Perceptions.

I just finished reading Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman. The final scene is very short and leads us back into the light (of sorts.) The scene preceding it is much, much longer, and is, I think, about the most stressful scene I’ve ever read. The ache in my solar plexus was becoming close to intolerable.

And it was all in Natalie’s mind. And if it was in Natalie’s mind, it must have found its way there from Shirley Jackson’s. So do she and I have something in common, perhaps – the faculty of seeing odd, dark little tracks leading off the main road, and needing to explore them alone because the other people on the main road are unaware of both the track and the fact that we’ve taken a diversion. Is it a blessing or a curse?

But why would anybody be interested in this? Perception is the whole of the life experience, so now for something completely different.

*  *  *

It occurs to me that there are two types of day which most encapsulate the identity of the autumn season. One is the mellow, misty day when the view across the landscape consists of depleting half tones and there is a hint of the indistinct about the path through the woods. The other is the bright, crisp day when the sun shines brightly and the far hills are as clear as the hand in front of your face.

Yesterday was a mellow, misty day (I made the little ramble through the Harry Potter wood by way of celebration.) Today was the other sort.

I stood by a farm gate at the further end of Church Lane and gazed across the newly ploughed fields, down to the river valley and up from there to the high ground which separates the course of the River Dove from that of the Churnet. It’s a landscape I’ve described before – patchwork fields, hedgerows, single trees, copses, woods of more substance, and the occasional building to add the human dimension. The sun was shining benevolently and a narrow fold of cumulus cloud drifted sedately from right to left above the ridge in the far distance.

I felt a sudden inner conviction that I was standing on a film set waiting for my scene to finish so that I could leave the set, discuss the day's work with the director, and then head off for a shower and a hot meal. And I asked myself again: am I becoming psychotic and estranged from reality, or am I seeing glimpses of what reality really is? And, as usual, I came to no conclusion.