online: 22 june 2009
modified: 21 june 2009

21 june 2009 longest day


Sandy Heath

...walking here alone (about a mile or so)... a little shakily but thinking of staying out as long as i can this longest day and shortest night... i am feeling at ease again... (after not being at ease while travelling to and from Wales... being unsure of where to change trains with this new unfriendly way of penalising passengers if they depart even slightly from the times and routes specified for a cheaper ticket)...

...and glad to be back in places and activities to which i feel well adjusted and free to improvise according to what happens...

...i look up from the screen and see the utter reality of the leaves and branches of the trees above... nothing like the thin abstracted quality of letters and words representing thoughts... or pretending to do so... the trees themselves, each growing at a different angle, and each so sure of itself...

(i keep interrupting this to strike mosquitos before they can sting me)

...and everything here (including the words, the mosquitos, and myself) is part of this reality... though each is less stable and less certain than it seems...

... and as i read those words again i noticed that, though i praised the leaves and branches for being apparently more real than written thoughts, the next moment i became aware that what we call natural objects are probably less real than they seem and our fragile thoughts are essential parts of 'the whole', itself beyond exact description... because the acts of describing or perceiving are more constructive (or deceptive?) than we think...

...and that (this evening) may be enough repetition of these sights and thoughts of reality... that occur to me day after day in this diary...

...soon i set off again... these thoughts having ended... and my body feels refreshed... and re-stabilised?


later:
...all i did next was to walk an unfamiliar chance-determined path through the undergrowth to the far end of Sandy Heath... and then walked to a bus stop... so as to get home with the time and energy to edit this and to sleep on it for the (next to?) shortest night... letting personal time override cosmic...

and now not shaky at all!


...waking next morning... and wishing to let dreams return... but soon they... disappear



for comfortable line length set the window to about two-thirds of the screen width

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