ARRIVAL

This is a piece that I have waited around 30 years to write. It is slighter that I'd always imagined it to be, but I'm glad to have gotten it down. Perhaps I will revisit and expand it one day.

 20 July 1991. The sunlight came slanting through the chink in the curtains at just around 6 in the morning, the summer balminess already being felt in the bedroom. I had slept the sleep of the just, after our house move the previous day and a nightime unpunctuated by traffic noise from any adjoining road.

The morning disturbance here was new to my ears; the sound of the dawn chorus and the baaing of sheep in the farm field behind us. It had taken me nearly 40 years to escape the hubbub of London where I’d been brought up. But home, now, was a place on the edge of the Hertfordshire countryside, the number of trees outnumbering the cars and the people.

As I lay, feeling the sun’s rays on my face, I thought back to my upbringing on several East London council estates. The multi-storey blocks and maisonettes were still imprinted on my mind. They seemed fine then, even fun to play around when I was a kid. But I’d always enjoyed those holidays and days out in more pastoral locales and, as I grew up, I knew that I wanted something different from those noisy and litter-strewn streets of my childhood.

I eased myself out from under the light sheet covering me and opened the curtains, the sun’s full rays wrapping me in a warm embrace.  I looked out over our new garden, our own little bit of rural England, to the fields of Cross Farm beyond. And there were our new noisy neighbours; the sheep and the horses in the nearby paddocks.

In our garden, in a patch of shade under one of our newly inherited trees, lay a female blackbird seeming to share my joy in this new summer’s day. As she looked up at me, unafraid, she seemed the embodiment of the peace that I had been seeking all those years. This East End boy had finally made good.

As I write this, close to thirty years later, I am gazing out into that same garden, and this time, it is a robin that is staring back at me. And he helps me to bring back the wonder of that first morning and my arrival at the kind of place I’d always dreamed about. My own home sweet home.  

Reviews

[Miss Sharon]

This is so beautifully written with vivid descriptive wording. A joy to read. Sharon

[Les]

Thank you Sharon. It was an idea I carried around, literally for years, before I actually set it down. I'm glad you think it was worth the effort.

[barleygirl]

I've never read anything so lyrical when describing one's living locale! I am lucky to have lived mostly in the country, so I am highly connected to the various sights & sounds of my own wilderness paradise here. It's fun to find out how such a scene is different in your neck of the woods, on your side of the pond! Thank you for sharing such perfect details & good luck with expanding this someday -- altho I don't think it's necessary -- lots of online readers have short attention spans, so this is a perfect length for a descriptive vignette! (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Les]

Thanks Margie, I've been pretty impressed with your Big Sur locale. I've been to the US a number of times but have never made Cali. Perhaps one day.

[Rebecca]

Very lyrical and poetic. Definitely feels like the prologue or introduction to a great novel. Some grammer mistakes but that could have been on purpose.

The first paragraph: " 20 July 1991. The sunlight came slanting through the chink in the curtains at just around 6 in the morning, the summer balminess already being felt in the bedroom"...this start makes me think a long story is going to be told, partially because of the date written down, also because of the long description.

This: "But home, now, was a place on the edge of the Hertfordshire countryside, the number of trees outnumbering the cars and the people." could be this: "But home now was a place on the edge of the Hertfordshire countryside, the number of trees outnumbering cars and people." It's easier to read that way and sounds better. Just my opinion though.

"The multi-storey blocks " should be "the multi-story blocks"

Paragraph 3 suggests you are going to write about your or the narrator's childhood.

"As I write this, close to thirty years later, "...this suggests a story filled with 30 years of narrative. This feels like just the beginning, with potential but can be immersed with more metaphors and better writing. That saying, good story.

[Les]

Thank you for your honest critique Rebecca. I take your point about the ordering of para 2 and it's always good to get a reader's perspective. I did check the spelling of "storey" and, at least in the UK anyway, it's correct. But I'm grateful for your attention to detail.

[Rebecca]

oh I see. didn't know it was spelled differently there. your welcome