Filling the bowl

Some thoughts from early spring

The days of the big skies arrive in early March and, with them, a new expansive world arrived too.

“If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills - then my bowl without a doubt stands upon this memory—” Virginia Woolf, Sketch of the Past

What is my base, my bowl that keeps on filling and seeking? I could see myself on an empty Cornish beach, humming a tune, the lead in the debut of my life, a young woman who could not believe such ecstasy was possible, alone with the wide skies, the insistent surf. Another time, traversing a rocky shore, sure-footed, nimble, as I placed my feet amongst the barnacles. The event could only have lasted moments - I know nothing of what came before or after - and again there was the elation of foot meeting rock, a body isolated yet completely implicated in the world, effortless, brimming with potential. That feeling has stayed with me, fleeting as it was, that I can do anything, be anyone if only my feet remain connected with rock. If only I can remember that being out in this world is a bowl that fills and fills.

I’ve tried hard to remember ever since. Back in the days of late February, before the light returned, I found another line that spoke to me, from the poetry of Ada Limon: her line “a green skin growing over whatever it was winter did to us” (Instructions on Not Giving Up) - these words carried me through the final days of the season, and I was validated in feeling that winter had flattened me beyond belief some days. In the persistent light after dinner one early spring evening, still grey skies to the east held lighter portions to the north-west, where chimneys of the village smoked with frugal fires, lit in the wake of the Iran war. Clouds piled on each other to colour the west, and rooks streaked across the near sky. I could sense the darkness retreating, my body preparing for its liberty.

Tender pink buds of Beech, like smooth thin fingers, curled out of their skins. There was fleeting sunshine and daffodils everywhere, Magnolia, pink and white, dotted around the village, suddenly present in close colourful neighbourhoods.

My bowl began to fill again. I took my first bike ride of the season, the first since early November, and although my eyes and balance were reluctant, and my mind and belly anxious, I went out anyway. Hot searing muscles, but as we got up onto the common we met the light. Willow clouds circled the tower up near Princetown, horses bowed their noses to wet grass, tyres gripped through mud and dew. I managed a feeble few miles, but it was enough for a start.

The rising sun forced its salmon-pink glow on the slanting clouds behind the trees, still bare from winter, longing for their spring disguise. Sleight-of-hand, winter one day, almost summer the next. Three fine days, skies blue all the way to the top of the cosmos. Tiny fists of blossom cloaked the pear tree, the camellias nearing their curtain call. Spring as a play, a pageant, performed on the stage of this place. Does the metaphor work? That essentially this is all an illusion, a momentary but marvellous exhibition?

Later, I sat on the deck, hands cool, toes warm, sky filled with bird chatter. Between me and the smooth grey-blue distance, a layer of white Magnolia was newly revealed, another layer of pink beyond, foreground of hopeful Hazel and young Hawthorn. Slate roof, brick chimneys. Two, then three, four rooks glided past. A rustle in the bush at the foot of the garden. My fountain pen slides across the page, tip meeting its shadow in sharp jabs of composure.

I looked for every opportunity to fill my bowl again. Another joyous bike ride, in still air, mild even after the frost, around to Burrator and up to the old railway track. Receding hills, Sheepstor church in the valley, then a clump of trees towards the south. If I squinted and tilted my perspective, it looked like a distant mythical city, flags dancing in the breeze. A new path, snaking up towards Sharpitor, where we abandonned our bikes in the boulder field and climbed the rest of the hill to the tor.

Wind in the night, a confused sky of bold steel-blue and pink, still barely-bare branches of trees on the crest muddled the sky, forming small squares of complexity against the horizontal blinds. Magnolia defied frost and mind, and we were grateful for the millennia it had had to perfect its art of clinging to life.

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In late March, we shed our winter skins once and for all, and cycled to Plymouth to board the Pont Aven, one of only three sailings this season of the Brittany Ferries ship across to St Malo. We had only three days, one night on board the ship, and two in a neat Neo-Breton house in Dinard. My bowl filled to its brim, with the perfect blend of small adventure, French encounters, and Bretagne, the place to which I return time and again. What will I remember from these days?

That final magnificent morning, crossing the Barrage du Rance in reverse and finding ourselves back in La Cité Solidor with its perfect beach, sharp morning light, the French out on their balades. Espresso, a pain au chocolat wrapped in a black napkin by the man in the tabac, a tender act as if he were tucking it up in bed. In the intra-muros of the old city, I attempted the smallest of French talk with a woman at the café on the northern walls – c’est froid, oui, c’est le vent – before we took another sweep on our bikes across the wide golden sands, where twin stick figures were silhouetted against the silver shining sands.

The collection of people on the beach, maybe fifteen with long rakes, combing the beach in repetitive patterns. I thought they were detectorists to begin with, then saw they were raking the sands into repetitive Celtic patterns. When I looked over the wall an hour later, they were all spread across the beach holding hands. Then, later still, they had moved to the far rocks, where they huddled together, clapping their achievement.

There was the man with a pick alone on the mud, looking for cockles. Another man on his boat, adjusting his fawn sail, tiny beneath the gleaming cityscape of the Pont Aven. Out on the startling turquoise sea, a burgundy Breton Crabber amidst hundreds of tiny white sails, snaking in long lines through and around the islands. Five people on the beach on Dinard Plage in a stiff breeze, struggling to pitch a tent to collect shade, like a thong, G joked. An old man jogging in the Memorial Park whom we passed three times beneath the pines. More small talk in a public conveniences secreted amongst the walls of the old city of St Malo - quelle bonne experience du toilette, avec la music, vous! - I indicated to the amused woman in a hi-vis jacket in the wooden office.

It was only a few days, but it appears that is all it takes to smooth away the congestion of winter. Those huge clouded skies, the chop and churn of the white-teal-turquoise seas. Space, light, time to observe.

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On Writing

The reason for my absence on Substack (please forgive me shaky return) has been that I needed to focus on completing the first draft of my historical novel, set in the Tamar Valley. I finally finished it in the week before Easter and I printed it out soon after, compiling it in two ring-bound volumes ready for reading and editing. A long journey lies ahead, but I am proud of myself for reaching this milestone. I shall share more of the process in later Substacks.

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Bretagne