It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come. It was on the spur of the moment, an hour before dawn, just time to drive back to that hill I used to visit over 50 years ago, looking for something, some inspiration or insight, some resolution to the unformulated questions of my lonely confused youth.
Dawn is so magical. It arrives so quietly, without a fuss, the lights gradually coming on.
Dunstable Downs
But there’s nothing here, and there never was. It’s a sad place, empty of life, of excitement, of desire, abandoned, left behind. It’s where nobody wants to be, unless they just want to hide. Safe, wholesome, England, with its deciduous trees and rolling hills, endless childhoods spent playing on the downs. The English countryside of Adam Bede, the dutiful life, the sexless Methodists, the repressed conventions. Until, of course, the young woman arrives, the exciting object, intoxicating.
07:41. I leave at dawn.
Car headlines on a distant hill. Watching the road that descends over the lake, waiting for the lights of the mini returning from London… until one day it didn’t. I wasn’t the exciting object for long, perhaps a few months.
Solitary isn’t OK out here. Solitary is OK in a city, in a pub or restaurant or cafe, in a cinema or theatre or concert hall. Out of hours, out of season is best. A newspaper or book for company. Or gazing out the window at the river, or writing notes in a Moleskine, taking a photograph.
Solitary is OK (just OK or more that OK?). Company can be better. Company can definitely be worse. And solitary is not the same as loneliness, missing, wanting company. Loneliness is desperate, missing one’s self.
07:55. Dawn. Heading back.