Without any 'to-dos' or impending responsibilities hanging over my head during this period of lockdown, I've realised just how much I don't take in when my mind is elsewhere. So I've decided to jot down this tiny piece on just exactly what I've been missing.
I found myself strolling along. Actually strolling. Not bustling forward, hands thrust in pockets, head down, shoulders knotting up towards my neck - but actually strolling along at a pace where I didn’t always feel as though I was one breath behind. My eyes weren’t blindly fixated on some hazy point on the horizon and the music in my ears wasn’t blindsiding. Instead, I let my gaze wander like a serial philanderer and the birdsong penetrated beneath each song like a polite little undercurrent of melody.
My back seemed thankful to have my shoulders lazing back rather than scrunched up - it felt a bit like on-the-go yoga.
The glow of the suns warmth and the tickle of the breeze felt alien upon my bare limbs. All without a gut-wrenching embarrassment of not obscuring myself in layers upon layers, because it was just me and the hedgerows as I walked along.
I lie, it was not a solitary affair between us both. There was an abundance of happenings as I walked along this country lane.
Gnats hovered persistently like a mist - I couldn’t suss out if they were following me along or if I just kept walking through cloud after cloud of them. Bees seemed to be pre-occupied with dandelions whilst wasps ignored the advice on social-distancing. Butterflies flirted in pairs, chasing one another from one hedgerow to the other, whilst the occasional solitary White Cabbage flitted along the hedgerow looking for somewhere to land.
I’m not sure if it’s the lockdown or just the fact that its spring, but little birds have become bolder than before. Their songs seem louder and more prevailing than before. Blackbirds brazenly hold their perch in the hedgerow, a tiny bead of an eye holding my stare as I walk past. Robins remain shy as ever, blushing behind the cover of the buds on the trees. A bird of prey - that my unkempt mind couldn’t put a name to - floated in rings above the fields, no doubt searching for its evening supper.
The air was thick with the fragrance of rich pollen as I passed under the tiny hanging bouquets of the blossoming trees in their soft palettes of peach, ivory and rose against the verdant green leaves. Blossoming trees are my favourite part of spring, a reminder of the fragility and ephemerality of beauty.
As the sun begins to slouch lower towards the horizon it casts a peach haze across the fields, which is reminiscent of a cloud of breath on those now seemingly distant crisp winter mornings.
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