this is me my home my sea my song

The North Wind Blew South from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.


thank you keith loutit, thank you.

in which the fish is visited by the whole world.

painting


Even though I had much to be getting on with, I distracted myself last week with the writing of two stories. Just tidying them up a bit. Fixing their shape.
Sometimes things just form in your head and insist upon attention, until you give them some kind of form. Two stories they were, beginning wih a true event.

Each had reference to a faraway place: one was Maryland, a character had come from rural Maryland,
In the other, a large town in Lancashire was featured: Preston, its museum and railway station. Not random, but especially chosen. Everything I write about begins with a truth.


During that week, I stayed up late each night, writing my papers and marking student assessments. I am getting a little hysterical, realising that there is so much in my life to impinge upon any academic train of thought: and that I cannot preface things with excuses as to why I had so little time.


studio wall

As I sat up one night, a curious thing occurred: my friend Alice spoke of me on her blog, and made reference to one of my posts. As I sat up, it was like a flock of birds flew silently overhead. Alongside my regular friends came a silent constant stream of visitors, shadowy, but certainly present. Such an interesting phenomenon, since their ghostly presence was not apparent to anyone but me.


I watched as the British Isles paid me a visit. Bedfordshire, Sussex, Kent, London, York, Leeds. I watched the list grow: feeling strangely connected with these places, places of which I dream. As England went to bed, America woke up, and from all part came visitors, from California, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York.

The rest of the world joined in this steady flow: Nova Scotia, Tipperary Ireland, France, Japan, Hungary. I stayed up late, accompanied by this enormous silent flock passing, feeling a strange and comforting presence as their wings beat past me at my work, allowing my self a peek at the stats list every half hour or so.


A couple of these lovely birds stopped in and left a message.


One was from Preston, Lancashire. The other, Maryland. These were the two folks who left me a message. I am still marvelling at this wonderful, ephemeral synchronicity.


Thank You, Alice.


Now, since I have been displacing my real responsibilities, I am having a seizure. i have run out of runway and will need to spend the next 48 hours on some serious high powered writing. and not story writing, either.
kthnxbai

Two Fish: In Which The Fish Has Company

After a lifetime of rising at dawn
for solitary communion
with the sea and the sky and the other sea creatures

having company takes a little getting used to.

I really don't mind so much that my child has taken to tagging along:

It halves the chances of being eaten by a predator.

(not, of course, that the above creature is predatory in the slightest.)

fish music

It's unusually quiet, out here in the deep today. All I can hear is the sound of my own heart and the ocean breathing.




The chatter in my head has quietened, just for a moment. Other things float up: that quieter music.
I let the waves rock me, and realise
I will never, never, disentangle myself
from the long strings of melody, the arpeggios and trills,
that echo on, and sing to me your voice.





Like a note which resonates forever, I hear it.

Even here.
Even now.