from the train window

birdsong, rabbits, early morning light

Recently, I have found myself taking the 6.30am train into a small town on the river Deben five times a week (for a typesetting job with an academic press). I arrive with time to spare before I’m expected in the office so I have taken to walking along the waterfront. I have become familiar with the birds feeding on the mudflats (and the seagulls squawking overhead), the houseboats and their names (one is called Hendrika, another Waterdog), the joggers and the old man who sits in the same corner of the same bench every morning. He has come to recognise me and my yellow coat with a degree of bemusement.

Sometimes the sounds by the river are so lovely that I’ll record them and send them to Sam (“the birds say hi”). I like hearing the changes with the weather – the shrill playfulness of the gulls balancing on channels of wind, or the sunshine so quiet you can hear the currents of the water trickling through the mud.

In the morning: a double rainbow out of the kitchen window whilst I made my coffee, to go. The inner rainbow was more pronounced, the outer more fleeting, as is always the way. The outer takes a certain degree of hope to see. The day before, I had come across this passage in Gilead by Marilynne Robinson:

The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of the morning. Light within light. […] It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within the great general light of existence. Or it seems like poetry within language. Perhaps wisdom within experience. Or marriage within friendship and love.¹

Light within light. This makes sense to me.

What follows are notes, mostly written on the train in a little red reporter’s notebook I bought on my second day from Ipswich station, about the things I’ve been noticing. I’d like to stay alive to the oddities within the repetition.

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Yesterday morning the sun came up differently – it announced itself more proudly. Today, the clouds obscured and cast a greyish haze over the fields. I almost didn’t notice the pigs, the same ones who practically glistened as they bathed in the light yesterday. Waking up at 5.30am is strange. I thought the mornings would be hard but they’re not; it’s the late afternoon crash plus headache that makes me despair. However tired I feel in the morning is cured the moment I see the rabbits in the park: especially the pair that play away from the group, one brown, one dark grey. They make me want to write about Sniff, about miracle-creatures and how they can change almost anything.

In the morning, I sat by the river. Seaweed, salt-water smell. My favourite practice of tracing the mud-patterns in my mind. Oystercatchers flew overhead and let out that shrill call of theirs. I hope I see a curlew there soon.

***

I saw the curlews yesterday and it was beautiful, even though I only had a brief moment with them. The sound of their beaks in the mud is so recognisable – a soft smattering. Like the mud itself is talking and beckoning the curlew in as a vessel to vocalise. I wonder what it’s like to be a bird, a feathered thing. Does a bird ever wonder what it’s like to be a worm?

Out of the window: a cow licking the head of its blue-grey calf. Earlier, a sheep was running around the corner of a hedge with her lamb beside her. It really is Spring, even though the clouds are somewhat betraying that notion currently.

There is a small shipyard next to the boat club in Woodbridge. It is cluttered – wooden walls, wooden-bellied boats, scattered tools. People are really working there too, it’s all very James Dodds. I’d like to photograph or paint it. Maybe, at some point, I’ll bring my polaroid camera and take a picture or two. I’ll have to overcome my shyness (isn’t that always the way?).

The man working at Stowmarket station, signalling for the train to leave the station, just had a real sailor’s face. A loneliness in his eyes; the rounded tip of his nose.

***

Beautiful sun and light this morning – but bike was cold and wet from last night. The mist was hanging several metres about the ground. Did it rise or never fall low enough to touch the earth? I think it’s beautiful, like anticipation.

This morning, cycling through the bunny-park, I was met with the very unexpected sight of a fun fair being set up in all its garish brightness. I almost crashed my bike as I averted my eyes from the rabbits and was met with towering metal and the face of a young woman plastered next to the words “Get Energized!!!”.

***

I admire the rabbits for their bravery amongst the new and strange metal beasts imposed on their home. They are playing – ducking in and out of secret spots – as usual. I spot my favourite, the odd-one-out, perched vigilantly by the spinning teacups.

I had a strange dream last night. I can’t remember the details but there were row boats and the crossing of railways and it left me unsettled. This is second time I’ve dreamt about railways since starting the job. Sam keeps dreaming about nuclear winter.

A man in the dewy field is walking his dog – a creature that would tower over him if stood on its hind legs. The dog strides ahead. This is a route they take often.

Stepped into the Ipswich station for my daily round of torture: i.e., looking at the headlines on various papers and despairing. Today the Daily Mail claimed “victory for women … and common sense!” as the UK supreme court makes one of the most heinous decisions it has in a while. The other papers were not much better; none were good. I almost burst into tears. Some days, I can’t see past the thicket of the feeling that we are all doomed. The world is burning; Bezos is sending celebrities into space (and calling it feminism), the law is in the pocket of the far right (and calling it feminism), Israel is bombing children in Palestine (and calling it feminism). Tomorrow is Good Friday and the fascists will celebrate and they will pretend to understand.

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Outside of Ipswich station, the buildings have thin stalks with fake birds attached to their tips. They’re light enough to sway and bounce in the wind – from a distance they’re very convincing. The seagulls (real, of flesh and bone and feather) are flying slightly further up, keeping a safe distance. I wonder what they think of their plastic counterparts, of the plastic mimicry.

***

On the cycle into work, through the tunnel and round the bend, the small body of a magpie lies dead on the ground. A bundle of flattened black and white feathers. Around us, the sun is bright and steadily crawling towards its position high in the sky. The grass smells of fresh manure and is glistening with remnants of morning dew. The day is beautiful, his body lies on the hard concrete, and all I can do is cycle by. I want to bury him, shroud him in a cloud. Sometimes, I wish I could pray and it be honest. How many more mornings must I cycle past this pair of broken wings? Will anyone move him to quieter ground or will we wait for the rain to wash away the traces?

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1. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (Virago, 2005), p. 136.