There is some smoke rising from near to Dedham Church, the village is about a mile away, visible through the mist, the clomp of two pairs of wellies, the sky a blanket of grey as it was yesterday, a skylark somewhere up in the gloom, a flotilla of gulls navigating the space occupied by a circling buzzard but leaving it well alone, trial bikes tear-arsing around somewhere nearby, a distant train, the footsteps of a mother and daughter, Blue Tit and jet compete for attention but their differing frequencies mean there is room for both, a flock of geese.
Grey and green the livery of today, in this place right here right now I’m completely un-mithered, helped by the fact that I remember that a gorgeous person gave me a slab of sea salt and caramel chocolate earlier, it is slightly soft from being in my pocket so I leave it out on my bag to firm up a bit, the wind picks up but it is neither cold nor warm, pins and needles are starting in my legs so I have to get up, quietly I check the recording but that’s never quiet enough, 32 minutes, I need a more comfortable stool, a couple talking that stop as they walk by, (Great! A sneeze and cough, I’m doing well being quiet today!), a bumble bee, the smoke in the town is increasing, maybe driven by the increase in wind speed, the mic stand clonks so I need to make sure it is done up tightly in the future, a jogger spotted in my peripheral vision, suddenly my focus shifts and I’m not now in the moments of thought but in the reality of being here outside, in a field, alone, with all my kit, wearing black and blue, my uniform of today.
The smoke from the fire now completely obscures the church from view, there is some definition in the sheet of grey cloud, two people on a distant path stopping to look at something, then carrying on, I see the skylark dancing in the sky, singing in the drone of the background noise, in front of me, a short song before darting to ground, the show is over but it is not for me, three people silently walk past, a stone in the earth with an unknown untold story millions of years long, a leaf next to it with a story no longer than a year.
