The thinking about these two posts, this one and the last one about playlists, began in a mild but definitely there kind of depression. Never being one for being happy all the time, a feeling of what’s the use and whether I should bother writing them had settled on me. But similar to the playlists one, where getting the Autumn music itself ready to share had lifted my mood, here time at the allotment did the same sort of job.
I’d walked over there reluctantly early on Sunday morning, knowing the place would need its regular strimming and cutting back and wanting to get the work over and done before the expected rain, but also before having to make any kinds of conversation with the expected Sunday people. Which I did, the work that is, in an hour or so of silent occupation. Then, as it still wasn’t raining and as I was still on my own, I sat down to drink the coffee I’d brought, looked around me, and wrote this appreciation:
It will be better next year
Better planned, more structure, more colours
When I don’t get injured like this one
And miss all the Winter reconstruction months.
It will be better.
And yet
“Look”
I sit here and say to myself as the Summer ends
”Isn’t this enough?
This ragged beauty
These plots of Liverpool earth.
Isn’t this enough?”
“This close to home”
“This close the the city”
“This version of Heaven”
“Isn’t this enough?
Yes, more than
More than enough
Is this ragged beauty.
Then I walked home, filled with enough.
Possibly my favourite post ever.
It is enough. Your allotment is beautiful. I've long since realised utopia is not about perfection but about learning to love what we've got and living better.