Tinkling ice and women who give a shit. The ice was thin and sharp and made a sound like criss-cross threads of plastic scratching against each other, but with music in. The women were all kinds of shapes and sizes and made a sound like laughing and listening and exhaling (it was officially Really Fucking Cold), also with music.
Thanks to Alison (Allison?), who offered me a running coach for free and recommended her in the highest of terms and the warmest of warmths.
Thanks for the photo of May Allen, beaming like an angel, with a crown of flowers. There was such joy in it, it made me cry. I had to ask her name. I knew she'd died. Photos like that don't appear on noticeboards for nothing. What I recognised was that pond bliss, that union with nature and that light of something in her eyes that told me she was, in that moment, deeply happy.
Thanks, Emily Cuphead Wilkinson, for being the most pleasing of friends and for making me laugh and for cupping my head and growling into it (as, admittedly, I did with you). Thanks, Ruth, for an email that made me laugh.
Thanks, dancers, especially the tactile ones. Thanks, great shouter, for your beautiful hug and thanks, slightly stand-offish (sometimes) experienced dancer, for an intimate, playful, forceful weave that warmed me. Thanks for being listeny when I sang and for bringing and singing your brilliance in the after-dance fundraiser for North Korea. Thanks, beautiful Jane Ith (with a non-silent Sm), artist and lovely thing, for being there at the dance, for your presence and your openness.
It's all about the warmth on this cold and blowy night. I yearn to feel loved and there it is, on hand, on tap - I just need to open my eyes. And, of course, that heart.
Celloooooooooooo! I have found a cello. I'm currently hiring it. It's a big, chesty creature, dark in colour and big of voice. It is, as Greg commented, a perfect balance between masculine and feminine, certainly in its shape, possibly in its sound too. It has the capacity to bellow and to croon, to shock and to soothe. It has character, I'll give it that. Thank you, pond lady M, and Nicky, for putting us in touch.
I'm still a little bit wistful and gently in love with Ehrentraud, my Austrian beauty, darker and more feminine, curious and subtle. She was the first cello I hired from Ealing Strings and such a fine instrument. I suspect this one may be 'better' than her, but she still has my heart.
I have been lent a bow while the one that came with it gets all haired up again. Mongolian horsehair, so it goes. All this may seem crazy - I'm little more than a novice, scratching away at the instrument with the best intentions and minimal skill - but for whatever reason, each cello's distinctive sound sings to me in a totally different tongue. The pleasure doesn't come if the cello isn't 'on my wavelength'. The second cello I had from Ealing Strings - definitely a he, never got a name - had a harshness to his tone and a brusqueness that never flowed with me. I didn't love his voice, shape or colour. It's nothing to do with quality, it seems. Valued at the same price as Ehrentraud, with just as good a bow, but not for me. And the factory cello I stayed in a house with left me completely cold. It just didn't seem right.
Now, I'm no real connoisseur. I don't know what I'm talking about in cello terms, but I know what sounds and feels good when it's played, and the cello I devote my learning to needs to be one of those, one I can't wait to converse with. This one is almost there - a good acquaintance so far, possibly to be a friend. Neither lover nor soulmate, but a good, solid creature, and very lovely.
I laughed at a woodpecker yesterday. Beautiful, it was, and hoppy like a frog. It was green like moss and grass all interwoven on its back, but once the wings were wide, a flash of neon yellow showed itself. The red throat pointing to the lifted black beak. Graceful and bright, and awkward too. I cooed at crows. Big, loping ones. Shouty and invisible ones in trees. Swoopers. I've made way for a coot. It was heading for the steps at the pond. I was in the way, evidently. I moved for it and spooked it, but the thought was there.
Lovely meet with David today, whose surname I don't even know yet, but with whom I may go and live at some point in the future. Not just him, and that's the point. A whole family of unrelated kin. I am excited and, as always, thankful.
And thank you, Rob. The Grundel. Very good to see you after all this time. Good to scratch surfaces together, and to be curious and honest. Good to make time and be interested, and to spend time and money in beardy cafes. Some things never change while some evolve. Both present here.
There's so much more, from warm, good food and secret salad picked at in a cafe from within a plastic bag (like a drunk swigging from a paper-bagged bottle). Dill, spinach, parsley, avocado! From treating avocados like leprosy leftovers for years, I've finally learnt to like them, almost love. There's love on the horizon for us. We're still getting to know each other's ins and outs, but there's genuine affection growing. I'm grateful. We're going to be good for each other. We'll make waves.
So that was it for internet in Guatemala. I managed to check my emails, painfully slowly, one or two more times, but nothing else. It was wonderful. I realised how much of my time I spend cocking about on a computer when it's really not needed, how much I'd love to have a field or two to plough and things to dig and good, solid physical work to do every day. Not that I had that there, but something about the natural groundedness of the place, and that lack of it being London, reminded me. When I lived at the Esalen Institute I worked on the farm. I was lean and physically happy. I had a core to wheelahoe for. I loved that however I felt, however tired, happy, grumpy, confused, the first thing to be done in the morning was get outside and harvest vegetables for the kitchen to prepare; to wash them of their main mud and carry them inside, with slow-moving, frosted fingers; to stand in the breakfast queue with a soft-boiled egg clutched in each hand - not because I'm a fan of eggs as such, but because it thawed my fingers just enough to do the rest of breakfast before heading back out to the sun and the burnt-off mist and the fields all open for a dig.
Guatemala was a gift. Thank you, Annie Richey. Thank you, Sonia Lemus. Thank you, Tom Gensemer. Thank you, sleek yet galumphing Frieda, frantic wagger Diego with his comedy stump tail and weirdy, stinky, beloved ladydog Roja. In so many different ways, you all gave me such gifts. There's too much to say for a blog. I loved not having a computer or any internet, so I didn't blog. Next time I go, I'll take something to write on with my fingers. This time, it wasn't the deal.
There were endless mountains and rainforests and lakes and skies, volcanoes, lilies, boats and little bitey insects. There were huts and reeds and lanchas and laughing. There were many, many dogs and many smiling people. There was truly enticing traditional dress, with fabrics I just wanted to look at and look at. There were hard situations and happy ones. There were successes and misses. There were people who delighted me - more of those than any other kind.
I loved, on my last morning, talking with a Chilean man, a woman from Hong Kong, a young French woman, an American the same and a bloke from Guiseley (about ten miles from where I was born) who used to be in finance in the City and was very nice indeed.
I had thought I didn't really want to travel, or spend time with travellers in hostels, but these people really enriched me. Penny (Hong Kong) gave almost tearful wonder into every sentence about the marvels she had witnessed. She felt things so deeply. She'd been refused a visa to El Salvador and she'd almost taken it personally, but she seemed to take the beauty of every tree and temple personally too, like it was all designed to move her. I liked her very much.
Chilean man was a journalist who'd lived in Moscow and had been part of the Putin machine. He was looking for a visa to go back to Mexico. American woman worked for a charity and was fabulous, though exhausted by the constant batting off of the male gaze/touch/word in the town she lived in. She was tired of being ignored and not listened to because she was a woman, and tired of whistles and gropes and robberies in the street. She was deciding where to go next. That excited me.
Guiseley Boy had been travelling for two years and was set to return in March (unless, unless). The French woman was delightful, sparkly, dark-eyed and on the tips of her toes for a tease with every breath - just the kind of tease to make people laugh and feel loved. She achieved it time and time again. And then we were joined by a Brazilan man and a Norwegian one. I loved that. The world felt bigger and freer and more open than I've been walking in it. London suddenly seemed terribly small. Still does.
