The
wind is a knife, sharp, cutting from the north, across the snow laden expanse
of Gull Heath. Battering the cliff’s lip, falling away to the sea, eroding the
massed jumble of rocks, the Southern Cross.
The sky
without ceiling, blue and high, distant scudding clouds, phalanx’s drawn up in
battle lines. Other days, these massed troops may rush the Maine coast, or
clash above broken rocks, scattering seals and puffins, perhaps waking the lone
lighthouse keeper (the last of an extinct breed), or march with grim vigour to
assault this landfall, the Queen of the Fundy Isles. Not today. Today, those
dour soldiers remain a distant thought, threatening the periphery, a glower
only at the far reach of the horizon. Thoughts, so long carried, regrets. Brown
eyes, (a colour too oft dismissed as common – not her eyes, hers more
arresting, always) full of tears, or questions, perhaps an accusation. Of why.
A different wind that day, a different winter. A house by the lake, lost. An
ending to dreams dreamt together. No answer made, how could there be? Also
knives, these memories.
The
road ends here, where the rocks cascade to the greying sea. Or begins, it can
be supposed, seen from a different direction. Here we must stop, here we may
begin. Does anything ever truly end without the offer of a new beginning? Is
anything in this life ever so simple, or direct?
The
trees are defined by the unfaltering severity of wind and salt. Shrunken, bent,
gnarled. Wisps of moss cling to trunks, to branches which have surrendered
needles, surrendered life, to this harsh whip of elements. Twigs, bent fingers,
reach for the sun, like supplicants, old men broken in spirit, begging alms of
the sky. There is a starkness to reality, here at the end of the road, a lesson
to be seen, if one so chooses to close one’s eyes and see, before making the new
beginning promised by turning away.
She
offered forgiveness. Her words said as much. Her actions tell it differently. A
different coast, her refuge. The place she went for solace, too far. No
accident, that decision, to run to that distant strand. She can’t be blamed for
that. Merely a reaction to events beyond her control, events not shaped by her,
but felt all the same. Still, you can wish her path had not led her so far,
that forgiveness had been possible. There is real fear there, in that thought,
that the losing of her is a wound that will not heal.
There
have been others, of course there have been. Both before, and after. But none
are her, none can be. Not their fault, that lack, nor hers. It is just the way
of things.
Thoughts
now as fast as the wind, cutting through layers. The irony, not lost here,
alone, back to the heath, that the tea drunk, tea from Mount Othrys, isn’t
suitable. Tasting of earth, of sunshine, of good things, of a land that has
never felt the ebb and flow of a tide. To drink this tea here, a land defined
by the rage of its ebbing and flowing. But it is good. Also, it is an escape.
Thoughts of tea, of tides, of Greece, and of Southwest Head, do not offer the
cutting blade of memory.
Here,
at earth’s end, where stone and water collide, you can feel that beginning. The
newness you have sought, have known for so long you have needed. The sky, a
sort of bluebird sky, aerial sapphire in hue, limitless and eternal in quality.
Standing in pure winter sunlight, it feels awkward to wish for a moonrise, or
stars. Awkward, but true. Some feelings seem more genuine in softer light.
A
brother offered words recently. Not advice, not intended as such. The words, a
consolation, perhaps? Offered freely, intended generously. “There is nothing
before, or after for us. There is only the time given. That is the gift.”
That is
the gift. It is a thought. A moment. A life can turn on a moment. At the road’s
end. Where it begins.
