I have been thinking about what to highlight for this milestone, which will be the next post.
For some reason, writing about the way the sunlight comes into windows in England came to my mind. The sun has a particular pale but warm glow in that part of the world. I miss this variety of sunlight.
Sunlight and mist sometimes come together in an almost mystical manner in England. The mist does not seem to be sinister, or full of disease, but gentle, like the wing of an angel upon the earth.
One cannot express moments of beauty which one can remember as if these happened yesterday.
A walk in the Dorset countryside on a sunny day with husband and little son of three years of age, cowslips and small daisies peeking through the grass near the ancient pathway; or another walk the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, with the same pair and an old friend, when the frost lay on the green grass like miniature diamonds, and a cold mist graced the land, playing hide and seek with the Dorset hills,when suddenly, a red English phone box formed out of the mist--so I phoned my parents for Christmas,as we were too poor to have a phone; or a drive through Dartmoor with adult son and an old American friend, exclaiming joy at charming hobbit houses low in the vales, and watching the sun fill these valleys like liquid gold being poured out into a folded cloth of varied greens; or the lone, rugged mile-marker, found suddenly, as we stopped to look at the gorse bushes lining the worn path; another walk in Hampshire, with the linnets singing in the hedges, while the man in the family swung a wooden stick against the weeds, like another Charles Musgrove with his cane, just for the fun of it.
Sunlight in England seems soft, like a mother's kiss at night in the summer, when one as a child had to go to bed in the twilight, not the dark; or like the first kiss a mother gives her newborn, a gentle kiss full of awe, wonder, and thankfulness.
The sunlight of England reminds me of many things, but I wonder if I shall ever see this light again....I do not allow myself to think of my beloved country often, as such thoughts break my heart.
Such are my wanderings on post 9,999.
