Root and Flower

I am drawn to the root of my existence, but it’s hidden. If I dig it up to try and take a look, the plant will be disturbed. But then there is the possibility of writing, which is why I’m doing this now. The flower is the root’s expression, its way of interacting with the world. It may be self-effacing or flamboyant, but either way it has been shaped by evolution to effect its purpose. It carries immature seeds ready to be pollinated and thus generate the possibility of something new in its progeny. Its gaudiness and scent are designed by natural selection to attract bees, who bring pollen from other flowers of the same species. Their visit is sexual consummation. From that point, the seed swells. After that, Nature has engineered a range of solutions  for sending the seed to populate the soil some distance away from the parent plant.

Thus do I, too, draw sustenance from deep roots, from which I can broadcast to wherever my words may fall in this wide world.

It was frustrating to find myself recently prevented from publishing on the Web. There were problems with the Telecom installation.  It’s four weeks since I moved to this new house. It’s not in fact new: built 109 years ago in the reign of Queen Victoria.

To an English ear—as opposed to an American one, I suppose—it doesn’t sound right to say “our new home”. Home is a state, not a thing. It doesn’t carry an article except in ironic usage or when referring to a thing. “I’m trying to find a home for my—”; “she can’t look after herself any more, we had to take her to a Home (a care home).” Home is a state, home is singular and personal like one’s body. It cannot be bought and sold. British estate agents  sell or let “properties”. Only their occupants can make them into home.

What we moved into a month ago was the empty shell of a house which still bore traces of someone else’s home, such as children’s crayon marks on the walls. Not only this, they failed to take all their furniture at one go. They had to leave some piled up in our front room over the weekend till they managed to collect it. Thus we had taken possession but it wasn’t yet home. A month later, we’re getting there, after a spectrum of emotions that seems to cover most of human experience and perhaps that of other mammals and even insects, who knows? There have been sharp catastrophes and bewildering miasmas. I simply give thanks to have been through it, and come out again whole.

Out of my window the sun shines.* The crab-apple tree stands in glory with leaves and fruit of orange, yellow and green, constantly falling on to my little lawn, as Autumn visits this latitude. Houses, each one several homes, cling to the southern slopes of The Pastures like sea-birds’ nests on a cliff, serene and safe above the lapping sea.

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* I mean my window at home, where I planned these words. I had to type them in a cramped internet café where there was no sunshine, only a draught from the back door. An earlier customer had left a mess of pistachio shells scattered next to the keyboard, reminding me I was elsewhere.