A week since I last wrote here. I’ve missed it; I’ve been wanting – needing – to get back to the View almost daily. It seems that writing here does need to happen in the early morning, before the day starts. And there have been no really early mornings for a while. B has woken early several times this week – before me – and we’ve got up together, after a leisurely read and in my case, a cup of tea. It’s been nice; we are spending so much more time together since arriving here and it’s lovely. But I’ve missed these interludes.
Earlier this week we finally got a landline and the internet. The good news in this regard is that the internet speed is fine, much better than B had feared. The less good news is that much as I want the internet here, our two weeks without it on tap had woven a spell, and now the scales have been torn from my eyes. On the evening that we went back online I felt overwhelmed – assaulted by the flood of information and contact with the world. Our bubble had been burst with a bang; it was visceral and it was painful. I posted a photo on Facebook and online responses came flying in. A friend from work called me – now she could see we were ‘back onstream’. The world came crashing in on our idyllic rural retreat, our isolated togetherness, and it left me reeling.
Of course it’s wonderful to have immediate contact with friends and family and to be able to access information whenever I need it, but the impact on my head is evident. My peace and tranquility splintered. Now, several days into our return to the world-wide-web, I have concluded that I want to restrict my use of it in several ways. Firstly, I shall access it much less often and set myself specific time slots, rather than drift back to it regularly throughout the day. Secondly, I want to set aside days each week when I don’t use it at all. And lastly, I no longer want to use time idly browsing or trying frantically to keep up with the mass of emails I’ve subscribed to and the websites I used to frequent. I’ve wanted to make these changes for years. I want to be properly in the real world: in this world, and less in the virtual world. Now I have the motivation to do so. The view from here is clean and simple, real, mindful, and very much in the present.
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Last Saturday seems so long ago. What a peculiar and slippery creature Time is: flying past often, and occasionally dragging its feet. Events from the past can seem like they happened just yesterday; anticipated events can take forever to arrive. Look ahead twenty years and it seems like no time at all. Look back twenty years and it’s a lifetime ago. And none of us know how much time we have. Here, the days pass softly and slowly, filled with little things: the minutiae of everyday life. Here, I feel we live more in the present than ever before. And that is how I want life to be. None of us know how much time we have and how quickly life may change. We need to absorb every moment here and extract all it can offer us by simply being present to it. When I am in the moment in this way, I have no option but to be aware of my happiness, my joy, my immense good fortune and my intense gratitude.
A Corner of Cornwall 