snowboarding

Hard Frost

Frost called to the water Halt

And crushed the moist snow with sparkling salt;

Brooks, their own bridges, stop,

And icicles in long stalactites drop.

And tench in water-holes 

Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls.

In the hard rutted lane

At every footstep breaks a brittle pane

And tinkling trees ice-bound,

Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground;

Dead boughs take root in ponds

And ferns in windows shoot their ghostly fronds.

. . .

Andrew Young

the temperatures went down, 

and covered the land with snow.

finlay and i suddenly said: "lets go snowboarding!"

finlay had picked up a second-hand snowboard for a reasonable price.

first we showed it to the motorists, thinking that the winter sports enthusiasts would see it and pick us up, then we hid it from the motorists, thinking that thus those with small cars wouldn't be put off by its bulkiness.   the young woman who took us to glenmore lodge told us about a good place to practise - the hayfield.  it was a field with a small slope covered with snow that had been compacted by countless sledge runs.  we arrived late in the afternoon and found the place teeming with sledgers - mostly young families and many of them polish.  finlay recognised all the polish voices and i also registered a few spanish voices.  the air was filled with thrilled laughter and whoops of excitement, the whoops not specific to any language. the excited polish chatter of one young girl was broken by her warcry: snowball fight! - recently learned in a scottish school playground, i surmised.  there was a lot of snow around and not a breath of wind - so unusual for scotland.  the beautiful weather had enticed everybody to get out and enjoy the snow that weekend. it was very exciting.  finlay and i took it in turns to strap our boots into the snowboard bindings and "shred the slope"  

"men, lets shred this slope!" was the phrase we often used but in fact what we did was stand up cautiously and concentrate savagely on maintaining our balance as the snowboard slid down the slight incline.  despite it being only a small hill, it provided us with our first magical feeling of sliding over snow.  it made so much an of impression on me that as i was going to sleep that night it still felt as if i was sliding over snow.

the next day we didn't even deign to look out at the hayfield as we got a lift up to the cairngorm ski centre.  our sights were set on bigger slopes.  finlay was much pleased to find the snow deep and just the right consistency - compact enough to allow the snowboard to skim blithely across the surface, while being soft enough for the board to cut into the snow, allowing us to practise board manoeuvring and speed control.  also soft enough for us not to hurt ourselves as we fell over - which we often did.  even at speed the silky soft snow accommodated our flailing bodies and cradled us luxuriously.   beautiful wondrous snow!   one of us always waited with the rucksacks while the other one trudged high up the slope, snowboard tucked under arm then after a while came sliding down maybe cautiously and punctuated by falling over or maybe whizzing and whooping with delight while being carried smoothly quite a long way down the slope.   men, it got under our skin.  we couldn't stop saying things in a new zealand eccent.

at night we returned to nearby ryvoan bothy.  as we entered the first night we were greeted by the sight of two recumbent bodies, cocooned in their sleeping bags.  although night had not long fallen - it was six o'clock or so - the two other bothy occupants had already turned in for the night.  finlay was disinclined to speak any language other than english, saying that it was impolite to speak in a tongue unknown to all of those present, for they may feel that things are being said about them.

¿pero qué importa si estan durmiendo? - i said - ¿y como sabes que no hablan español?  a lo mejor éste - que parece estar durmiendo - nos esta escuchando cada palabra y nos entiende perfectamente porque tiene una segunda casa cerca de malaga y desde hace años pasa sus vacaciones ahi . . .

we went back to speaking in our new zealand accents, speaking in low tones.  we played a game of chess by the fire, and later also a round of five hundred, in hommage to antipodean habits. finlay bedded down, but i just couldn't get to sleep.  it wasn't a bad night to be struck with insomnia for the moon had gone down early and left a huge starry dome pulsating with unusual energy.  could this be what they call the northern lights?  finlay went out to have a look and came back saying "well, it certainly is very starry, but i don't think its the northern lights."  i put on all my layers and stood outside for a long time.  i can't remember the last time i saw the stars twinkling so vivaciously.  they were so alive!   the whole sky was alive, awash with pulsating stars.  each star had its own twinkling rhythm, obeyed its own inner light pulsation.  the overall effect was a shifting shining sky of immense effulgence.  back inside, i got the fire going and, even though it was the middle of the night, it seemed the right moment to cook our vegetarian haggis.  we did this by boiling it in the bag, the way i remember my mother doing it in earlier years.  just as finlay and i had begun tucking in, one of the other bothy users' alarm went off.   it was ian - a student from stirling university who had an ambitious day's snow-tramping ahead of him. he hoped to make the summit of braeriach and be down in aviemore in time to get the evening train.  finlay and i were eating, making appreciative mmmmm, its so tasty noises.  we asked ian if he wanted to try some, but he said, with a little chuckle, nah, not this early.  it was five am.

the last verse of andrew young's poem is the verse my dad likes the best because of its theme of hope:

But vainly the fierce frost

Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host,

Hangs daggers from house-eaves

And on the windows ferny ambush weaves;

In the long war grown warmer

The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour.

corsica and happy

"quelle aventure!" were the first words solange purred as i entered the car and i never stopped loving her french accent.  what an adventure (life!): what a memorable way to begin communicating, looking back on it now.  david hardly spoke at all during that first car ride.  he sat in the front next to solange while she told me about how tired david was after a day cutting down a big tree in somebody's garden, going up with ropes and everything.

"david ne croit à rien," was a comment she made later, after telling me about her daily buddhist practise of chanting nam myoho renge kyo, desiring the end of everybody's suffering.

that night i was looking for an internet place to book a ferry off corsica.  i was half-hoping david and solange might invite me to use internet back at their place, in view of the ease of communication and the flow of easy feelings with solange and the happy wide smile david had given me when i climbed out of their car at ajaccio.  "that smile was his only real act of communication with me." i would later say to solange, "but it was a significant one."

"j'espérais en partie," i later told solange, "mais je savais que je ne pouvais pas demander.  je suppose qu'on pourrait; mais je préfère laisser que ça vient de soi"

i walked into the centre of ajaccio, feeling a sort of confused horror at the welter of cars and bright city lights, after having spent a week amid the snowiness and deep peace of the mountains.  it was a couple of weeks before christmas, and the shops were streaming. "why do all these people choose to drive everywhere and buy everywhere," i thought, as i navigated the horrid stressful streets, "when they could just sit and watch the sunset instead?"

they could just sit and watch the sunset.

it was like balm to my soul to reach the beach that stretches north for miles, to look back and see ajaccio become a long far-off dimly-remembered strip of lights reflected off a sea that was very calm that night.  i love to walk along a beach at any time of day or night, even if i have a heavy rucksack full of food that i found and chestnuts that i gathered and especially if i have barefeet.  i had slept on this beach before, and i knew there was a quiet place near the village of porticcio where there was lots of wood where i could make a fire.

the next day, after walking for an hour back along the beach, i had been standing thumbing a lift for maybe a minute when a car pulled in.

bonjour . . . 

tu te souviens de moi?

eu. . . ah, oui!  j'ai hésité, c'était peut-être à cause des lunettes de soleil. . .

c'était solange:  tout de suite après que tu es parti david m'a demandé: mais pourquoi tu ne lui as pas invité chez nous?   oooo la la, j'ai passé toute la nuit en le regrettant.  ce matin je me suis dit: bon je ferai un tour par ajaccio juste pour voir si par hasard je te retrouve.

- et me voici que je n'attendais qu'une minute ici.  c'est remarquable quand même l'hasard que a voulu que nous nous revoyons.

c'était une bénédiction.  c'était un beau dérnier rencontre avant de quitter la corse.  après solange m'a donné la téléphone pour appeler corsica ferries pour les dire que je voulais diférrer mon billet - si récemment acheté - de deux jours.  comme ça tu peux te réposer, aller sur l'internet autant que tu veux, prendre une douche, profiter encore un peu du soleil de la méditerranée.

happy était leur chien que ne faisait assez d'exercise. il était assez gros. "c'est terrible;" a dit solange, "il ne fait que manger."  il ne me fallait plus d'excuse pour sortir nous promener.  nous suivions le littoral du promontoire ou david et solange habitaient.  il était assez sauvage, et terriblement beau.  nous crapahutions lentement dans les rochers.  à un moment j'ai vu qu'il serait plus facile de traverser un bras de mer à la nage; mais l'eau était déjà trop froide pour happy.  il a préféré suivre son chemin sur les rochers.  c'est incroyable à quel point un chien te suit partout.  il n'est pas un être libre dans le sens indépendent.  c'est une drôle de relation.  l'humain est le maître alors que le chien lui est asservi.  quand moi je suis resté assis sur un rocher pour regarder les derniers rayons de soleil qui nageaient dans une mer de nuages, happy aussi est resté assis à côté de moi à regarder la mer.  on a passé un bon moment ainsi.  et dès que je me suis levé, happy aussi s'est levé.  on a couru, en suivant une route jusqu'à une vieille tour.  elle était ronde, et construite avec des grosses pierres qui me donnaient des prises excellentes pour escalader et entrer par un fenêtre en haut.  à l'intéreur il y avait une vieille bouteille de vin et d'autres signes d'une habitation irrégulière.  j'ai passé un bon moment à regarder encore le coucher de soleil d'en haut.  quand je suis redescendu, happy était toujours là à me regarder fidèlement, en remuant la queue, le chien éternellement fidèle.


the next day solange offered to drive me south a couple of hours to a cave where i had stashed some belongings, including a collection of a hundred brand new jazz cds i had found in the public wheelie bin outside the spar in pianottoli.  "c'est quoi ce délire?" i said when i found them.  "ben, non.      franchement; je ne peux pas permettre qu'ils restent là, que personne n'écoute ça."  they were all still wrapped in cellophane.  the collection was entitled les génies du jazz.  everyone was there: herbie hancock, john coltrane, ben webster, django reinhardt - everyone, including a whole host of names i hadn't heard before.  the covers on the cds showed photos of them: young american negroes grinning or holding melancholically a trumpet or a saxophone.

obviously rubbish bins normally contain precisely that - rubbish, but i have got into the habit of slyly having a wee peek, a wee rummage - especially if nobody is looking! - and sometimes am surprised by what good things the people throw out.  in corsica it was items of clothing that caught my attention, or warm blankets, or books.  those jazz cds, however, were a rare find.

"il ne te fallait pas m'amener ici." j'ai dit à solange, "j'aurais pu faire cette route en stop.  tu sais, pour moi faire du stop c'est du plaisir.  jamais on sait quels beaux rencontres nous attendent," je lui ai dit, en lui adressant un sourire entendu.

"mais ça fait du plaisir à moi aussi," elle a dit; "de faire un petit tour et connaître cette belle grotte."  solange avait apporté son caméra et a pris une photo de la grotte.
"après je te l'envoie; comme ça tu auras des souvenirs"

c'est vraiment une grotte magnifique.  je l'avait habitée pendant quelques semaines.  quand il y avait de la pluie j'étais tout à fait à l'abri.  il y avait plein de bon bois autour pour faire un feu.  il y avait une énérgie tout douce qui dégagaient les rochers.  ils sont très vieux,  ils sont recouverts de une mousse luxuriante.  on dirait qu'ils dégagent une sagesse.  du moins une paix immense.

et pourquoi ne reste-je ici?  je me suis mis à questionner.

mais qu'est-ce que c'est beau ici

mais j'avait déjà pris le billet de bateau et la décision de retourner en écosse pour passer noel avec ma famille.  oui, d'accord, être dans le soleil et entouré de la beauté naturelle - c'est bon.  c'est beau.  c'est important.  mais être parmi les gens parmi lesquelles il coule de l'amour - cela est encore plus important.