Ullswater

A splendidly dreich old day with wall to wall rain. Sorted bits and bobs in town and then a short walk by the lake and then sent objections to a local planning application submitted by the Lowthers (blood and boiling comes to mind, but don't get me started on aristocracy and land ownership). My futurelearn course and reading kendall's and bluheron's blips have set me pondering isolation and sanctuary.


Sanctuary - Jean Valentine
People pray to each other. The way I say "you" to someone else, 
respectfully, intimately, desperately. The way someone says 
"you" to me, hopefully, expectantly, intensely ... 
—Huub Oosterhuis 

You       who I don’t know       I don’t know how to talk to you   

—What is it like for you there? 

Here ... well, wanting solitude; and talk; friendship— 
The uses of solitude. To imagine; to hear. 
Learning braille. To imagine other solitudes. 
But they will not be mine; 
to wait, in the quiet; not to scatter the voices— 

What are you afraid of? 

What will happen. All this leaving. And meetings, yes. But death.   
What happens when you die? 

“... not scatter the voices,” 

Drown out. Not make a house, out of my own words. To be quiet in   
another throat; other eyes; listen for what it is like there. What   
word. What silence. Allowing. Uncertain: to drift, in the 
restlessness ... Repose. To run like water— 

What is it like there, right now? 

Listen: the crowding of the street; the room. Everyone hunches in   
against the crowding; holding their breath: against dread. 

What do you dread? 

What happens when you die? 

What do you dread, in this room, now? 

Not listening. Now. Not watching. Safe inside my own skin. 
To die, not having listened. Not having asked ... To have scattered   
life. 

Yes I know: the thread you have to keep finding, over again, to   
follow it back to life; I know. Impossible, sometimes.