A Path through Time

I love my little cat, Mishka, but he does have some rather disconcerting habits, not least of which is his love for chasing and sometimes catching mice and birds.  He doesn’t catch many birds, mostly mice and shrews, but occasionally I think he finds, rather than catches, baby birds that may have fallen out of their nests. He always brings me these trophies, either dead or half alive and leaves them under the table on the lawn for me to find.

Being of the Buddhist persuasion as regards living things, I am not very happy about this and always try to save the mice if I can. Some of them manage to scurry away, but I don’t know if they always survive.

So, when, one day in summer, I found two little balls of fluff lying under the table I was not only astonished but also appalled. When he had found these two baby birds or how he had carried them here I could not fathom, for they were quite large for chicks and at first I did not know what kind of birds they were. They had a lot of downy feathers, large black feet and long black beaks.

Pecky Ink pen and brush. Carole Day

One was already dead, but the other seemed ok except for a small bite mark on his side, so I took him aside and made a nest for him in a plastic tub with soft foamy padding. I put him in the summer house, where cats and foxes couldn’t get him. I gave him a dish of water and some mealworms and tried to feed him, without much success. I also found some small worms under flowerpots and put those in with him as well. Whenever I tried to feed him or give him water he just wanted to peck me instead; it didn’t hurt, just gentle pecks, he was a feisty little bird. So I named him Pecky. If it had not been during the pandemic lockdown I would have taken him to the Vet or Animal Hospital, but it was difficult at the time.

He survived the night and the next morning. I tried again to feed him and give him water, but he didn’t seem to want to eat. Instead he kept trying to stand on his little wings and pushed his head through my fingers.

It seems strange to suggest that in barely a day it is possible to become attached to a fellow creature, and yet I can truthfully say that I came to love that little bird, and although I did not expect him to survive I really wished he would. He survived that day but by the next morning he was dead. I decided to bury him in the garden. I dug a hole, put him in and covered the grave with some lovely chalk stones that I had gathered from the beach at Ramsgate for one of my sculpture projects.

I told my sister, Gill, all about it and my plans to buy a sculpture to mark his grave. She looked him up from my description and found that he was a baby pigeon, or Squab, and also found a lovely Pigeon birdbath, which I ordered the same day. I had taken a photograph of Pecky before he died and he was indeed a Squab, this made sense as there are many Wood Pigeons living around the garden.

The next day when I went to check Pecky’s grave I was horrified to find that the stones had been moved and his body was gone. Stupidly I had not buried him in a box, or deep enough. I was very upset, but on reflection I realised that the bodies of our loved ones all perish in one way or another and it is the our memory of them that is most important. I positioned the pigeon birdbath with pots of fuchsias behind where I could see it from the patio table, where I often sit in the summer.

Where the grave was I buried the photograph of Pecky and some seeds and mealworms for the journey. Just like my sweet dog and cats I will never forget him, but hold him safe in my heart.

One of the first cars my parents had was an old Morris Minor. It was small and black with running boards on each side to help you get in, and Daddy used to start it up with a crank at the front of the engine. He would park it in the driveway next to the little lawn in front of two bushy Mountain Ash trees with spikey leaves and loads of red berries in bunches.

One night I remember walking out into the front garden. The car was in the driveway and all was quiet and still. There weren’t many cars in those days.

I looked up into the sky, which was full of stars, all different colours: white, pink, shades of green and blue, it was very beautiful.

Starry Night 1 Ink pen and brush. Carole Day

When I look at the stars now they all seem to be white. Are the stars all white or are they all the colours of the rainbow?

Starry Night 2 Ink pen and brush. Carole Day

Perhaps it is only children who can see the colours of the stars.

If you had never lived. Felt tip pens and brush. Carole Day

Sometimes the things people say to you stay with you forever, and sometimes it is the most unexpected people who say them.
Simon was an art student I knew as a teenager, he lived in a barge on the river at Hampton Court, which I thought very bohemian. One day we went for a walk in the countryside nearby, strolling along a path bordered by grasses and trees in the sunshine, quite idyllic.
Out of the blue he asked “If you had never lived, would the world be the same , or would it be different?”
I said “Well, it would be the same”.
“No”, he said, “it would be different, because you wouldn’t be in it”.
Strangely, I was very young, this had not occurred to me before, but his words resonated with me and, I think, left a lasting impression on my life.
Of course, everything we do, even quite seemingly insignificant things, have an effect on something or someone. Just a moment in time, remembered forever.
Mrs. Farrow was my Maths teacher at primary school. I can’t remember why, but one day in the summer holidays after taking my eleven plus exam, Mrs. Farrow came to my home to talk to me about it. She said I had done well and would probably go on to study at university. And then she said something that I have remembered and reflected on my entire life.
She said “I didn’t get to university, but I went to Teacher Training school instead, and that is where I met Mr. Farrow.”
Love, it says, is all you really ever need.

Curious encounters in the garden

Dragonfly  Felt tip pens and brush. Carole Day

I often sit in the garden just listening to the birds and watching the butterflies, bees and various insects flying around.

One late afternoon, in the long shadows, a moment of peaceful Sattva, I experienced a strange and mesmerizing sight.

A dragonfly began circling in the dwindling sunlight. It flew around and around in ever decreasing circles, as if it was compelled to remain in the diminishing rays of the sun. It was so beautiful in its jewelled flight, until at last the sunlight disappeared and it flew away, as I watched in awe.

Wood Pigeons. Pencil. Carole Day.

The same afternoon I saw, high up on the branches of the Chestnut tree, a pair of wood pigeons, perched next to each other, and cooing passionately. It seemed to me that they were kissing as they crossed their beaks and caressed each other’s necks. So surprising, so beautiful.

Birthmark

Rose and Heart by Carole Day. Felt tip pens and brushes.

When I was born I had a bright red birthmark on my upper left arm. I don’t really remember it much, but my mother said that other children teased me about it when I was young and were unkind. My mother tried to get it removed, but the doctors said it would fade of its own accord over time, and if they injected it there would be a permanent scarring, like mottled skin, so she let it be.

One day, when we were living in Molesey, I was playing in the garden, I did so a lot, on my own, making up stories, talking to myself, and I pricked my arm, where the birthmark was, on a rose bush.  As the doctors had predicted the prick made a permanent scar of raised mottled skin. It was in the shape of a heart and I bear it to this day, I saw it as a kind of sign; I have always been in love with this beautiful world.

Walking out in the garden, aged about 4 probably, in the bright summer sunshine, on a lovely day, I remember thinking “everything is perfect now, but it never will be again.”

In a way I was right – I started school and things began to unravel; life, conscious life, began with all its nuances, disappointments, struggles, kindnesses, creativity and ultimately patience, endurance and love. It all depends on the path you take.