It was believed lightening would not strike a house that held a thunder stone. And so these fossils were placed on top of clocks and under floorboards, over stable doors…but there are some storms that thunderstones cannot prevent.
Thunderstone is Nancy Campbell’s memoir of losing her home, her relationship and all her work and books, but gaining a new life and new friends when she goes to live in an old caravan in a strip of neglected woodland between a canal and a railway in Oxford.
After her partner Anna has a stroke and Nancy helps her with initial stages of recovery they both realise their relationship is over, but this also means Nancy is homeless.
This is an eloquent book about upheaval, loss and uncertainty; but also about nature, friendship and fortitude.
In a way Nancy goes forth with a faith that things will work out. Wrestling with the vagaries of off-grid living, her own health issues and all this in the middle of a pandemic. This book is a journey into the the fragile beauty of life.
I think my reading of this book was made all the more poignant as this week I spent my own time caravan living in an airstream caravan in Norfolk. I’ve been here before and this was a return visit to Tin Can Camping. This is definitely not roughing it in the way Nancy Campbell did. This was glamping, but still relishing being a little bit out of the way, out of the ordinary and living more simply.
We walked for miles to the nearest farm shop and cafe, we gathered blackberries, we cooked and ate outside. We were lucky enough to have the whole site (small though it is) to ourselves. Even the owners had gone away. Just us and the three campsite cats.
We spent a lot of time playing cards and games, reading and just gazing at clouds. Occasionally a small light aircraft would take off from the adjacent airfield and we would all stop and watch as it gained height above us. There was a warm wind blowing the whole time and we were woken at night by green acorns dropping on the caravan roof.
When we returned the acorns found there way onto my shrine. Each one a little promise of hope and possibility.
And on our return I noticed autumn had accompanied us. The nights drawing in. Sunset now at 8pm rather than 8.30pm and our evening walks curtailed. The farmers had already started to plough fields and the hay bales had been gathered and stored away.
Ploughing has started
Coolness in the evening breeze
Sun sets so early
Even though the weather is still warm there is a shift in the air, schools have started back and there is a sense of change: endings and beginnings. Autumn is such a wabi sabi time of year. Over-ripe fruit, dried out grass, apple fall and gathering winds. It is a time of transition, of impending darker nights, it’s almost as if we can feel the earth’s revolution spinning us into a different world.
Maybe Emily Dickinson says it best:
There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away…
I also came back to a delivery of Sencha tea and an email from Penguin books alerting me to a pre-order of Haruki Murakami’s new book: Novelist as a Vocation. Something to look forward to in the autumn evenings. Much as I would love the special edition with sprayed edges I am as usual going to have to place an order with my local library and be patient.
Murakami knows autumn well.
“As the autumn deepens, the fathomless lakes of their eyes assume an ever more sorrowful hue. The leaves turn color, the grasses wither; the beasts sense the advance of a long, hungry season. And bowing to their vision, I too know a sadness.”
―Haruki Murakami,Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Murakami’s book Norwegian Wood finds it’s way onto this list from Tokyo Weekender of 12 books to get you in the mood for autumn. While a couple of years old, it’s still a nice list to get you going with Japanese contemporary writing. There are a few writers on there I’ve read and liked but also a few I don’t know. I’m intrigued by The Forest of Wool and Steel, by Natsu Miyashita.
September always makes me want to pick up my freshly sharpened pencil with that back to school feeling. So I am about to embark on a short university course on writing for wellbeing.
My favourite inspiration for writing is Natalie Goldberg. I first read Writing Down the Bones and Wildmind in the 80s when it came out. Natalie Goldberg’s writing is like the direct path, a zen approach to writing - raw, unadorned, free. She has several rules:
Keep your hand moving
Lose Control
Be specific
Don't think
Don't worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar
You are free to write the worst junk in the world
Go for the jugular!
These rules always have surprising results. This unedited approach produces words, images and thoughts you never knew you had in you. I’ve mentioned Natalie Golberg before in an earlier post as she has most recently written a book about Haiku and her pilgrimage to Japan.
For more than forty years Natalie has practiced zen and taught seminars in writing as a practice. People from around the world attend her life-changing workshops, and she has earned a reputation as a great teacher.