Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
One of the best things about living in Ventnor is the swifts. One of my greatest joys is sitting in a deckchair in my garden on a summer evening with the rabbits grazing nearby, a glass of wine in my hand, and the huge blue bowl of sky up above.
I like to watch the swifts. They remind me of the dogfights that my parents would see in the skies of Southern England back in 1940, with the fighter planes swooping and turning and diving above them. But these swifts appear to be showing off, perhaps catching insects up there, or just enjoying the light of the evening sky, like me. And they cry to each other, with faint far-off screams.
Frolicking between the earth and the heavens
I looked them up on Wikipedia. I think they’re swifts. They have thin swept-back wings and forked tails. Apparently they arrive from Africa, and it was thought for a long time that they had no legs because most of the time they don’t stop flying at all. I can’t imagine that. To me, they’re exotic and unworldly, up there frolicking between the earth and the heavens.
As you can see, swifts bring out the mystical in me. Unless it’s the wine. Last night I went out into the garden and looked up, and there were no swifts. I could have done with them.
Life’s a bit like the waves
I often think that life’s a bit like the waves that I used to watch for hours as a child in Hove, where I grew up. I loved the slow build-up and then the crest breaking and crashing on the shingle, and the slow suck as the water seethes back, dragging the stones with it, only to be overwhelmed by the next wave.
I like the quiet times in my life, but rather too often, it seems, the wave comes crashing. There are a few things I really want to happen that seem to be taking a long time to arrive, and there have been some things that have been difficult. Last night a couple of them came to some sort of head, and I could have done with a clear sky and some swifts.
Too early for swifts
My wife asked me what I was looking for, and when I told her I couldn’t see any swifts she said it was too early. At least the sky was clear, with a few small clearly-defined clouds lit up by the setting sun against a backdrop of delicate blue sky. Reluctantly I went inside.
Today one of the complicated things seems to have resolved itself and some of those obstacles appear to have moved out of the way, rather like the way the rainclouds can shift and leave a sparkling-clean landscape and sky behind. I often think that’s the inspiration for those car-washing machines.
Get the deckchair out
I feel lighter somehow, and my vision seems clearer today. Summer is coming, the garden’s going mad, and everything seems worthwhile after all.
And my wife just texted me from home. The swifts have arrived.
I’d better get the deckchair out and check there’s some wine.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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