Dersu Uzala

There is brainsteam (imaginary, vivid as a scald) hissing from my ears: sign of a fine writing binge: also indicates an apt time for a break, before reality is hazed out.

Dog is pacing. She has fulfilled her sofa sleep quota.

'Walk?'

I have asked the right question.

The lanes splash blossom; creamy foamy Cow Parsley umbrels of blossom. Blue and white and pink and yellow shine below: bells, worts, orchids, cups. Split tailed summer birds dive and the cows are sun bathing, between bouts of warm heavy rain.

All day it fast switches: rain, sun, both full. The rainbows are thick with colour.

Back in the little office room, words arrive and are typed down. Between words, weeding and watering and the planting-on is done. And de-slugging and the whipping here and there of wet washing. Hedge birds sing, just of ordinary things. Dog follows, puts her nose over the grass: all seems well. All the windows and doors are open to the scents of rain and bluebells.

In the evening, the film, the one in the envelope that has been waiting for one week: two: more? Finally gets watched.

Do you know the story? There is more than one story: there is the hunter, Dersu Uzala, who lived and died in the forest, where he truly belonged; who could be always busy and always calm; there is the director, Akira Kurosawa, who signed to make this film the year after his failed suicide. He had thought his art denied to him after a commercial failure cost him his financial support.

The whole thing, in short (because as this is written it is late and eyes are sloping) fugues: here I am, tiny, happy in nature, nervous of the future: there is Dersu, connected, compassionate, total in his faith, for whom the forest will provide: there is Kurosawa, who summoned death in fear and still progressed.

It feels that so much of our selves is put into these projects; in words, in garden plans, in deeds of shed builds and earth dug, in dedicated hours; and yet it can all be taken away. We are deeply attached: a terrible void would occur. This is the source of my fear. But we will know what we are capable of, and those hours would never have been wasted. That dedication is its own reward, it builds its own path: and that is the way I will go.