Tag Archives: Fields of Gold

Four rather solid excuses for not blogging

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

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I know. I have some explaining to do. And I really don’t even have a good reason for my absence of over a month.

There I was back in August, cranking out some of my best writing—and I even managed to get Freshly Pressed—and what do I do?

I drop off the face of the planet.

It was a year to the date of blogging where I posted every week (in fact, I have two blogs–this one and Accidental Birder, so that means sometimes I was posting twice weekly), and I totally up and stopped. (screeching car sound)

The husb, Steve, calls it my blogcation.

Maybe.

The “Why”

Here are four possible theories on why I didn’t blog for over a month:

Sometimes writing is scary. My last two blog posts (It’s About Travel, Saying I Love You and Death and Channeling Sting’s Fields of Gold) were, I have to say, some of my better pieces of writing and for me, was a little (how shall I say?) revealing. Writing with that kind of honesty is new to me and I learned that it’s quite difficult to do. I felt a little weird like I did in Junior High School drama class when I had to get up on stage and act. It’s emotional and you have to do it in front of people. I dropped out of drama class on day 3, by the way.

My husband lives in Canada. I betcha didn’t know that. My husband’s business, which he just started, is in oil and the oil is in Calgary, Alberta. My career right now is taking place at a Fortune 100 Company in the U.S. For now, the right thing is to hang on to my job here in the U.S. until my husband’s company gets some legs. So, yes, we have a commuting marriage and it’s a little sad that I won’t see him as often. Alas, my muse is in Canada.

(Plus, he did the dishes a lot and cleaned the house and I’m doing all that stuff now. I won’t lie. I’m not good at all that. Did Hemmingway or Faulkner have to do the dishes? I doubt it. I learned this weekend from a friend that Proust sat around in his bed for years as he wrote. How come I can’t do that?)

Distraction #1: I’ve been redecorating. I’m queen of being distracted and there’s no better distraction for me than to shop. Since it’s just me and the cat puttering around the house I decided to get new furniture. It started with needing a new couch. The fabric just gave up after 12 years and all those worn out holes made me feel like I was living in a third world country. (I’m also queen of over stating things.) But the couch led to a chair and another chair and a coffee table, console table, lamp table and of course then a new lamp.

“What recession?” she says.

Behold! The new furniture

Check out those awesome candlesticks!

All this redecorating hardly helps me feel like Walt Whitman or Henry David Thoreau. (Though, maybe more like Proust now.)

Distraction #2: I’m up to my eyeballs in digitization. I came home from work late August and there was a big box waiting on my porch. I thought it was a birthday present. (My birthday’s in August. What, you forgot?) I tore it open and it wasn’t a birthday present. Instead, what I found was a box full of hundreds of slides and an unopened slide transfer machine I bought my mom for Christmas from Brookstone almost two years ago. My mom never got around to transferring the slides to digital so I just gave her a heavy sigh one day over the phone and said, “Just send it all to me and I’ll do it.” That was over six months ago. I have to be honest, it’s been one of the funnest things I’ve done and as I was posting them on my family’s private Facebook page this past month, my brother and sisters and my mom were all having a blast commenting and sharing stories. It was better than birthday and Christmas combined for me!

One of my favorite photos I transferred. That’s me, my older sister and my mom at Grand Teton National Park circa late 1960s. Dad’s taking the photo.

So, instead of writing I’ve been spending my blogging time going down memory lane. (And I’m only halfway done.)

Being okay with it all

I’ve pretty much decided that it’s okay that I didn’t blog for a month. Sometimes I need a break and I imagine you, dear reader (I’ve always wanted to write that), need a break from me.

Now, I’ve got to order some new pillows and an ottoman to go with that furniture. You don’t mind, do you?

Channeling Sting’s Fields of Gold

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Rendezvous Journal, Trips

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English Rendezvous – Final Chapter

Fields of barley. They were all around us as we made our way to the little civil parish of Hannington, Hampshire England. (If you have Sting’s song, Fields of Gold, I recommend turning it on right now as you read this post. You can find Sting’s version of Fields of Gold on iTunes. I also recommend this other lovely cover version by Eva Cassidy.)

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold

Two days earlier we were in Bath and the Cotswolds and the previous day we spent at Oxford where we picnicked on the lawn overlooking the River Thames and watched people punting. As we wandered around the campus we walked by a group of students playing cricket—my first real-live experience watching cricket, even if just for a few minutes. “They could be there for days,” Steve explained. Apparently cricket is a long, arduous sport. Where you wear sweaters.

But the barley in Hampshire—the Fields of Gold, Sting wrote about as a love song—caused me to take it all as a sign that there was something indeed magical happening right at that moment. (Some people call it falling madly in love, I suppose.) It was the perfect way to wrap up my two weeks in England: the solo week I had in London, the wonderful days in Bath, the “I Love Yous” the grief, the joy, the perfect photo together. That’s a lot to pack into travel. You don’t get all that backstory when you see the stamp in my passport unless, well, you’ve read this blog, I suppose.

So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

We were in Hannington because Steve Hannington is the man I was with and his family settled this part of the English county of Hampshire back before the 11th Century. I had never met anyone who hailed from a namesake town, so if Steve’s gallant nature from the previous days wasn’t enough to impress me, being a Hannington in Hannington sealed the deal for me.

Steve Hannington in Hannington, Hampshire England

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in the fields of gold

It didn’t take long to walk around Hannington. There is a little square in the middle of the town—more of a park—right next to the ancient All Saints’ Church. I found a post box right at the side of the lane and dropped in my postcards, though all except one, which I had intended for Jessica before I knew she had passed away. I still have that postcard and today it is pinned to my bulletin board in my home office, right above my desk.

Hannington, Hampshire England

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I’ve broken
But I swear in the days still left
We’ll walk in the fields of gold

This was our last day together before I flew back to the U.S. Last time I left Steve it was Scotland and I cried—no, I sobbed. But I was out of tears this trip. I spent the last two days grieving the loss of my friend, Jessica and now all I had left were dry eyes and this soundtrack of Sting’s Fields of Gold playing in my mind. We took time to have dinner at the one restaurant in Hannington—a little pub called The Vine and we had fish out on the patio as we watched a dog play on the lawn, performing for all who were dining.

Time to leave. We left Hannington and the sun was beginning to set as we made our way toward Gatwick airport where we would find accommodations one last time in England.

Fields of Gold

Barley is simple and rather plain looking when you look at it individually. But all laid out in a field it takes on a collective sense of golden-ness. As we departed, going down a narrow lane toward London, we had the fields on both sides of us. Like when I walked through those doors at immigration and customs in Scotland and felt my life about to change, driving through the Fields of Gold also felt a little baptismal. This entire journey to England was a collection of individual experiences (exploring London solo for a week, the death of a friend, saying, I Love You) that combined, had cast a golden hue on my future, which I saw in those fields.

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in the fields of gold

Fields of Gold, lyrics and music by Sting.

Find out where we meet up again.

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