"The Naming of Things" The Simple Things Magazine May Edition
The Naming of Things
From across the blowy garden, I can see that the post van has paused outside the gate. A weathered elbow perches on the open window,
‘Are you the new tenant? Gorgeous day! Lucky to have this view. Lucky puppy too…’
She smiles at my small companion, waving her arm at the landscape behind her. She sees a patchwork of beauty: bluebells under the hedges, primroses on the banks. Her face lights up.
‘Must get on!’ she calls and leaves me, nodding, clutching the envelopes and catalogues wondering what to do next. I stare, trying to see what she did. I see only farmers’ fields, a lonely tractor and thick, heavy, grey clouds seeping across the edges of the sky.
The puppy pulls at the lead. ‘Are you the lucky one?’ I ask her. She needed rescuing after being abandoned. I’m sure it was that way round, but people smile and nod when I tell them. Reaching down, I stroke her inside out ear. It is soft and vulnerable. I fold it over neatly for her. We go inside and I dump the letters on the kitchen table in a heap with all the unopened boxes. Decisions on where to put things, what to call things have not been made.
I stand at the window and watch the rain clouds spread. Upstairs, a tap drips. Time passes. I dig out the lead that she arrived with, and open the back door. Everything sounds so far away: birds sing; a plane flies over; the hum of a playground at break in the distance. We walk slowly at first. She waits and watches for me to give instructions. The air feels thick and heavy. Worries about the move nibble at the corners of my mind and I don’t even notice where we are going.
When the clouds finally burst, I am taken aback by the power of the rain. We become soaked immediately and as we cross the back fields, we begin to run and then I laugh. I like this. And then it stops.
We wander home, stopping to pick daffodils. Everything is sparkling. Washed clean. Shiny and new again.
Back at home, I fetch an old blue and white jug and plonk the daffs in it. I clear off the table and place them in the centre. Then. I make coffee, turn the computer on and find that I can work for the first time since we arrived. She sleeps curled at my feet, her chin resting on my ankle.
We repeat this routine daily. We plunge outdoors whatever the weather. We walk deliberately, stopping to sniff and examine everything we see or smell. I like flowers and hedgerows. She likes lamposts and bins. .We bring home daffodils, lily of the valley and fistfuls of bluebells. I buy jam from roadside stalls and save the jars to put flowers in. I put away my thick coat and wear my yellow mac, buy a ball, a new green leather collar, wellingtons and walking boots.
Lucky barks and runs to the gate. Sue is leaning out of her van as usual. She hands me some eggs and tells me how the bantams are laying generously after a long winter. Lucky jumps up to say hello, leaving dirty prints on the dusty van. I hand her a coffee and we pause in our working day, looking at the view. We wave at the farmer in his tractor and stare for a minute at the green fields in the spring sunshine.
‘Must get on,’ she says.’ See you tomorrow, Lucky.’
Harriet Derioz is a writer from the West Country. Her simple things are her rescue dog, Toots, a stout pair of walking boots and the South West Coastal Path.
