up and down i'd see the river go - 02/27/25

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I first found chalk at the cliffs of Dover before struggling to understand why the water in my London flat felt so drying. It was limestone. Then I began to see it wash up on the shore of the Thames, rounded by the water's movement.

 

Up and down, I’d see the river go, starting at its highest, before emptying itself. I wondered if the moon might also be tugging at the blood in my body. I thought about the moored houseboats floating on the river, slowly descending, and finding resting points on the uneven beaches.

 

Here, again, I found the chalks and felt drawn to their light. Washing them, I immersed myself in the sensation of the running water. As they began to shine, I found that I could see more clearly. I’d carry them back and forth, arranging them on the studio floor, painting with them.

 

I’d listen to the dull, harmonic, thuds they made as they fell to the concrete.

 

I felt a kinship with these chalks and they led me on a pilgrimmage to find the lost graves of my Bedfordshire ancestors. There, I discovered how integrated they are to the regional landscape of southern England, but I never found the right head stones. Instead I found a church with stones too eroded and I walked country lanes where short-legged, deer watched me through farmer's hedges.

 

I saw gleaming, red pheasants in the brush, looking over shoulders, and I met Sarah and Steve in a cabbage patch near Whipsnade. I saw myself more clearly as I met my anxiety in the dark, walking alone, amidst stacked hay bales.

 

They've led me to places I couldn't have imagined. So who was carrying who, I wonder? Me, the stone, or was it the stone, me?​