Kernels and Crop

Growing ideas alone and together

I tiptoe over the wet grass to the pergola. This structure, made of wrinkly tin, larch and love, sits at the end of the garden between the olive tree and an apricot rose. I watch sunbeams of soft light play on the wind. White blossom, as if breath blown, falls from the apple tree whilst its branches scrabble for the sky. Under the calls of the buzzard, I am searching for threads. 

Perhaps it was the sensation of warm sun on bare skin, or the swifts arriving on the wing of the southwesterly wind, but this week, thoughts and ideas revealed themselves, transforming kernels to crop. 

What differences hid amongst the lengthening days of May, was it the audiobook, the gentle tone of another's life that I listened to as Juno played amongst the frothy heads of cow parsley. Perhaps it was the evening I spent moon gazing in meadow tall grass under the dusky finale of a concerto of birdsong. Maybe the answers lay in the pages of the memoir that kept me awake with its beauty and artful turn of phrase. It is all of this, and yet not. 

A baby blackbird darts behind the leathery, narrow leaves of the old yew tree, he is revealed only by his pitchy call and unrelenting bounce. Alone, he scans the sky for his mother for sustenance and reassurance. We cannot grow alone.

When I first felt compelled to write, I thought of my words like stones, each one building a bridge to something more. I hoped of writing into fullness, into a richer life and into human connection.

The dry wind drags moisture from the lime green leaves of the acer. I inherited this tree with the cottage. I had long dreamt of a small place with roses around the door, perfect symmetry and a hidden history held within dimpled walls. In the bare garden, stripped after the death of the previous owner lay pots of trees bound and forgotten. For two years I moved the terracotta pot from bed to bed, willing its hand-shaped leaves to stretch into the spring air. It is the height of the old wall now, and in the south-facing shade of its paper-thin foliage, a hydrangea waits to bloom. We cannot thrive alone.

This week revealed new paths to study, a different perspective for my story and dreams of wild Alaska. These are my crops. Thoughts grown, opportunities created and understanding deepened, all cultivated with tenderness in a virtuous circle of connection and growth.

In the inner circle of my writing community, we talked of transformation. For that hour our lives merged, we shared stories, experiences and publications, each one offered a new perspective. Later, I bought the books we talked of, I opened them and peered in as if they were a doorway to a new land, a new adventure in thought. I journaled my new learnings and let them fall freely onto the page. Today, in the pergola I open my notebook and read, in the space between the lines I hear their voices. 

The crows return to roost behind the church clock, and the resident hedgehog shuffles behind the pond. Our yellow cottage, lit by the glow of festoon lights buzzes with life. We are all of this space, we all belong. 

I think of the way I have read myself into a new place or into the lives of others, what then is possible if we share our writing in the stage of creation. Without perfection or completion, and beyond my own thoughts I will weave new threads. There is a richness in togetherness and in the community of voices that live in my words.