The consolation of trees

I’m struggling to write. My anxiety levels have risen over the past two or three weeks and I’m headachey and jittery with a fizzing chest, shaky hands and that doomy feeling that anyone who has ever known chronic anxiety will recognise immediately. It’s been a while since this has happened, but it’s familiar and so I don’t segue into near-panic like I used to. I know what it is, I know it will pass, and I know I can handle it. But none of that stops it being damned unpleasant. I shall read and try to write and wait for it to recede, as I know it will.

So far I’ve started 5 or 6 new posts, but I can’t settle into anything. I’ve written a paragraph for several of them and then concentration has failed. I can write, there’s plenty of ideas, just nothing sustained. It’s frustrating and annoying and probably why I’ve resorted to writing about how I feel just to get some flow going, but as I’m feeling nothing very much except the physical symptoms described above I guess that this isn’t going to help. There….2 paragraphs. Yay!

I was meant to be visiting my sister this week but she rang on Monday morning to say she had Covid. Good job she rang early and I wasn’t already on the road for the 100 mile or so trip. I unpacked and put my stuff away, my husband drew a sigh of relief as he wasn't fancying the drive and anyway these days he hates sleeping away from home unless it’s for considerable cultural benefit such as holidays in Europe. Two nights with his sister-and-brother-in-law is fine, but so is not being able to go because, you know, Covid.

We were going to stay with her for a few days while we visit my brother who is fresh out of hospital following palliative treatment for late-stage prostate cancer. No warning, an episode of acute urinary retention followed by a bout of severe back pain and suddenly we’re all dealing with end of life thoughts. He’s 64. And my little brother. I guess this accounts partly for the anxiety. We’ll try again once my sis is negative. Life can be a bitch. My recent flirtation with Stoicism is fragile, but helpful sometimes. I dug out this school picture. I think it’s probably from 1965ish.

Yesterday’s thunderstorms and torrential rain has turned into a blustery, sunny day. It’s quite warm considering, a balmy 21 degrees C. We were both fairly tense about travelling and to take advantage of the unexpectedly free day we decided to dissipate some of the adrenaline with a walk followed by lunch out and so headed to our local Botanic gardens. Good green spaces are always calming and we are lucky to have lots of places nearby where we can be out of sight of roads and habitation. With the trees in full leaf the wind was coming through with a rustle and building to a roar as it swept up the valley. A few leaves have started to come down, but nothing very much yet, most are still firmly fixed in place, just changing colour. We sat on an isolated bench and looked out over stubble to hedges and fields beyond, the sky sharp blue, the clouds scudding along in that shape-shifting way that clouds have when it’s windy.

A small flock of little brown birds lifted and swooped, lifted and swooped across the ground before us, finches of some sort I guess, and in the middle distance a pair of buzzards flapped heavily up from the stubble and into the trees along the hedge line. At the ragged edge of the farmland in front of us a deep ditch marks the boundary of the arboretum parkland - an overgrown ha-ha full of bramble and nettle - both larval food plants of our more common butterflies. A couple of Red Admiral were jinking around and we thought we saw a Comma, but it may have been a tatty Small Tortoiseshell. Windy weather and butterflies don’t really go together. There seemed to be plenty of foliage for them to lay eggs on, but precious little nectar for them now.

We retraced our steps back through the stands of mature trees; beech at the top of the hill with their silvery-grey smooth trunks and thick, low branches; London plane in their camouflage patchy bark, one of them a huge mis-shapen trunk, looking for all the world like a sleeping Ent, just waiting for the call to arms. Further down the hill, my favourites, the big, old sweet chestnuts with glossy-fingered leaves, and covered with bunches of bright green, spiny-cased chestnuts. The trunks latticed with deep fissures, inviting hands to touch and trace the barky ridges and furrows around and as high as can be reached. Beautiful things. Not for them our little lives ‘rounded with a sleep’ but life counted in circles of hundreds of years, watchful and steady as our brief human lives flicker past.

Sleeping Ent photo©️junegirvin

Sweet chestnut photo©️junegirvin

There was holly and ivy too at the base of an oak, no berries ‘red as any blood’ but still a reminder of the changing season, growing together.

A quiet walk in nature worked a little magic and I came home calmer and more relaxed - at least for a while. I was able to pick up my knitting. I have a winter cardigan for my husband on the needles and I managed to do a few rows - that in itself is a useful marker that the anxiety is improved; I can’t settle to knit if I’m very anxious. The yarn, a mid-brown felted tweed, is warm and soft in my hands, encouraging a soothing few moments in my corner chair, slowly and methodically knitting and purling my way to a few inches of stocking stitch. I might get it finished in time for winter, after all.

I hope you’re well and calm at the moment. I’ll write again soon. x