The memory of trees

There was another tune I was looking for and this came up. Not what I was looking for but the sound and the picture with it is just perfect to illustrate my thoughts. Just hit play and once any adverts have passed let it play while you read on :



This weekend, like every weekend since the beginning of this year (except last weekend when we visited the in-laws) has been with a friend who, at only a bare decade older than me, is on the last weeks of life. It is sad and poignant. This weekend has been the hardest. There are more weekends to come. Other weekends have been delightful, fun even. We are lucky to have had these times together. Why does it take dying to make one pull one's finger out and just do. To make the time and effort. Will the lessons I am learning stay? I think so. I am inspired yet I am sorry this is happening. Much better that my friend could live on and to see more of this life but who is to say what and how long we have. What is the point and why? Live right now, this is where we are. Enjoy and make the most of it all.

The back of my friend's house has a simple and unfussy conservatory with large windows overlooking fields and a river that that is long and strong and winds through English countryside. The air is still and quiet; birds paint the skies with their flights; a farm and trees in the distance stand as their testament to time; the swollen river insists on the direction of flow sweeping swans along; and we sit there in quietness. Sometimes holding hands. Looking out, looking in. Remembering. Living the moment. There is no past and there is no future. Here and now.

There are the practicalities of coping with losing ones mobility. This weekend I alone sit in the conservatory. Looking out. I dread the time of being in this place when the physical presence of another is no longer there. This weekend hit me more than any other.

The mists were slung low over the fields and river this morning until the Winter sun burned them off.

I am here and I am there. I work and life carries on. My life, her life. We each have our paths. How long is forever? We have now.

I have switched off comments on this post as it is too poignant and we are living these times. I am not sure how many times I have replayed this same piece of music as I have written this. It is the perfect soundtrack to this particular moment in time.