I started writing the other day about procrastination and I could not finish it for the life of me… This isn’t even a joke, I couldn’t write for the life of me.
I was halfway done, read it over and thought, “What the hell am I doing right now?”
So I scrapped it and immediately thought of the first thing I wanted to write about…
I was feeling a bit uninspired, so I took a train ride up to one of London’s most magical places, Hampstead Heath.
As I lay in the Heath, I did my best to tap into my inner-John Keats…
Solemn Afternoon on Heath
He wandered through the thick of the wood alone, surrounded by squirrels, bumblebees and nightingales alike. He felt unsaddled. His reality was nothing like what lay before him now.
The winding dirt path was a deep, earthy brown framed in marigolds, hemlocks and oaks in every direction. Weaving through the forest, he passed the remains of a colossal tree, the roots exploding out of the ground and reaching to the constellations. The twin brick bridges over streamlets marked the only manmade structures in sight.
A small clearing appeared off to his right and he deviated off the worn path. Palms open, feeling each flower, stem and petal brush along his fingertips.
He could hardly outstretch his arms without bumping into another tree yet the confined space was as comfortable as the nook he carved out in her neck with his chin when they lay together in bed each morning.
He laid down in the rushes of English Ivy, opened his mind to the sky and thought back to those mornings together. Hungover, devouring scrambled eggs and orange juice on a couch riddled with stains from years of abuse.
After a while, he rose from his comfort and continued. Walking along the hill wasn’t so tiring as he remembered. The sound of others told him he was getting close to the ridge, it was always crowded.
Then he was standing in Ivy amidst a massive opening. He took in the sprawling expanse for a moment. Despite the crowd, it’s beauty was unsurpassed. The hills rolled for miles, speckled with trees and picnickers alike, sunbathers in the middle of afternoon.
He laid down in the rushes of English Ivy, opened his mind to the sprawl and closed his eyes. For a minute he felt almost as if she were still with him.
Yet alone he lay.
