs and snails away from the growing greenery. These consisted of old jars, half filled with beer into which they would slide, until sodden with alcohol and unable to crawl back out, they would drown.

Slugs never fascinated me, they were fat, rubbery and grotesque, with nothing endearing to redeem them; but snails! ...with tentacles that stretched and shrank as they slid along the patio, past abandoned pots, and on into flowerbed beyond; These were the creatures that caught my imagination.

Snails, their whorled and patterned shells shiny with rain, hiding under terracotta pots where, in the damp darkness, babies as thin as a fingernail slowly inched up through the cracks and crevasses and out into daylight; their pale shells almost translucent in the sunshine.

On rain swept days, they would creep from beneath the dampened lavender to slowly form a swirling rangoli of shimmering slime on the pathway; and I , fascinated, would watch their intricate manoeuvres as they weaved in and out and around each other, their tentacles quivering and stretching in time to their courtly dance. I could not bear to see one crushed underfoot, so would gently peel them from the path, and deposit them in the long grass beside the fence; safe from unknowing feet and hungry thrushes; awaiting their chance to dance in the velvety blackness of the coming night.

Indeed, when the rain had seeped into another day, and the morning sun warmed the garden once more; the still shimmering steps of waltzing snails could be seen, long after their midnight music had faded into silence.

Landlocked

The warmth of the sun has soaked into the paving stones and I, unshod, absorb its radiance through my soles. As it rises to its zenith, colour is slowly leached from wild grasses, transforming wiry stalks to hay as it shines on down. A splash of crimson from a solitary poppy breaks up the sepia of parched verges, as the haze rises into still air.

On sun baked days such as these, I miss the salt tang of the sea as it rolls relentlessly onto pebbled shores; clattering stones with sonorous sound to lull and soothe the most jumbled of minds. I long for cool breezes to ruffle skin; raising  goosebumps as I settle back into warm pebbled hollows to gaze at the sharp white sails that drift across the horizon.

I am landlocked; anchored by a river, which, although beautiful in its own way, cannot compete with the great expanse of sea. It ebbs and flows with the tide, creeping to cover rivulets of exposed mud , genteel in its flowing, with none of the wild ferocity the sea brings; the rolling surf, white water waves and taste of salt on sun warmed skin...My feet follow tarmac paths, edged with graffiti and the washed up detritus from passing vessels. Once they balanced down tracks carved from crumbling cliffs, onto shingle that slipped and sighed past beach huts weathered by a thousand storms.

For now, the river will suffice, but soon I shall turn my face south and head for the beach once more.

Many a slip.....

I was a clumsy child, all bumps, bruises and grazed knees. Awkward in dresses; arms, legs and hair awry, I hurtled through my childhood in a series of scrapes and broken bones.
My mother took us to ballet lessons; but pigeon toed and lacking in grace I preferred to climb trees, skateboard down the hill behind the house or cycle to the beach to jump the waves. I broke branches, wrists and my teeth in the slips and tumbles I took; layering cuts upon bruises and gaining the occasional scar.

Now I find myself slipping on the sixth stair, layering bruises once more. My mornings bring stiff jointed Dutch doll legs, swollen knuckles and slow reflexes that cause me to stumble and slip as I grasp the bannister to steady my descent. My ankles, unyielding, sabotage what little grace I have, as I trip up steps ; stubbing toes, blunting  pride and leading to painful interludes.
My bone scan says arthritis... But I wonder if the CT scan will reveal 100% clumsy written large through to my very core

Suspended animation

Slowly the silken skeins of spider webs spread from shuttered windows....and on to cling to the corners of picture frames. Delicate in the still air they festoon white walls with desiccated carcasses of long digested flies.

Since our hasty departure, the house has sunk into weary resignation; like Miss Havisham before a decaying wedding breakfast. Cats pad on soft paws, commandeering cushions, shedding fine fur across  bedspreads and carpet corners; to add to the thin layer of dust, stirred by feet to settle in whorls upon the carpet.
A listless ennui has crept up on us; the flurry of painting and cleaning a distant memory as another month ticks past, bringing no respite from this waiting game. Like Vladimir and Estragon we are paralysed; destined to forever wait for a redemption that never comes.