Resign yourself to the influence of the earth
A shift in seasons, a swim, and a refreshed perspective.
It’s the perfect autumn day today. The sky is blue, the air is like a big gulp of cold water, and I got up early to go to Kenwood Ladies Pond with Grace. It’s like magic walking through the gates there, finding yourself totally enveloped by trees, and like you’re a million miles from busy streets and bus exhaust.
The water was a very reasonable 16 degrees — chilly enough to make it feel like we had achieved something, not cold enough to feel like a punishment. We did two laps with the sun shining through the trees and onto the water at an angle and brightness that only this time of year can achieve, and it made me grateful for the change in seasons, even though summer wasn’t nearly long enough.
Mornings like these scratch an itch I’ve had lately to live closer to trees and water and fresh air. In Tooting, I scratch it with walks through the Common that stray from the paved paths, through the bushes and the oaks which, if you block off parts of your peripheral vision and pretend the sounds of trains and traffic are actually thunder or wind, could be part of some dense old forest.
Jasmin and I wanted a post-dinner ice cream the other evening, so I walked her down my desire paths and through the groves that I love so much. We must have reached some kind of invisible threshold because we simultaneously stopped to breathe in the smell of the first fallen leaves and sweet, autumnal decay. It reminded me of a line from Henry David Thoreau, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:
"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth".
We have spent quite a bit of time resigning ourselves to the influence of the earth lately. In Wales, we camped by the river Dee and swam in its cold, fast waters. We admired the hills and the way the light changed as it moved across them. In London, the ground is so flat beneath my feet that sometimes I forget the Earth is right there below me, but in Wales, the hills are a constant reminder of where I am and the system we are all a part of.
Last week, we camped in a field in East Sussex with Andy’s brother Alie and his girlfriend Hannah who are over from Australia. On the first night, we were graced with a pink and orange sunset and a bright night sky with shooting stars that we lay on the ground and watched while the fire burned beside us. On the second day, we got binoculars and bird-watched at the Dungeness Nature Reserve before swimming at the pebbled beach past Prospect Cottage. The rain that night felt as though it might wash the van away, but we woke up to views of marshland out our window — sea birds, grazing sheep, green and purple grasses.
To steal another little line from Thoreau, I make myself rich by making my wants few, and these moments meet all my wants. Yesterday, I was frazzled and unsettled, jumping from one thought to the next, one task to another without ever really achieving anything, but today my eyes have refocused, as they always do when I’ve had a swim or stood by a tree or looked at a tall Welsh hill. I feel rich again.
Happy Autumn, all. And see you in the next one,
Annabel
As I walked Ted across the road among the Oaks, still bare from winter, I looked back toward the house and I noticed that the five tall gums that line the street looked like Ents on their way to battle Saruman in Isengard.
Just today I told my husband I was ready to retire and this is kind of the life I want to lead. 😅 I mean, I’m not even 40 but man do I need some nature in my life!