The things that we notice are fleeting.
Sketchy notations on the absurdity of existence.
On Dartmoor.
Listening to where life takes me.
Following gut and wonder and the things that I loved as a child.
Saying yes to that which makes me lean forward.
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Horses.
The smell of them.
Nostalgia of molasses and hay.
Poo piled up.
The familiarity of it all.
Of mane and nuzzle.
The knowing.
Of nibbled fingers.
Of ice lollies nibbled.
Melting.
Of memory layered.
My sister here too somehow.
Sitting in the sun eating pasties off hay bales.
Horses nibbling face or hair or ear from corners.
Dancing at the top of tors.
Watching swallows dance at noon, whilst we drive down the hill on the quad.
Before, trying to name the songs of the birds in the house.
Running down hill for the fun of it.
Beag rolling and running alongside.
Boating out into the middle of the lake, tipsy diving off.
Swimming with dragonflies.
Pinching myself.
That I am here.
I am here. I get to breathe this in.
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I am back where I began.
In a caravan. Surrounded by animals and oddity.
A small girl leads a sheep around on a lead.
Kisses her hamster very hard.
We lead the animals out at dusk. Bathed in golden glow.
Too much to take in.
Horses and human and dog side by side.
Galloping, running, leaping, sniffing, rolling, biting.
I think of small ‘me’ and how glad she would be.
All alive with it.
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Beag bathes in sunshine under a bridge. Leaps through grass whilst I trail fingers through.
The haze and sweat. Stickiness.
She falls asleep later on the blankets in lamp light.
I type on the table nibbling chocolate and roobios.
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I drive through sunrise light pooled over Hound Tor to pick peas in blazing heat.
Foals tucked up on the floor with silver mares overhead.
I swim alone in pools and float on top of algae covered rocks singing to myself.
Lulling myself and giggling.
I write in my notebook the same question: why am I here?
The answer: to fall in love with life again.
I play jenga in the evening with my belongings.
Continue to push pieces of paper around.
Play games of avoidance.
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The stars outside. How could I ever live without seeing these stars, now?
Of charting the moon? The dark? Of looking up and dreaming and imagining.
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I don’t want it to pass but there is not time sufficient or words or photos sufficient to capture it all.
The tension between documenting and remembering that I’ve always felt. The gap widnens.
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I can feel it. I feel it and it passes. And I feel it and it passes.
I mourn how long I have waited. Trapped and small.
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There is always this feeling that it will run out. That there will be no more to have.
But more arrives.
We continue to walk this tightrope between love and loss.
The beauty around us is an end in itself.
