Immersion

“Died and gone to heaven” – I hear phrases echoing around my head, just like I wake up with songs. Sometimes they are relevant. You do not need to die to find heaven, this much I know. I suspect death has nothing to do with the discovery of heaven, except as a reminder not to waste time in finding it, and once found, to spend as much time there as you can.

I used the last of the broken orange pekoe and took a cup of tea out into the little courtyard garden outside the flat I have just rented for the summer. At 7am in midsummer the sun is long up. It never really goes to bed this far north, though we’re still a long way from the arctic.

It’s silent but for the occasional bird call, rain drenched, bright, wonderfully cool. I venture out with my tea and my camera, and I am at peace. Sitting on the huge stone step, feeling the cold through thin linen, I realise that I have found a little piece of heaven. I felt it when I came here last year to the music festival, and now, here I am, four months in situ, a head full of words, and time to write them.

I wake up with songs. This morning it was as if a radio was playing somewhere, a little unassuming pop song, something from my youth, The Tide is High by Blondie, originally by the Paragons. Many times, if I examine the lyrics, the water is bearing a gift in the form of some comment sent from my subsconcious to my waking mind, an insight which gives me good advice. Sometimes I have to think about it, other times it’s damn obvious.

The tide is high but I’m holding on
I’m gonna be your number one
Number one, number one

I don’t have far to look for a meaning in this case. The water flows past and all around this ancient site on its way to the sea. I’m here to write, to follow my vocation. I’m gonna be your number one. Number one.