Fallow Fields
A perfect day yesterday, and thank you for all the good wishes - Cass sculpture park, purple rock star sunglasses (huge, think Bono) that actually manage to hide the black eye presented by the two year old, red Crocs that make me look like a lanky smurf from the six year old, and perfume from the pilot. Feel lucky and very lighthearted still. Amazingly just the resolution to lighten up seems to have made a huge difference.
For a few weeks I've been longing for retreat. It has something of a tradition in our family. My grandfather had a garden house that no one was allowed in (this was the boxer who my grandmother fell in love with at first sight when she saw him fishing in a stream near the family's mills in Wales because he looked like Errol Flynn). When I say no one, no grown up was allowed in there. As children he welcomed us - it was an exquisite retreat. He made beautiful dove tailed boxes for all his photographic equipment (it was his dark room too), and the walls were lined with books and Staffordshire pottery. The little clapperboard house was next door to the greenhouses so it always smelt of fresh tomatoes. My grandmother never went in there, not once until after he died.
I've been dreaming of Fra Angelico's monastery, retreating to Ojai or Sedona where I saw wonderful escapes and little hermitages in the mountains, or in this country the Arvon Foundation's writing courses in remote and beautiful places. There's no realistic chance of retreat of course. Life is too busy and pressing. Recently I read Daniel Day Lewis talking about the need for 'fallow fields' periods of reflection and rest. Maybe this longing is just a symptom of that - needing to gather strength before the next push forward. Walking through the woods at the Cass Foundation yesterday was wonderful - sculptures appear suddenly like fairytale visions. I loved 'Yo Reina' by David Worthington - the marble was luminous in the half light, the form egg like, full of wonderful possibilities. When I downloaded the photos at home it looked like it had just landed in the woods, emitting its own wonderful light.
It feels like the seasons are shifting already in England. There are copper leaves among the green. Several of the sculptures at the park are boxes and structures - an amazing confessional like something from an Angela Carter story, a tranquil hexagonal deer hut. It felt like a mini retreat, which is saying something with the children there. As we were leaving we browsed a sale of art books in the entrance, and I picked up a copy of the Royal Academy 'Africa' show from the late 90s. The gallery I worked for loaned several pieces, and the catalogue was shot by a photographer friend who took our wedding photos (see the blog of beauty). Strange coincidence. It feels like things are coming full circle. This feels like a new beginning.
TODAY'S PROMPT: Can you build a mini-retreat into your day? Is there a special place you haven't been for a while that brings you a sense of peace? Church, park, mountain, bath ... give yourself some time out today to be calm and reflect. Seek out your fallow fields and catch up with yourself.
