On a hill outside my village

A church spire rises, quite auspiciously if I do say so, from the fields where cows graze and swans idle about in the fresh, spring-fed grasses that coat the side of a hill outside my village, which we call Tully. Tully is quiet in the evenings and only perks up around brunch-time when elderly womenfolk mull about in the antiquaries looking for bobbles to collect and show to their friends when they have each other over for tea a mere few hours later, which once again clears the alleyways and storefronts of everything but perhaps the occasional sparrow, come to pick up a morsel from in front of the bakery. It is rather splendid since every evening I am out to a walk with my dog, named Brandis, a Staffordshire if he ever was one, who prefers his half of the sidewalk to himself, which creates difficulty with passersby, especially such collectors, rather antique themselves and quite prone to a tumble, walking down the path in front of us. More than a few times has Brandis demanded, in that dreadfully impersonal manner of his, that he have the right to his space by lumbering straight through those rickety wickets and seeing which of the old towers would send its bricks crumbling to the earth, scattering ceramic thimbles and painted glass across the cobblestones, which he then dismisses entirely on his way out of town and leaves me to help the poor lasses awkwardly resituate their stretched and sweat-stained girdles.

But, I tell you, once I hear the gravel crunch underneath my walking loafers along the path that leads to the grass-covered hill outside my village, feel the wind press the sleeves of my walking jacket against my arms, and smell the strangely pleasant aroma of algal blooms in the pond that always reflects the sunset back into one’s eyes at precisely the right angle, it is as if no village had ever existed. That’s where we, Brandis and I, search for ourselves I suppose you could say, in the sense that upon our return to town we are left with fewer voids of spirit than we set out with; fewer gaps in our understanding of life’s varying and often contradictory meanings.

It’s usually not long before our legs, two of mine and four of his, carry us out far beyond the quiet murmurings of Tully in the evening, where cows graze and swans idle about in the fields surrounding the church spire that was erected atop the hill just as bedrock erupts from an upturned mountainside, firing its pinnacle out against the force of gravity until it eventually diminishes into a single point and disappears.  It is the only beacon of civilization other than the occasional wooden barn half-hidden by overgrown grasses for many miles in any direction, which is where I tend to pause before corralling Brandis to politely coax him back towards town, although I can’t say I’ve ever been inside since it is perpetually surrounded by towers of aluminum scaffolding. I’ve never heard or seen any indication of labor. I suppose it’s actually quite symbolic of the faith: always under reconstruction, but never being able to appreciate what’s already been done, which led me to think that I’ll never quite understand, even now in my well-ripened age, all those so eager to pass over into eternity, when life is so inexorably finite.

On the walk back, which always takes longer given that neither of us particularly enjoy returning to the organized rows of streets and houses, I could sense that Brandis and I were thinking the same thing, which is hardly a rare occurrence after so many years spent side by side; it was also indicated by the fact that we both turned in unison towards the church spire as the sun set over the pond, hitting our eyes at precisely the right angle but also striking the spire in a way that neither of us had ever seen before. Despite its unnatural presence amidst the serenity of an undisturbed countryside, despite the unsightly racks surrounding its shape like a hollow skeleton, the spire shone in the gold light as if the Almighty were shining it with a heavenly torch. Brandis and I both peered longingly at its sudden and quite unexpected beauty, which immediately confused many of our notions of life’s varying and often contradictory meanings.

Brandis, with that impersonal manner of his, looked up at me with eyes that I have always understood but with an expression that for the first time since we were brought together I didn’t recognize as we stood amidst the transition between day and night, the pond reflecting the light up into my eyes at an angle suddenly askew and distracting, the breeze quiet and the air void of any fragrance. For the first time we seemed to be thinking differently, no longer in tune with each other, playing in different keys of thought. I might as well be a collector of bobbles, a member of the congregation, I thought, contemplating the possibility that I had never been right, that I was wrong in every conception.

But just then, the breeze picked up, carrying with it the smell of the pond and redirecting the light to its proper angle of reflection and I looked down at Brandis, once again understanding what his eyes were telling me, all along.

“We’re the only ones –“ who get to see this, I finished for him. And as always, Brandis was right.

That night we didn’t arrive in Tully until well after darkness had claimed the sky and the tea my wife left on the table for me had long since turned cold.