NIGHT 17
Night 17 Sunday 4 December 2022.
‘Good morning Vietnam!’ film buff G shouts out from the loft window. A random but rallying Sunday morning opener.
We only learn from Nikoleta on a video call from under the tarp that the children have been having coca cola for breakfast.
Church bells ring out and enthusiastic joggers jog on. With a little more time to stay in ‘bed’ and listen we can actually hear the dawn chorus and look out on Sunday routines unfolding. Dog barks welcome the day. Engines start. Lights turn on and neighbouring handmade window displays glow in solidarity – semi-transparent papers in the shape of fists raised. As I check the phone / crowd funder a Timeout advert for a bar experience pops into my inbox with ‘Christmas and New Year’s Eve from a rooftop?’ snowflake and tree emojis. No thank you. We very much hope to be inside by then. Although. There is something special here.
Starlings fly low overhead and I think of how murmurations form. How do they know to meet up? There is no leader and no plan. The church bells ring out again and act as a sonic portal to the Sunday mornings of my childhood in which campanology was never far away. Tactile memories of sliding along smooth polished wooden pews, staring down at the intricacies of worn tapestry kneelers. My Dad was separate, working and in costume. We knelt at the communion rail waiting for the blessing of the Lord but hoping for a smile from him. Mum was always there with us. In conspiratorial giggles, passing us polos, sharing Hymn books, checking just how many pages were left in the order of service. As red-hot overhead gas heaters induced a delicious wooziness I welcomed the peace. ‘May the peace of the Lord be always with you.’ ‘And also with you.’ I was never sure if that feeling of contentment came from the divine, the sense of community or because it was almost time to go. Not home - not yet. But to steal custard creams and drink weak squash running around cold church halls. The ancient pervaded these modern days in the Stroud Valleys where pagan ritual was alive and well and led by the local, Morris dancing, Morris minor owning vicar. Myth and literature combined as we took tea in the house of Laurie Lee, were adorned in flowers for May Day processions and dunkings, wondered at cheese rolling and were spooked by graveyard Yew trees. Romantic visions of the English countryside combined with life in a 70’s built housing development eating into this ideal.
Parakeets fly overhead full of mischief. I think of people waking up with hangovers- hot wiring synapses with coffee and grease. I look at the forecast and temperatures are heading down methodically. This will put our sleeping bags to the test - the slight prepper tendencies in me keen to test the stated guarantee of warmth at sub-zero degrees. I feel on top of the world. Top of the morning. Top of the house. In the dreaming zone. Though even up here there is a sense of how low lying this area is under the grey expanse above. Bids to secure higher ground in London involve higher price tags. It is surprisingly green. The old apple tree at the end of the garden is clinging on to a few leaves. I like to think it grew from a core nonchalantly thrown from a moving train at the beginning of these railway days. The embankment towers above the gardens. Occasionally teams of men in high vis orange walk the tracks doing maintenance. How many people must have built these tracks – the sheer amount of earth moved, the labour involved.
I ‘m loathed to descend the ladder but a day of clearing and the logistics of trampoline parks and children’s parties awaits us. Christmas preparations are slow/non-existent but at least, thanks to my Mum, advent calendars arrive for the countdown to begin – late. Other countdowns are layered on top of advent – the countdown to the end of this crowdfunder, the schedules of making a song and fundraiser with the school. New neighbours pop in to find out how to get involved in the POWER STATION. We had planned two more visits but cancel as darkness and energy levels fall too fast. The children are exhausted. G falls asleep on the sofa. We hear his friend had fallen asleep on the floor mid lego construction. We all need rest. To embrace the winter. To find hope in the dark. Expert on this practice, Rebecca Solnit has shared an article by Robert McFarlane ‘Midwinter magic’ on Susan Cooper’s 1973 novel ‘The Dark is Rising.’ I can’t believe I haven’t read it. He ends with ‘new-old fears – climate chaos, war, ecological collapse – menace our minds. The dark is always rising, and it is the work of the greatest stories to hold it back.’ And it is not just the dark that can rise. We can. Telling stories that make the lights shine and signal to others that they too can alight. The sky is glowing orange tonight. Moon and stars are illusive but city lights glisten and fireworks splutter and glow. The wind is northerly and we lie cocooned in possibility.
