The last day of March this year began windy, blowing a gale as my grandma would say, and early cherry blossom was rudely flung from the trees and onto the lawn like sad confetti. I ate museli, fed the cat and the rabbit, and watched
The Lady Vanishes. I also remembered how I used to write and write and write - for catharsis, for pleasure, for the capture of something that otherwise might fly by too fast to recall or understand. It helps to make sense of things, to tie up loose ends and see where everything smooths out and becomes clear. For me, not much has been captured, offered catharsis or given pleasure for a while. There have been different kinds of capture, release and happiness, but nothing that has compelled me to write.
The morning slowly bubbled into rage. Behold, the vanishing girl. Certain certainties and truths I used to know have disappeared. How? When? At what point did I get lost? I forgot to eat my lunch, and reached a boiling point of frustration and discontent that was somehow hilarious in an empty house. So I went for a walk.
There are woods outside my house, just a small copse of trees that extend less than a mile, but I would always go there when I was small, when the weather was nice and when I needed to think about something. The wind died down, and the sun shone. Everything was quietly pushing itself upwards and outwards and the birds were calling back and forth to one another. I hitched my skirt up and climbed over stiles, held a conference with a grey horse and a Shetland pony and saw two magpies. I cut down apple blossom and the branches wept petals all the way home, leaving a breadcrumb trail behind me. No great or remarkable realisation dawned on me as I muddied my boots, but there was some kind of
circumnavigationand my thoughts began to calm and organise.
I had not realised how much I had needed a homecoming, or how easy it seems to be to lose sight of yourself. Even if you look yourself in the mirror each day or constantly sign your name on pieces of paper, forgetting who you are, what you want and what you need is horribly effortless. Sometimes you need to be lost for a while in order to realise you need to be found. I want to reclaim my ambition to one day be a part of something
big as well as all things small that make a life complete. I need not to vanish.
