Friday 22 January 2021
The snow fills the air, it's heavy, large flakes, slowly meandering down from the
heights. “The cloud men have been busy”1. A few flakes come through the trees, but
nothing much. Where I’m sitting smells more of moss than pine, it’s the wet kind of moss, very earthy, the dry kinds smells
different, less heavy. The stone is a
perfect height, sitting down but legs still straight. If you sit with your legs bended for too long
it’s always hard to get going again, even on a short walk, this is short, only three
or four miles. I left to late. The day slipped away. Doing . . . something . . . which I’m sure
must have been very important . . .whatever it was. The coffee is good, but its instant coffee,
made before I left and carried in a flask, I normally don’t like instant coffee,
this is the good stuff, but it’s not beans, it’s not the process, the smell,
the routine, but its good, it’s good especially in the snow, nothing to eat, I
brought nothing to eat, I’m not hungry, for that matter I’m not thirsty, but it
is snowing, and it is the hills, and it is a forest, and it is being away on my
own, and it is a cup of coffee. The cup
is bright orange, if you set it down you will see it, very hard to lose, I can
see the steam, the smell mixes with the moss and the pine, it is an outdoors
smell. I feel part of the forest,
observing the scene, the snow, the trees, the transition from green to white. But I’m not part of the forest, I’m passing
through, leaving no trace, you should never leave a trace, walking, camping, at
the sea. This is very rural, few people,
but there is rubbish, two kinds: things people drop and dog dirt. It’s strange but dog dirt is worse in the
short term, but better in the long, here the elements and nature will take care
of it, in the short it is dreadful, you can’t clean it off and you need to watch
your step, but there’s none here, below the trees, sitting on a stone, drinking
coffee from a bright orange cup, watching the snow, smelling the moss and pine
and coffee. But the rubbish, the bottles
and wrappers, they, in the short term are better, have you ever given a second
thought to stepping on a crisp packet?
But it will still be there in a week, or a month, or a year, or a century,
or a millennia. The coffees good, it
keeps me here, an excuse, lurking about in the trees for this long looks
suspicious, however sitting on a stone drinking coffee from a bright orange cup
doesn’t. It actually looks strangely
normal. I didn’t eat anything, and if I
had, I wouldn’t have remembered, but I remember the snow, the peace, the smell,
the time, that moment.
1. This is how one of my children described the snow, it’s a reference to “James and the Giant Peach” and I can't steal such a good observation.
