Season of Mists

This morning I gazed out of my open study window for a long time, captivated by the view as always. A slight mist in the air gauzed the far distance where the treetops seemed to float above the ground. I watched a tractor plough the third field away from me, down the hill and up the other side. Yesterday a host of farm machinery dug up and collected the sugar beet to be ferried away to the British Sugar factory in Bury St Edmunds. At this time of year the Suffolk lanes are covered in mud. And now the silent tractor turns the earth from green to brown, drawing a massive flock of seagulls from the coast to feast on the worms. I can hear no sound at this distance, perhaps half a mile. Being deaf must be like this, knowing there is noise but not getting it.

Brown appearing in the distance where the tractor ploughs

But this morning my thoughts were not just with the tractor and the view. I was pondering on the chance that brought me to this marvellous spot, this wonderful house. Superlatives could spill from my fingers with exuberant abundance and not one of them would be an exaggeration. I try to find meaning in my coming here. It is the most perfect place, for me. Under any other circumstances I would be properly happy. As it is I struggle daily with the flood of despair and loneliness that threatens to submerge me. Uprooted peremptorily from the life I thought was permanent, separated from the person I continue to love despite everything, despite EVERYTHING, I try to find answers. Was this house given to me as a substitute for what I have lost? Must I accept it as the new focus of my life, and gratefully acknowledge its bounties? I will. I do. But how can you tell your heart to stop loving? Sooner tell it to stop beating. How can you quell the visceral craving to have just one more look, one more touch, a last smile?

It will not happen, and the house is a source of joy. It dawned on me only this week as I stomped around the garden in my wellies, content in the moment, that we were two very different beings, one at home in the country, the other needing the stimulation and amenities of the town. I search my memory for clues to how the rural ideal won out. There were no arguments, no discussion even. We shared the same dream. But in the end it suited only one of us, and now perhaps we are both where we were always meant to be. There's a sort of symmetry in that, a kind of rightness which my rational mind approves of. How could I wish it otherwise? But I do. Oh, in countless different ways I do.