9th May
The day has been hot, and now dusk the land still holds the warmth of it. It is intensly calming. Blackbirds chatter and insects drift dreamily through the air. Tired after their day pollinating but not yet cool enough to stop. I feel that I can relate, these longer days enforce a kind of mandatory enjoyment of daylight particles. Absorb them while they’re here. Don’t stop until the sky darkens for a brief respite.
Soft clouds float delicately across the sky, they remind me of migrating mammals. Probably elephants. A little one at the back.
Eventually darkness looms and the moon is bright, and big and clear. And I am transported. I’m not sure what this feeling is, like from a distant past but within my own lifespan. The clarity brings images of sun beams hitting its rocky surface – I’ve seen this so many times before. Haven’t I? There’s no atmosphere up there? An uninterrupted view, when Earth’s own weather allows. It’s so close. The sky is hazy pink and blue.
12th May
I leave the house with a plan. With black and white loaded film cameras, but a last-minute grab of my digital with a half charged battery maybe was fortuitous. My plan is the river, and an underwater camera. I trot down the wooden steps, my creativity is on a time limit today, but there is a blast of neon waving green.
The weed in the Spey is barely containable within my own sight. It is vast, and beautiful and waving and a colour comparable to spring larch needles. Why did I not expect this? Another phenological marker of time. I move along my usual route, away from the popular bench that sits in memoriam to Tom, always in hope I can gawp undisturbed at all of the things I want to gawp at.
Insects are flying, happy and joyful in this sunshiney turn of events, ferns are unfurled or unfurling…. again, why did I not expect this? Maybe I am more out of tune with things than I realise. The river is low, is that why the weed is so astounding? I am utterly hypnotised by it.
16th May
Loch Garten is adorned with golden pine pollen, dancing on a softly ebbing surface while the afternoon sunlight glitters above. So much life needs few words. Least not from me. But it is noted.
20th May
Bird cherry blossoms, warm haze, dazed and gazing. There’s a day moon. Sometimes life feels alright. It comes with waves of sunshine and validation and an overwhelming sense that life hold so much more. And, importantly, that it’s (maybe) all within my reach if I let it come to me with open arms. Oh, to be brave.
23rd May
The bog is dry, yet the bog-cotton persists. I’ve walked my usual route to take it all in, crammed within snippets of time I’m fortuned to have. The warmth of the month and my other-world requirements have left me as drained as the bog. Sometimes this is my connection, a parallel. I’m more soil than human (I’ve known this a while), and my bodily atoms conspire to bring me here every time.
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