… a note on discernment …

I sat down to write this morning. Perhaps it is these unfamiliar surrounds–strange to be writing in a retirement village; where the weather has lifted, an atmospheric river disgorging its flow last night, and the sound of it, despite the insulation, the double-glazing, the general sense of separation from outside, still overwhelming; where I am not resident but visiting, tonight and tomorrow; I got up early walked in fine drizzle to its outer edge, the main road of Kerikeri, the one that goes down to the Stone Store and Kemp House, the mission house, dating from 1821-2, New Zealand’s oldest standing building this site states, the mission founded under the protection of Hongi Hika, who might have something to say about it being the oldest standing building; I saw in a large glass-fronted hall women gathered having an early morning meeting, an electric heater, faux fireplace, blazing, not for warmth: it’s 18 degrees; it’s the northerly that’s brought the weather. Perhaps the way I left that sentence hanging before yesterday morning put me off, about real actions in contrast to virtual ones and affection in contrast to perception. I continued writing then backtracked, inserted an ellipsis, corrected some inconsistencies, small points but worthwhile.

The impulse in the line had ceased, so I followed it no further.

At Nicaea, on Lake Ascania, Ἀσκανία in Byzantium, now Iznik and İznik Gölü, in Turkish, John Ash writes:

Sky and lake waters were equally pale and opalescent, and I looked for a long time trying to discern the line at which they met.

I have his book with me, A Byzantine Journey, 1995. When I read this line I thought of Ash looking for a long time and I felt a kind of anguish, or grief, about looking, a nostalgia for the present, when we would look for a long time, for that long time the present might have been.

Today, in a different mood, it reminds me of some lines by Matthew Houck, who writes as Phosphorescent, from a song,

here are the lyrics:

I wrote all night
Like the fire of my words
Could burn a hole up to heaven
I don’t write all night burning holes
Up to heaven no more

I stood out in the rain
Like the rain might come
And wash my eyes clean
I don’t stand out in the rain
To have my eyes washed clean no more

C’est la vie she says
But I don’t know what she means
I say “Love, easy, hey come to me”
C’est la vie she says
But I don’t know what that means
I say alright, well
C’est la vie

I stood out in the night
In an empty field and I called your name
I don’t stand out all night in empty fields
And call your name no more

I waited for days
For your voice to answer to me
I don’t wait up for days
For your voice to answer to me no more

C’est la vie they say
But I don’t know what they mean
I say love’s easy if you let it be
C’est la vie they say
But I don’t know what that means
I say alright, well
C’est la vie
I say alright, honey
C’est la vie
Ain’t that just how it goes, honey
C’est la vie

John Ash writes, and this also seems appropriate, “The Emperor Alexius I Comnenus was a master of psychology and political theatre.”  … on page 41, the page after the lakeside quote.