Up on a hill, as the day dissolves

A short update as I want to recapture something of this evening before I forget it. The memory has already been somewhat distorted by the stresses of family life (including argument with Ted over missing Sellotape).

I went to work today, something I rarely do on a Friday, particularly at half-term, but if we are ever to become car addicts again, or even afford train tickets or new shoes for all the walking, I need to accept jobs whenever and wherever possible. Plus, E was back from a work trip to the Peruvian rainforest (I kid you not) and at home resting and/or looking after the children, the two being mutually exclusive.

I worked much later than usual, in part, I realised later, because I needed to regain a sense of a self other than the mother who has been looking after the children on her own this half-term. I have no idea how single parents do this long-term, particularly if they work. And, having yet to perfect my grasp of timetables, I missed the once-an-hour bus home (why would anyone need a bus in the evening more than once an hour? After all, the impoverished failures who use the buses shouldn't want to go out or go home after 6pm). So I decided to walk through the park.

Our town is lucky in having a huge park attached to it. It's apparently a medieval deer park that climbs the hill going north from the town, and there are 320 acres of it. Crossing it diagonally from the town centre takes you up to our bit of town. We may live on the wrong side of the tracks but those who live in the south of the town don't get to walk home through an area of such beauty.


In the past I had reserved walks in the park for family outings, sledging in the winter, blackberrying, watching the nearby air show without having to pay, and trudging through the snow to work when the weather has made the roads impassable to cars. This was the first time I had walked through it alone on a summer evening. The air was warm, there was a lively breeze, the light was subtle (particularly through my sunglasses; I tried my ordinary ones too, but sometimes a filter is better and, after all, mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun), and all around me were trees, grasses, birds, insects and no doubt hordes of small mammals and shy deer. There was the sound of cars in the background, and I had a close shave with two cyclists as I entered the park, but these did nothing to detract from the experience.

I distantly remember another occasion when I was about 13 and had been suddenly aware of the beauty of a what had until then been an unlovely sight to me - a school playing field. I know my response then was one of unself-conscious awe (we were much less grown-up as teenagers in those days) and prayer. This evening I began to feel the spiritual awe but then the self-consciousness of being an uptight adult kicked in. It seems almost impossible simply to let go and relax into the here and now, to accept beauty as something transcendental, to turn towards God. I could do so for just a moment before everything else crowded back in, but I wonder, if we can manage it for even a few seconds, perhaps we inch a tiny bit closer to peace on earth.

Mind you, all that grass did make me sneeze.