today's drawing

 It had been my intention to curl up on the settee yesterday evening, when the street lamp had lit, with my notebook of gridded paper to make a drawing therein, but when the hour presented itself, the street lamp glowing beyond the window, my notebook to hand, I could not muster the enthusiasm, or the will. My partner was working a late shift; I knew that he would not return to the house until after ten pm, the evening stretched ahead, my inclination to work was absent.

Instead of drawing, I found myself seated at the piano, which I had not touched all day. Lifting the lid of my beautiful piano is always a joy; each night, before I retire, I close the lid, each day that comes I open it, if only to see the lovely word Knight emblazoned just above the keyboard in elegant gold letters. A photographic portrait of my father hangs on the wall just to the right of the piano; it depicts my father at home in his garden. I remember taking the photograph in the Autumn before he died, nine years ago. The piano had been his possession, chosen from a showroom of pianos for it's bright, clean sound. To my father's acute ear, all the other pianos seemed 'woolly'; 'Knight' had and still has a voice that resonates like a crystal bell, a clear, penetrating yet melodious voice.Knight was the piano that I learned to play on, and has been a family member since the late 1960s.

It comforts me to see my father's smiling face; his kindly eyes meeting mine as it were; I feel his presence when I am playing, indeed he is never very far away, catching up with me when I am out walking, entering my dreams at night.

Just above the piano there hangs another photograph- of the three kittens, Minos, Silas and Mimas, taken by my partner shortly after we discovered that there was a litter of kittens sharing our estate at the lodge.These two portraits are precious to me, as is the lovely piano; when I sit down to play, I feel as though I am embraced, the world takes on a more stable aspect, even though most of  the characters portrayed in the photographs are gone, as indeed is our life at the lodge in Hampshire.Until hanging the photograph of my father beside the piano, and then the photograph of the kittens above, I had thought that photographs were rather melancholy, they evoked pain, the pain of loss, for the moment that is caught on camera passes with the blink of an eye, the click of the shutter, is lost forever, constitutes a small death.I shall never again hear my father's voice, with it's soft Sussex burr, his smiling eyes shall never smile upon me again, but I have the photograph, I remember how the skin crinkled around his eyes when he smiled at me on that balmy Autumn afternoon in the garden, where we had sat, my mother, my father and myself to take tea after our labours, which is when the photographic image of him was captured.

In the evening, then, yesterday evening, I played the piano, Chopin; although most of the preludes are beyond my scope as a pianist, there are some that I feel I may be able to learn, and so in my solitude, I opened the book at number Prelude number 2 and began to practise. Number 2 is, like number 20, most affecting, difficult to play effectively, and I am not sure about the use of the pedal- I need advice. Perhaps the time has come for piano lessons. I remember Mrs Hilda H Price ( I always wondered what the second H stood for) who taught me from the age of seven until I was thirteen, she told me that I would never make a concert pianist, but that I was a born teacher- how could she know? Yet she proved to be mistaken in that assertion, for I cannot teach; I seem to have no ability for that vocation. I had once hoped that I could support my work by teaching, indeed once had a passion to teach , but my life has taken a different turn. 

This morning, a fine, bright, blowy morning, with the wind gusting determinedly from the North, I take myself in hand, so to speak, and begin the drawing shown above. It belongs firmly with those preceding it; I seem to be working as is customary, on a long series of drawings with like palette. I remain at a loss for a title; whilst the words 'safe' and 'longing' were prevalent in my mind when I began the series, they have disappeared; maybe when I group the drawings together and see them all as part of a greater whole, a title will arise in my thoughts. Titling the 'grid drawings is one of my pleasures; as noted before, I often write titles in the front of the notebook so that I do not forget them. This evening, and another late shift for my partner- do I play the piano, or do I draw? As yet I am undecided, but the choice before me is far from onerous, I am thankful to be in the position to make it.

rain

 

This morning dawned damp and silvery, it was obvious that rain , the first for days, had fallen in the night, indeed, as the morning wore on, the clouds built and darkened, the light became leaden rather than silver and heavy rainfall made me anxious for Minos who remained  out of doors. To my great relief, the downpour eased and when I looked, Minos was curled up nose to tail on his bench, having escaped a drenching by virtue of the overhanging cotoneaster.

I completed the grid drawing begun yesterday evening, which can be seen to the right of the above image, and duly took my photographs as has become customary; no spillage of golden light across the drawings today, just a light of even pewtery grey. I muse upon titles for these drawings whilst I am working on them. I cannot bring a title to mind for the current suite of drawings, but the words 'safe'  and 'longing' keep presenting themselves to my concsiousness. A long telephone call with my mother touches upon the work I am making; she asks about the drawings, how they are made, what they look like, and I find myself hardpressed to describe them. I ask her to imagine a notebook, a small notebook of squared paper, then ask that she imagines a square of squares, thirteen by thirteen in the middle of the page, with a greater margin below the image than above. So far so good. I then explain the colouring in and she enquires as to the colours I use. We agree that colours have beautiful names; she particularly enjoys 'dark violet', I think that because Violet  was the name of her own mother. She remarks upon the titles and I find that I am on surer ground, even though they may seem idiosyncratic to some.

I am touched by her obvious interest and promise that I will show her the drawings when I next see her, although I am not sure when that will be. I am extremely anxious about train travel, and do not drive; the only option is if my partner would be willing to drive us both to Hampshire; his mother lives in the same town as mine. I replace the telephone receiver in pensive mood.

To my delight and relief, when I go out into the garden in the early afternoon, to make sure that all is well with Minos, he greets me fulsomely and follows me indoors, rushes upstairs and instals himself upon the bed, demonstrating to me that he has not reverted to his feral beginnings, and will find relief inside the house from inclement weather if he has a mind to.

Another telephone call from my mother who tells me that she has been thinking of the grid drawings and is eager to know how I feel when I make them; I tell her that I regard them as meditations and that colouring in is a transformative experience, through which I arrive at a calmer state of mind. I find that she understands for she goes on to recount an experience from her childhood; she tells me that she was a solitary child, much given to wandering in the countryside surrounding the village in Yorkshire where she spent her formative years. In the summer she was out of the house at dawn, her mother's dogs her only companions. She would lie in the dew wet grass and listen to the song of the lark high over head, she said that the very words'the lark ascending' made her entrails turn, as it were, to jelly, her heart felt as though it would burst from her ribcage. One morning she lay back and became so lost in the sight of the cloudscape above her that she became afraid that she would levitate; in a fathomless , vertiginious panic she clutched a hold of the grass upon which she was lying and cried aloud" I don't want to go'. I ponder deeply upon this; it seems to me that whilst she is afraid of the transformative state, which is accompanied for her by the disagreeable physical sensations of anxiety, I am able to welcome it; in fact need it as a counterpoint to, or indeed refuge from persistant worrying thoughts. I am moved , however, that somehow, through our conversation about the grid drawings, we have been able to speak intimately about art and experience in a way I have an inkling that not many mothers and daughters are able to do.

the last day of Summer

 Still within the notebook, the 'grid drawing' begun early this morning when a pearly mist blanketed the garden, completed some hours later when the sun had ridden free of the grey. 

Up early this morning, as M, my partner, had to begin work at eight. The garden, when I went out to greet Minos and take him his breakfast; he has adopted an almost feral habit of living entirely out of doors this summer, was mysterious and cloistered; I felt like an intruder. I love mist and fog, love the way colours are trammeled by soft grey and disappear into the velvety atmosphere. Perhaps that is why I cover the colours of my grid drawings with an even, finely drawn layer of graphite.The grey is like a mist descending before one's eyes, through which the colours glow softly. I am recalled to the films I made at one time; I hung a silk chiffon scarf of pale grey  before the lens, which billowed in moving air and through which all was diffused, uncertain. It is that feeling of mystery, of uncertainty that the grid drawings seem to possess, one is not quite sure whether one is supposed to be looking at them, even though the first impulse is perhaps to let one's gaze penetrate the gauzy layer of graphite.

Several telephone calls with my mother of necessity complicated my work this morning; there was an issue with her medication which needed to be resolved, so that I did not complete the drawing until well after midday, by which time the sun was shining with optimistic energy through the window and illuminating my workplace. When the drawing was 'finished', when I had coloured in the bottom left hand square with graphite, I released my cramped hand from it's clutch of the pencil, photographed the drawing and went outside to sit with Minos. I took the third volume of Anne Truitt's journal with me - I am close to finishing it, and shall miss her insight and carefully wrought portraits of family life, childhood remembrances. She describes her work in detail; she made singular pieces, free-standing columns of painted wood, which I have seen in reproduction, and drawings , the descriptions of which tantalize me as I have never seen them. I worry that my 'grid drawings' are so similar; one needs discernment to allow the subtle differences between them to reveal themselves. 

It is not 'wrong' to have fallen for a particular palette of colours, in whose differing configurations I take delight, and not 'wrong' to have alighted upon a particular, unvarying format, after all, Agnes Martin worked consistently with a given set of dimensions for years. I just worry that I am not exploring, I'm standing still. Perhaps it is alright to stand still, and let the delicate drawings come as they will; if I attempt to impose any control over them, I soon come to grief. For the moment, then, I shall stand still and allow the work to evolve, to unfold slowly in slow time; time takes on a different shape when I am engaged in making a drawing, much as it did this morning, certainly the early morning experience was vastly different from the afternoon's, when I brought the drawing to fruition.

Tomorrow is the first day of autumn, the season of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness'. I feel a tremor of excitement at the thought, savour the last golden day of a summer unlike any other summer I have known, just as the spring was made strange by the experience of 'lockdown'. During the spring, I made 'grid drawings' as though my life depended upon the activity, mostly sitting in the back bedroom, with the window open to the balmy air, Silas curled up beside me. Now I have exchanged my place of work for a corner of the settee in the sitting room, enjoying the constant North light by day, at dusk, the lighting of the street lamp across the road, which at first flicker shows ruby before transmuting that subtle rosy red into flourescent orange. It is then that I draw the curtains before curling up again with my notebook.

studio afternoon June 4 2020

Finding it difficult to settle to work this afternoon, nevertheless, one drawing of the transit of Mercury is finished; number seven of around fourteen, thus I have reached the half way mark.

I call my mother and her voice brightens on the other end of the telephone as she tells me that it is good to hear my voice. I reply that it is good to hear her's, also and for just a few moments the conversation proceeds on an even keel. It quickly plunges into irretrievable depths,however, as she becomes tearful , describing how she wishes she were dead, she will die of loneliness and isolation. The conversation closes on an angry note as she puts the telephone down, and I am left in a welter of frustration and self hatred for having upset her. She had told me that she was afraid to walk the few steps into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea in case she fell ( she has very little sight and her ability to balance is compromised). I replied that if that were indeed the case then perhaps it was indicative of her need to be in residential care. She became furious with me and I regretted the words as soon as they had left my mouth; I realised that once more I had spoken where perhaps I should have been silent. Why cannot I be kind to her? What would a person for whom kindness is second nature have said? What would someone other than a tired, frightened, despairing daughter have said?

grid drawings, or 'meditations'

The 'grid drawings' began as an exercise to temper my eye and hand and calm tumultous emotions at the time of my widowed mother's hospitalisation in May 2016. It was a particularly beautiful month that year, generous warmth during the day, fragrance from luxuriant Spring growth by night. I remember the apple blossom glowing snowy white at dusk, the scent hanging on the air like a perfumed curtain, when I walked alone in my mother's garden after visiting her in hospital.

Guardian of the house for the period of my mother's sojourn in hospital, and, having previously purchased on impulse a trio of squared paper notebooks, which I had with me, I began to draw. Following a directive unfathomable in origin, I coloured in the tiny squared enclosures using a selection of coloured pencils from a pencil tin of my late father's which I had found in the house during my stay. I came to settle upon a square of thirteen little squares by thirteen ( there were thirteen differently coloured pencils in the tin). This seemed to satisfy my eye for the moment. I became aware that the drawings needed something to unify them, and thus applied a layer of graphite, like a skin or veil, through which the colours glowed softly. The graphite membrane seemed to function as a visual metaphor; a device to suggest distance; the shadowy reaches between experience and recollection, or between the inner world of the mind, and external reality. I drew each day as though possessed, even taking the notebooks to the hospital so that I could draw in the hospital canteen between visiting hours.

I did not know then, that four years later I would still be compelled to make these tiny, intense yet subtle drawings and that the drawings would have evolved so much in terms of their poetic and emotional resonance. I draw every day, as though my life depends on it, aware that, as before, owing to difficult circumstances, I need to assuage panic and focus my attention beyond the narrow confines of my mind.

Titles for the pieces came, and come, unbidden to mind. Often they are generated by the memory of a place, or happening, a person, or state of mind. I frequently dedicate pieces to people, thus a piece comprising four drawings entitled 'over the hills and faraway', is for my partner, and refers to the period in our life together when we lived in rural isolation in Hampshire. 'My sister's harlequin slippers' is dedicated to one of my sisters and refers to  her chequered velvet slippers, which, as a child, she loved so much that she even wore them in the garden.

When I frame the pieces I follow the counsel of someone I trust, who suggested that I reference the notebook. Thus, I frame them in such a way as to show the edge of the page where they have been torn out of the book. Notebooks of drawings are like visual diaries; to show only removed pages is to imply that there is other, hidden material, perhaps too intimate to reveal. Certainly such a drawing, once removed evokes the invisible notebook, and is suggestive of the activity of keeping a diary; the reflective, quiet setting down of thoughts, responses, dreams. Notebooks are portable and private, both attributes which I value. The drawings made within them are my journal entries.

remnants II

Further drawings in the series of supernovae remnant drawings. I have spent the greater part of the morning and afternoon photographing drawings and adding them to this online diary; the process has been supremely satisfying. Later, I shall return to the series of solar eclipse drawings that I am making on creamy white Lokta paper, in the cool of the sitting room. However, it would be a pity not to experience the Spring glory of our little wild garden, so I shall repair outside and sit on the step of the patio, where I can breathe the Lily of the Valley scented air. These beautiful plants came from the lodge; when I knew we were to move, I dug up some of each of the plants growing in the garden there, and transplanted them in this Somerset garden. The transplantees have taken to the new soil, and the lovely Lily of the Valley have naturalised beautifully. I would that I were able to pick a posy of them for my mother, but the advice from the Government is to remain at home and avoid meeting with family and friends, particularly if they are members of the vulnerable groups. My mother is vulnerable, and although she craves our company, we are obliged to withold it for the present, however painful that may be.

new year

Just a few days into January, my mother takes a fall in her home and sustains a complicated fracture of her right shoulder. She is admitted to hospital where it is deemed appropriate to replace the shattered joint with an artificial one fashioned from titanium. The evidence of her increasing frailty is borne heavily upon myself and my two sisters, and we each have serious concerns about the suitability and safety of her beloved house and garden , although she herself is determined to continue living there as long as is possible.

There are no words to describe the measure of alarm and anxiety that I experience on her behalf when I consider the house and garden in the light of her return from hospital. Much needs to be changed to render both safe and comfortable, some of it beyond our scope both financially, and in terms of our collective skills. Not for the first time, albeit not without a jolt of disloyalty and grief, do I wish fervently that she was already installed in a house of more modest size, with garden just enough for her to enjoy her array of ornamental pots and containers, which she has a genius for making beautiful with bright annuals and spring bulbs, in a smaller, less unfriendly town, with amenities to hand, the thriving, busy heart of a welcoming little town within walking distance.

In my mother's garden. snowdrops are beginning to flower in their customary places; discrete gatherings beneath the old privet hedge, sizable colonies in the lawn. Crocus are also showing pale spears above the lean winter grass, and the hellebores are a mass of creamy, roseate blooms. I feel keenly for my mother, who has been so far unable to go out into the garden to see them. Walking in the garden, a heavy frost glittering upon the lawns, lonely without the the company of our two cats, who are now, for safety's sake, removed to Somerset, I am overcome by a storm of conflicting emotions. I am painfully aware, that despite my mother's vigour of mind, and great love, the bequeathed garden is too big for  her to manage on her own, yet my heart quails at the thought of her having to give it up, to tear the roots that bind us all to this place. Reason instructs me that perhaps it is time to allow a younger family to live there and love it as we have done; we have had our day, yet our mother, although she has confided to each of us in turn her own fears concerning her abilities to continue to live there, is most unwilling to relinquish the house and garden, which harbour so many memories. Speaking with my sisters, I find that my youngest sister and I are united in our feelings of heartbreak, although my younger sister , the sister in the middle, has attuned herself to the eventual relinquishment of our family home, and that all three of us share the desire to see our mother settled contentedly in a safer, more suitable environment.

The first month of the new year passes with much unsettling change and challenge, and in a flurry of  visits to our mother. The days lengthen appreciably, the garden is alternately rimed by frost and scoured by bitter north easterly winds; a couple of times the lawns are dusted by the sparkle of light snowfall. The garden appears at first glance to be steeped in slumber, yet closer insepection reveals the presence of a multitude of elegant, pointed buds on the Ribes, the clusters of fragile, early flowering bulbs, the ruby red tips of the emerging peony buds. Our garden chairs remain almost in the positions they occupied throughout the months of Summer and Autumn, when my mother and I sipped wine in the long light evenings, took tea and coffee during breaks from our labours. I cannot help but wonder whether we shall do so again, and I know that this thought is not far from my mother's own mind. I take a photograph of the chairs, pools of water frozen in each, as a keepsake, my heart full to bursting within me, for at present it is well nigh impossible to believe that we shall be able to resume our former  relationship with the cherished garden.

gunpowder

At the bottom of my mother's garden, undaunted by heavy rain, my sister builds a monumental bonfire from the trimmings and prunings amassed during the last few months. It is the beginning of November, and the family have gathered in commemoration of the date, to loose fireworks into the dark and streaming night, to huddle in talkative groups by the warmth of the fire, afterwards to repair to the house for a traditional 'bonfire supper'.

When my sister is satisfied that despite the downpour, the fire is quick and fierce, the rest of us assemble beneath a shelter tented over the washing line, and my mother, as excited as a small child, opens the gaudily decorated box of fireworks residing on the garden table, with much ceremony. We prevail upon her to be the first to choose from the promising array, and thus follows a succession of other, brilliant, starry choices, wreathing the drenched air with  bitter scented gunpowder smoke, throwing fantastical shadows of the old apple trees across the lawns, drawing shouts and applause, gasps and exclamation.

All the while, my sister tends the bright pyre at the bottom of the garden, her face and figure ruddied by the fiery glow; Hestia incarnate, devoted to the hearth and heart of family, staunch, tender, passionate.

After the fleeting glories of the fireworks are spent, the rain eased, the tent dismantled, and the family returned to the house, I join my sister by the dwindling embers, and find her in reflective mood, her usual vigorous animation of visage softened and quieted. She tells me that her self appointed task of setting the fire, and tending the blaze on this night always brings our father to mind. She says that she is certain, as at no other time, of his presence, that in the velvet shadow at her shoulder he is standing, clad in the old  overalls and the little blue cotton hat he wore for gardening, watching over her, watching over us all.

hummingbird

A vernal flush quickens the bright Autumn grass. Beneath the lichened, mossy boughs of the apple trees in my mother's garden, their fall cushioned by the lush verdure, lie the glowing fruits that this year we have not had opportunity to pick. In the blonde light of a balmy afternoon just past the Equinox, my mother and I stoop to the task of gathering the fallen harvest, filling tub and basket, trug and bucket, between us the easy conversation of those enjoying their labour and each other's company.

Unhurried, pausing often to point out to each other the tiny, delicate brown toadstools threading the  grass, we step from deep dewy shadow to brilliant glade, the low sunlight gilding the venerable old trees and touching my mother's silvery hair with fire. We speak of homely things, comparing recipes for apples baked with dried fruits of the vine, honey and bitter pungent peel, remarking on how many leaves there are yet to fall, reminiscing about past afternoons spent thus, all the while, the beneficient warmth of the late sun on our skin, the unspent dewfall glittering as though a bushel of diamonds had been cast across the lawns.

Something other than the little toadstools, the abundant fruit, the first fallen, papery leaves catches my attention, gives me pause to bend low to pick it up, and gasp with surprised pleasure at my find. It is a fragment of a garden ornament, fashioned from painted metal much weathered, but otherwise intact; a hummingbird of deepest emerald, tawny patina of rust marking the wingtips and long, tapered bill as though intended.

My mother is curious as to what it is that I have found, and I unfurl my fingers to show her the little bird in the palm of my hand, at pains to quell my desire to possess it. My barely supressed longing must have shown in my face, for my mother asks me as gently as though I were still a child, if I should like to keep it. Moved and tremulous, I breathlessly whisper my affirmation and thanks, thrilled by this unlooked for souvenir, unexpectedly gifted to me by the beloved garden and it's loving custodian.

I shall not forget that golden September afternoon, the sense of being infinitely priviledged in my companion and my surroundings, the bequeathed garden yet echoing to the presence of my father, as though my mother and myself were attended by his gentle spirit, and I have always, as precious and lovely keepsake, the hummingbird, talisman and charm against the day when my mother and the garden are no more.

the prayer

Deep in rural Gloucestershire, not far south of Cirencester, the tiny eight hundred year old church of All Saints, Shorncote is remote from it's village and reached only by a narrow country lane. Cool and quiet within, the simple interior is mostly unadorned except for an elaborately carved Royal coat of arms, and lit upon the fall of darkness solely by oil lamps mounted at intervals on the walls of the nave. Appreciative as I am of the humble grace and depthless silence of the building, it is, however, the unexpected paintings on the north walls of the chancel, and above the chancel arch that inspire within me much emotion and delighted surprise. They are mediaeval; according to the guide dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuaries, and depict a regular, repeating pattern of rectangles, as though a wall had been painted upon a wall, each rectangle containing a ruddy, daisy like flower. A substantial fragment remains, despite the destructive plaster and wash of later periods, enough to be able to imagine the appearance of the chancel when the paintings covered the walls in exultant glory, crisp edged, poppy bright, surprisingly contemporary for all their naive rendering.

Each time I behold ecclesiastical paintings from the mediaeval period, I am astonished by the fervour, candour and directness of communication with which they were made, and passionately regretful that they should often have been obliterated by succeeding generations of church authorities, even though my partner has explained to me that faith evolves like everything else, and that the paintings may perhaps have come to be held as inappropriate, irreverent, possibly even blasphemous, or simply outmoded; that other interests were at work. However, I remain profoundly moved by such intensely realised evocations of faith in a God seemingly often vengeful, capricious and unpredictable, a God meting out such extremes of destiny according to one's earthly deeds, and it appears to me to be an act of desecration to have destroyed these works of art and religiosity from an earlier, unimaginably different and difficult time.

I am thankful for the exuberance of the remaining mural at Shorncote; it implies a God less exacting, one exhibiting painstaking attention to the minutae of life on earth; the very flowers at our feet, a God extending a merciful hand to those labouring in their faith and fields, One who cared enough for His creation to gift the painter thus. I feel uplifted, light of heart, grateful to the unknown and unknowable artist, or artists, as close to prayer as I have been since childhood.

When I told my mother of our intended visit to this, and other churches, being unable to accompany us, she asked of me that I should indeed pray for her, and although I usually find it difficult, if not impossible, to participate in her child like faith, on this occasion, I felt honour bound, and able,  to comply with her simple, heartfelt request.

I respect my mother's strongly held, if somewhat unorthadox, Christian convictions, finding particularly touching her belief that instead of resurection to an Heavenly afterlife, she will return to the earth following her death in the form of a modest, wayside flower; a daisy, or buttercup perhaps, her scattered ashes having nourished the soil to give rise to new life. The elegant, ancient, eight petalled blooms painted in a once brilliant ocherous red on the otherwise naked lime washed walls of the little church call her vividly to mind. She would have loved their symmetry and simplicity, would, if she had been able to be with us, have understood the intensity of the celebratory piety that had originated them. It seems appropriate, therefore, to answer her plea whilst gazing on this frieze of flowers, to offer both thanks for the endeavour of the painter, whose work remains to enchant the eye and refresh the spirit, and the prayer for my mother, whose passion is for the Creator, her children and the garden she shared with my father.

Standing alone before the innocent blooms, for my partner is gone outside, I enjoin the Lord to keep my mother from harm, ask that she should have many more years in which to care for her beloved garden, years of health and plenty, that her own, tenderly nurtured plants should flourish each in their season, that she may eventually leave the life with which she is at present so fiercely engaged in painless slumber.

Days afterwards, whilst joyously picking blackberries from a roadside bramble, she lost her footing and fell heavily on her back to the ground, sorely bruising her ribs and spilling her patiently gathered fruits on the pavement. On learning of her misadventure during our evening telephone conversation, I am conscious of an acute sense of shock, a feeling of outrage that she should have been hurt, a swift chilling of the blood in my veins, unwillingly being brought once more to recognise that she is increasingly frail and unsteady, although she retains an indomitable independence of mind and spirit.

I do not share with her my uncomfortable conviction that the prayer I uttered on her behalf seems to have failed, to have missed it's mark, that perhaps, after all, it found no recipient, but had been merely a whisper unto empty air, a hope against hope, a child's exhortation to a child's God, a God who shields one's parents, siblings and friends for all eternity, watches over the defenceless, mends broken wings and restores vanquished life; a God of immeasurable tenderness. Perhaps a prayer from one unaccustomed to worship is indeed doomed to failure, however sincerely intended. I am cast irredeemably into doubt, my mind swept agonisingly by loneliness and fathomless despair, not only for my mother, but for  those whom I also love, for the tide of all living things condemmned to suffer and to perish. In my distress, I forget the celebration of material life and of the God who makes it so evinced by the painter of Shorncote, the implication of the rightful cycle of replacement upon replacement, of evolution and extinction which embodies the drama of wordly existence, the unaffected, passionate connection which my mother maintains with her garden and her God. Instead I find myself most painfully and deeply bewildered, as much a child in my bewilderment as when a child I prayed each night for the safekeeping of my mother and father, my sisters and friends, the flowers, trees and creatures of the earth, those of the air and waters.

I ask my sister why our mother had fallen. She answers, "Because life is random".