Friday Ramble - Swimming in Light

For a day or two this week, we awakened to gray skies and rain beating a staccato rhythm that shunned meter and metronome. Puckish breezes cavorted in the eaves and ruffled tiny leaves in the garden like decks of playing cards. A thousand and one little waterfalls appeared out of nowhere, and impromptu streams danced their way through village gutters carrying twigs, oak leaves, pine needles and catkins.

Here and there were precious islands of stillness. Sheltered by overhanging trees, the ornamental pond in a friend's garden was like glass, white and scarlet koi hovering almost motionless in the early light, their open mouths like tiny perfect "o"s. Sometimes, they seemed to be swimming in sky.

There was water in the garage now and then, a shallow lagoon until the wet stuff gurgled its way down through frantically working drains. When the tide receded, I scraped rust into glass jars and tucked them away - iron oxides produce lovely ochre hues, and my gleanings will be used in projects somewhere up the trail, possibly on other rainy days. I don't know when my fingers will be up to handling a paintbrush again, but that doesn't stop me from thinking up neat "stuff" to try out.

As I scraped away, I remembered that humans have been using iron oxides in artistic undertakings as far back as the prehistoric caves of Lascaux - I would be a happy camper indeed if I ever managed to produce something a scrap as vibrant as the magnificent Chinese horse. There I was in my wellies, splashing about and playing with basic elements of life - a heady brew of rust (iron oxides), carbon dioxide and water is where all sentient life began. The Japanese word for rust is sabi (錆), and it forms part of wabi sabi (侘寂), a name for the enfolding aesthetic or world view centered on notions of transience, simplicity and naturalness or imperfection. 

Clouds and rain, then sunshine and blue sky, then back to clouds and rain again, who knows what spring days will hold? We go off for a ramble when good weather prevails, and I lurch up the trail a few hundred feet, a long way from the miles of rugged terrain I was once able to cover, but there is gratitude in every step.

On wet days, we listen to a little Bach or Rameau on the sound system, read and drink tea. We watch raindrops dappling the windows, the painterly way in which trees, little rivers and old wood fences are beaded with moisture and shining in the grey. Each and every raindrop is a minuscule world teeming with exuberant life, whole universes looking up at us, great and bumbling creatures that we are. Rain or shine, up and down, in and out, them and us, it's all good.