I’ve high-jacked this week’s Photo Friday as I enjoyed yesterday’s dip in a Hampshire trout stream so much.
I was cycling back to a station after a hot talk in a school. My smart clothes were tight and uncomfortable and it was swelteringly hot. Then I cycled over the River Test.
Brakes on! Uncomfy clothes off! Into river! WooHOOOoooo!
This is why, despite having seen many lands, I am still happy to call England ‘home’: the light filtering green through lazy willow trees, the languid streaming of emerald river weed, the patches of smooth pebbles to sit on, shining and smooth as gold. The drifting water tugging me gently, persistently, cool and cleansing. The trim trout, noses upstream, holding their position with the merest of muscular twitchings. The sun’s clean white heat on my face until I inhale a lungful of sweet river air and dip down into the strange gurgling, muted, translucent world that knows no sponsorship frustrations or celebrity-obsessed culture. A lungful of nirvana.
After my swim I sat beneath some trees to dry off. I listened to the Into the Wild album on my iPod and began scrawling structures for my India book in my journal with more vitality than I’ve managed in the last few torpid, claustrophobic weeks in London. Where espresso has failed, a stream in Hampshire succeeded.
I am one day nearer to my next expedition and my recent writer’s block has been burst. It’s a good beginning to the second half of 2009.
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6 Comments
Brooktrout
The Brooktrout, superb as a matador, Sways invisible there In water empty as air.
The Brooktrout leaps, gorgeous as a jaguar, But dropping back into swift glass Resumes clear nothingness.
The numb-cold current’s brain-wave is lightning – No good shouting: ‘Look!’ It vanished as it struck.
You can catch Brooktrout, a goggling gewgaw - But never the flash God made Drawing the river’s blade.
Ted Hughes.
Nuff said!
Best,
Mike.
Great post Al, really enjoyed it and excellently written. Bloody good comment too. I’m going to start coming here more often!
The Eddie Vedder songs from the album, or the soundtrack to the film ? Just wondering.
Similar but different is the soundtrack to the runner (David Horton versus the Pacific Crest Trail record) – the soundtrack is available on iTunes – look under Cody Westheimer
As an aside David Horton starts his attempt on the Colorado Trail record tomorrow
http://eco-xsports.blogspot.com/2009/06/horton-to-start-colorado-trail-speed.html
regards,
Tomo
Mike – I am enjoying your trove of poetry! Keep ‘em coming…
Tomo – it’s the Eddie Vedder album that I like.
Andy – sorry for swimming in your fishing river!
Tony – you are very welcome here: look forward to hearing from you…
Hi Al, good to see you are enjoying the heatwave!
I agree, Into The Wild is a great film, although some poetic license is used in the adaptation from the book by Jon Krakauer.
Here’s to an equally successful latter half of 2009….
Roy
One Trackback
[...] Struggling to overcome inertia a week or two back I listened to the soundtrack to Into the Wild, one of my favourite films. It helped me to remember the power that the world’s natural places can have on us, and also to maintain my priorities. I had sunk into the typical London trap of equating quantity of hours spent at my desk with success. Of course that is nonsense. So I’m trying to remind myself that spending less time at the desk, (but doing work of quality when I am there) and more time out doing things I love is not wasting time. It is using time! Last week I used some of my newly-gleaned time to read an essay from Harper’s Magazine expounding the virtues of idleness. I don’t aspire to be idle, I don’t plan on dying in a bus in Alaska. But I appreciate their wake-up calls to focus on what is important. “Oh, it’s a mystery to me. We have a greed, with which we have agreed… and you think you have to want more than you need… until you have it all, you won’t be free. [...]