A Strange Reflection on Youth, on Home.

‘But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called — called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.’ — Call of the Wild, Jack London.

It is said that, after the longest and most treacherous of journeys, we may return to that place which we before called our home; and come to know it for the first time.

After a few intense months in the heart of London, I returned, this winter, to that place of my own childhood; full of ideas and anxieties, deeply in need of rest, re-orientation, recovery — a quiet countryside town in South-West England; a place where nothing happens.

Here, it is quiet; still.

The sounds of the streets are far away, drifting in the wind.

Instead, the rhythmic chirping of young birds filters through the canopy of trees; enters the interior space through cracks in windows; a steady blissful murmuring.

Here, my breath is long, conscious, deep. I have space, I have time.

In contrast to the city, then; it is a spacious oasis for meditation, introspection, contemplation.

However, as a child, having never experienced the hectic inner city; and, infact, little else at all aside from this platonic, transparent landscape, the place bored me profoundly.

I did not hear the song of the birds; nor did I appreciate the spacious tranquility.

On my recent return to this land, I took a glance back in the direction of my youth; I allowed myself to drift back into that nostalgic breeze that so tempted me — I again drank from the fountain of melancholia; and yet, how different, how foreign!

For after all my travels, and many chapters of life unfolding before me; these same fields, friends, and places acquire a retrospective taint upon me — and so, I contemplate those old associations from an intimate distance; so as, perhaps, to gain perspective on parts of my younger self that lie dormant within me — to ‘come to terms’ with the past in order to pave a clearer eye into the future; into my present self.

Those old forgotten friendships of youth, left behind in the blazing trail of life; only now, after so long in the dusty recesses of memory, do they rekindle such loving spirit within me.

We so often get tangled up so desperately in our own endeavours, that we lose sight of those wonderful connections that give us strength, meaning; those connections that must be nurtured gently, these are the most fruitful — and yet, who, in the chaos of the city, has time for this kind of friendship? How lonely one can feel, surrounded by acquaintances; empty superficialities. Perhaps we have, in our busy lives, lost the art of tender cultivation; of the ability to give ourselves to another, to grow those wonderful relationships that only deepen with time.

This truth; I will remember.

We lay back in caravans; cars; empty sitting rooms, we smoke, we talk, far into the night — as the world sleeps.

Here there is little to entertain; little to distract.

The nights are long and still; the clouds make way for vast lunarscapes above — infinite networks of starry constellations.

Blissful strawfields basking in sunlight; the soft distant choir of crickets, how I missed these drowsy afternoons.

And to think, in the city, how we live for months passing us by without as much as setting foot in a wild grassland; or breathing the fresh morning dew of the forest — and how fulfilling it is for the soul! I think, in the city, we miss something so integral to our animal nature; to immerse ourselves in the pulsating heart of a forest— away from the concrete streets, away from our segmented, artificial realities; our square streets, our square thoughts, our square minds.

So disconnected we are from our roots; our ancestral habitat, that we forget this primal need: to lay down in long swaying grass, to bathe in the embracing warmth of the sun, to feel a soft breeze on our face, to wander away from our walls, our gates, our machines; our hypnotic technology, digital personas, our lies — if just for a day, an hour of authenticity; to embrace the sensual, the animalistic currents of our nature!

In my teenage years, when the mood took me, I would go for long runs — especially in the gloomiest storms, I would head for the fields, the forests; I would plunge myself into woods, over fences and stiles, as far as I could take myself, as far as my instincts would carry me into the fray.

I would connect again to that raw beast within me that longs to charge up a broad grassy knoll; icy sheets of rain cascading down on my skin in euphoric waves.

Within me; some maniacal spirit, some beast. Yet, I think, do we not all have this capacity? Have you not, dear reader, ever on some passing winters evening, came upon some fragment of your soul that howls, bites, roars?

And yet, we repress these shadows that lurk in the dark corners of our being; we ignore parts of our totality; we condition ourselves to fear our own psyche, our own desires, our own capability! Such is the sacrifice we make for bourgouise social decency. And yet, what good does our repressive behaviour do for us as individuals? Nothing! It tears us against ourselves.

Running through the dark damp forest; I can taste those primal aspects of being. To integrate these shadows within our depths; such that they become aspects of our conscious being; energies we can harness and direct in the manifold world — this is a most important task for man.

Back in the warmth of the homestead, I ponder portraits of my child self — I am sure this is not I. Perhaps, a part of I; perhaps just a memory; dust drifting on an ocean of being.

And yet, without this boy on the wall, I could not be I; I would not be.

As such, I reflect upon the life of this boy — his dreams, his games, his fears; I hold him dear. He is a prologue in a story which feels to be only just beginning; he sets the scene. I remember so little of his life; little soft clouds of memory that fade in the vast bright sky of all that comes after.

I embrace this boy; I love him, I let him shine on in the infinite starscape of my being.

He is not I; he is the seed of I — the precious youthful spirit from which character forms. I do not forget him, he does not rot, he does not die.

He is ever-present, effervescent, alive.

As such we may contemplate the little child within us, and find a little bit of peace wedged away behind the steel doors of the mind.

In the countryside one will find old men; characteristically disconnected from the modern world — toiling as their forefathers did, clasping to old values, old method, encapsulated tradition.

As young boys, playing in the fields and streams; these men would often cast a gentle affirmative gaze upon our mischief, their paternal comments of care and warning passing through our tender skulls; drifting feathers in the wind.

As I grew older, I would pay more attention to these men, though often still in partial ignorance; more attentively would I listen to their ramblings, their fading thoughts.

The thin, empty streets of my town would sparsely populate, in the short hours after noon, with old men and women; living out their precious afternoons in frail grace — frequenting cafes and dainty restaurants in comforting ritual.

I would often, in youthful spite; look cynically upon these figures of the late dusk of human existence — I would look upon them with a veil of absorbant disgust and resentment, such that I would plead with my very nature not to allow me such a mundane retreat unto death, that I may resign to the heavens in some blistering heat and speed, ahead of the pursuing ghost of old age.

And yet, some profound cyclic movement of my soul must since have occured and, to some extent, overthrown that sinister will within me; for now, as I observe the same graceful subjects of the evening of the human soul — I no longer feel such ominous revolt against the idea of such gradual declinations of vitality.

For, I think, I now see those subtle glints of fortitude, valour; impossible dignity in these old souls!

And, may I ponder that, after a life of great events — from the deepest sorrows, the most harrowing young nights, to the brightest springs of a life lived courageously; that perhaps such a gentle evening is not so despicable, revolting. Perhaps, I observe what is only a natural and beautiful transition back towards the velvet ocean of night; and equally as valuable, I say, as any other hour of experience that one may undergo!

As such, I look upon those fragile, dainty women of my little town with a newfound glory; I find respect for them, and, resulting from this, my resentment falls away — little by little, into a greater love of humanity; in all its seasonal fluctuations, pitfalls, and, ultimately — its profound wonder.

I may remark that man can often find poetic meaning in the most mundane sequences and sensations of unfolding experience.

I often would sit at my desk on still afternoons and listen to the murmuring life outside the window; see the trees sway gently in the wind; merge my very being with the melancholic atmosphere that floated so broad, so tranquil.

And as the silk veil of time passed over me in such smooth melodic sensation, my thoughts would trail behind in the infinite wake of time; made spacious by the eternity of the moment that nevertheless pressed on and on — and yet, remained, somehow, motionless.

My life today, though magnified; most emphatically broader and deeper and denser — does often beckon back to those premature states in which I would slip into the poets mind, drawing on that fragile pale perfection in which my younger self would brood often enough.

As such, this strange essay looks back on a certain mood; a certain characteristic tone of being that so beset me at a certain stage in my adolescent transition towards my fated being.

If you are intrigued by my fumbling sentimentality; I bid you to consider, as I have been so exploring, the mundane aspects of our human life that we may be so inclined to repress, dismiss, or rebel against — and see perhaps, how, even in the most lamentable of experience, there is often a gem of light that we may take care not to miss.

I suggest that, only in the deepest melancholia may the light of awareness be shone upon a certain divine aspect of the soul; as it is in the character of nature to hide its divine pearls in the muskiest of clam shells.

As such, as poets; as explorers of our conscious experience — it may be more than jovial for us to welcome such unpleasant states of being with wide open arms and say, ‘Yes! Come! Fertilise my soul!’, as such, we spread manure upon the fields of our being, so that in harvest we may reap from richer roots.

Axle.