I was coping really well. Baking my bread, doing my crochet and my yoga and even managing 1000 words a day (most days) of a new novel without too much despair about the likelihood of said book ever being published. I was enjoying walking and running on my local country roads, and genuinely grateful to live in beautiful rural Northern Ireland, with no shortage of fresh air and not too many people.
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| This is my road and I am grateful for it |
Then in late April someone put a picture of a bluebell wood on Facebook. And the kick of pain surprised me. I haven’t walked in ‘my’ forest for two months. I love that forest in every season, but there has always been something special about May and the bluebells. And this year I was going to miss out. I couldn’t bear it.
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| Sally, my parents' dog, in 'my' forest |
I have not cried about missing my parents (or Sally, forest companion extraordinaire) or not seeing my friends or sister, or my loss of income, or the silence surrounding my March-published novel, but the thought of not seeing and smelling those carpetty drifts of hazy blue seemed suddenly the cruellest cut.
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| What I am not seeing this year |
I fell in love with bluebells as a small child. I remember telling my parents I could only get married in May so I could have a bluebell bouquet (I’m not sure that would work actually, but I was only nine when I conceived that fancy.) How could I go a whole May without seeing them?
Did I always know they grew along the roadsides? I suppose I did, but because I was able to take for granted that I would see them in more dramatic splendour in the forest I didn’t bother noticing. This May, confined to the roads, I have noticed them peeping through the green, brightening up odd corners, and I am thankful. For the bluebells and for the noticing.
I hope you are all finding something to notice.
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| Roadside bluebells (plus Daisy). |
3 comments:
I love bluebells too and have several clumps in my garden and was really glad when the stems re-appeared after some "enthusiastic" gardening in that area. It's a time for appreciating small moments of happy observation.
However, I must whisper that a few bluebells are not like being within bluebell woods, particularly on days when the air is full of that faint, hyacinth perfume.
Nor when a favourite bluebell wood is within Wanstead Woods, close by my close family in London. Oh well. The sadness of thinking too far or too widely. I'll go out and look at the clumps in the garden instead.
Thank you for your bluebell post, though, Sheena!
I feel for you both, Sheena and Penny. There is nothing like a bluebell wood. Last week, I drove over to the Clent Hills, to see the bluebells. They were glorious, stretching away under the trees to every side in great swathes and pools of blue. Sorry if this makes it worse. Hold on to them fact that they will be there again next year.
Lovely post. They are the loveliest flower, aren't they?
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