Do trees ever really die?

September 21st 2019

I’ve recently read the ‘Magician’s Nephew’, the ‘Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, ‘The Horse and His Boy’, ‘Prince Caspian’. And I am at the beginning of the ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’. Eustuce is still sick in the cabin, in my locker at work.

I cannot hope to  come close to expressing, at this brief moment in time, how much I am currently enjoying my one hour breaks, which start just after half past midnight, on an average of five times a week. I am even able to cram in another chapter or two of the Narnian chronicles on my half-hour breaks, which usually occur just after three-thirty in the morning.

Aching fingers, thumbs. toes, soles, and knotty kneecaps are given a new lease of life after my childlike imagination has been temporally transported into to these other worlds.

I’ve also usefully spent much time listening to talks about C.S. Lewis, and various films and discussions via the worldwide web. I seem to be most attracted to some sort of evangelical Christianity at the moment, which is hardly a surprise to me, as I didn’t have a religious upbringing as a child.

I can vaguely remember singing hymns as a child,  such as Morning Has Broken, All Things Bright & Beautiful, Onward Christian Soldiers. Sometimes these hymns can play over and over in my head as I stack shelves after my breaks. I can’t be sure as to why exactly, but I have a few ideas.  Some Christmas Carols come to mind too, especially Silent Night, which I seem to have always loved since I was a child, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

Sometimes a Cliff Richard song pays my mind a visit, Christmas time, mistletoe and wine, children singing Christian rhyme..  It is not a song to everyone’s taste but I am quite happy to be haunted by it. Haunted is the wrong word I think. It’s more a visitation than a haunting. Possession? No.. I will have to refer to Roget when I get the chance.

I’ve tried to watch a film version of the Gospel According to St. John when at home alone with Jack the wonder dog, so not alone. I’ve tried to watch it about half a dozen times this week, but I keep falling asleep about half an hour in, God only knows how the sounds of the film affect me as I’m nodded off, deeply daydreaming.

I’m considering writing down what I can remember when I wake from my daydreams. I’m convinced that some of the sequences of events remembered could be the basis of original stories, poetry or at least well formed sentences full of metaphor that doesn’t make me seem a complete idiot.

I suddenly remember being in a locked psychiatric ward,  talking briefly with a young clock-watching vicar in the recreation room. A clergyman who, strangely at the time, looked like David Cesarani with a white clerical collar. I asked him which book from the Bible he would recommend to a biblically ignorant atheist who had lost his way on the road to nothingness. He suggested  the Gospel according to St. Luke. I had decided to concentrate on John’s Gospel first. But having come across a film of the Gospel According to St.Luke overdubbed with King James translation of the Bible, it might be a good  exercise of the mind to combine watching and read that.

As far as my Book of Common Prayer is concerned I’ve been referring to the lessons calender, not religiously, but at least every other day on average, and I prefer the days that I do refer to passages in the Bible a lot more than days which I do not.

As I’ve  mentioned above, a very limited mix of Christian songs keeps entering my head when I’m at work after my breaks, but not only then.

When walking to and from work too. The moon has looked so gorgeous between 9:20pm and 9:45. Each day lower and lower in the sky, as large as I can remember seeing it, at least since holidays in Cornwall one or more decades ago, the moon often smiling between the branches of ancient trees that seem so much more alive since my frequent visits to Narnia.  There is an abundance of old trees on my chosen route to work, the hilly roads I walk beside are quite dark as a consequence. And when the moon hits my eyes, so much larger than I can ever remember it.

There is a private street I cut through which still have old lampposts that emit peachy amber light. One household has its own lamp in the front garden, which I never noticed before because it was not lit. One night, the white light was on and it was almost identical to the lamppost that was born in ‘The Magician’s Nephew’.

At seven in the morning I start walking home from work, and notice the birds singing, flying and rustling  like I never noticed them before. There is a spot above a group of trees, where I look to the sky and more times than not catch the glimpse of a pre-rushhour rainbow.  I say good morning to people, normally men or women with white or grey hair. They greet me back. Everything so delightfully Englis. It’s like we know something important that everyone else has forgotten. It’s like being on holiday.

The Holidays and excursions I remember as a child and as a much younger adult in Ireland, Cambridgeshire,  Cornwall, Norfolk, Isle of Wight, Southsea, Devon, Isle of Wight, Shropshire, Essex, Yorkshire and Brugge.

Something has changed.

Even cars don’t annoy me so much. Well,  walking to work in the late evening is a lot different than at rush hour times.

One very damp night last week, I witness the reflections of the car lights on the road surface. Some of the patterns painted were strangely very pleasing to the eye.

Where has my misery gone? I don’t think misery has played much of a part in my life for a long time, but it seems I’m only just noticing, unafraid, almost sure that being without large helpings of misery within is not a sign of impending mania.

I’m going to properly learn to identify the species of each kind of tree that I come across on my short journeys to and  from work. Identify the different birds. Note down where and when I see noghtly frogs and foxes, and what appear to be bats. I wish so much to be able to hear an owl. All in the vicinity of a place that used to be home to a prisoner of war camp over 70 years ago.

I wasn’t expecting to write such things. I’ve not typed anything much for a while. This is probably dreadfully all over the place.

This morning I went to my favourite local charitable shops. For £2.50 I bought copies of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, with an introduction written by her in February 2017. Having read it, I wonder how different the introduction would be compared to one she might have written thirty years ago.

I also found a copy of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess.

And finally and, most imortantly, ‘A Grief Observed (Readers’ Edition)’ by C. S. Lewis.