This will be…interesting. It look as if we coud actually be going back for Christmas this year.
I think I’m going to need to wear rather more layers than in either April or September. Right? ;)
Still…point is, that if you go live somewhere, you have to live with it all year round.
Someone else, as it happens, has expressed this far better than I could.
The poet Denise Levertov lived in Seattle for the latter part of her life. (She died there and was buried on top of the hill at Lake View. I saw her tombstone there and had to go away and look up who she was.) She was, however, born in Ilford, Essex, which is geographically as near London as makes no difference. I was born in Kent, which is culturally as near London as makes no difference, and the weather’s pretty similar. Consequently, I can see what she’s getting at in this poem.
Those last three lines particularly hit home.
Settling
I was welcomed here — clear gold
of late summer, of opening autumn,
the dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree,
the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow
tinted apricot as she looked west,
Tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun
forever rising and setting.
Now I am given
a taste of the grey foretold by all and sundry,
a grey both heavy and chill. I’ve boasted I would not care,
I’m London-born. And I won’t. I’ll dig in,
into my days, having come here to live, not to visit.
Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain’s vast presence, seen or unseen.
