A woodsy scent of burning cedar and spice. The languid winter hours spent by the window with the lull of rain thumbing the gutters and panes. “Through the gap in Shakespeare’s garden,” that’s the phrase I borrowed from the guy who told us the way into town from our rented flat, Stratford-upon-Avon, that January we spent in England. Me drying out for the first time, trying on sobriety. Solemn, reflective mornings piddling about the muddy paths on the edges of town, the thin gray forests where the residents walked their dogs and the pink English sky unfolding for all that could be mine, for all I could be beneath it.
To see the value in death, not the big death but the small, everyday death, the garden-variety death that goes by unnoticed, the flip side of the small, everyday life that gets wasted like tap water down the drain. The everyday kind of death like these fallen tree branches in our yard from the past week’s windstorm and how the large pines are better for it, a kind of thinning of the herd, a lightening of the load that helps the trees stand stronger for the next storm. The everyday kind of death that makes room for something new, a shedding of old skin.
So could it be we lose parts of ourselves like that too, to prop up or strengthen our higher self? A constant refinement through the internal daily processing, categorizing, and letting go?
Where is the celebration in the everyday death, the death we would not shun or fear but recognize for what it helps us understand: what it means to live? That we could find a way to honor both, for the constant change that’s in our nature. It’s helped us evolve as a species, to learn and improve from death, to survive.
I burn incense and recline on my chair to the drumming on the drains and give thanks for it, in wonder of how much I’ve lived and died today, for how much more I’ll do before I’m through. For all the small, everyday ways. For the gap in Shakespeare’s garden we’ll pass through on our way into town.
Bill Pearse 
Beautiful! I really enjoyed reading this.
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Hey so glad to hear! And love the name “wandering empath,” that’s brilliant. Would love to consider myself similar in that vein, thanks so much for reading! Enjoy the day.
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You too!
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Bill, this is such an interesting piece. That really strikes a chord, especially this time of year somehow. Shedding old skin, lightening the load, sloughing off some non-essentials. I think Shakespeare would call it culling the herd. Really like this one a lot.
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So cool! Yeah I feel really glad we got to spend 90 days in the UK on road trip, over the winter. Seems an odd time to travel through there but I think it put some deep grooves in my head I’m grateful for, like this time in Stratford-upon-Sober. Thanks RP!
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Perhaps this explains why we fear change so much: myriad little deaths.
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Good point Carl! Good point. Thanks for that.
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Trees offer all the best metaphors, don’t they? This was really nice.
We thought we’d lost a big old oak last week in one of those windy storms, because we couldn’t see its silhouette in the early morning. When the light did come up, we saw it was still there, but the wind had knocked off all the dead leaves, and that’s why we couldn’t see it in the half-dark.
Celebrate!
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Ha, so glad about your big old oak Kevin. Wild weather, its own metaphor always different but still the same. Glad you enjoyed and yes on the trees. They’re also good source for puns of course, which I’m oft pining for.
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This is so profound and, in spite of the connection to Shakespeare, made me think more of William Blake–the world in a grain of sand, and also Dylan Thomas, who once remarked that sleep is a kind of death from which we wake an entirely new person.
Sloughing off the old is so quotidian, in every sense, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pause to celebrate it.
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So cool Christopher. Man, “English majors unite!” Glad to have met my kind here, as it were…grateful for your company and footprint on this here velvet sofa. So cool. Slough off indeed. If only for the sound of it.
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A piece worth re reading. ~~ Years ago I had a conversation with a South African migrant who had been part of BOSS; a decent Australian who’d once worked for an indecent South African organisation. His view on decision making was that every decision required you to acknowledge that something died as a consequence of choice. So make it conscious. ~~ Thanks Bill, you’ve given me something to think about. DD
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Something died as a consequence of choice, man that is good, deep David. Thanks for giving me something to think about too, and cool story. Appreciate your kind words! Home from NZ yet? Hope the celebration was “all that” as we say.
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sitting in car about to turn key in ignition to go to airport as your reply landed
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Safe flight home!
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Tis true, we don’t often think of the small deaths, the everyday recycling that nature’s been practicing for eons. So “normal” as to be nearly unnoticed. But, added up on a larger scale, I think there is a celebration – it’s called Spring. Perhaps that’s the ticket for getting through the grey, rain, and windstorms in our lives, both internal and external; to notice the small Spring that occurs each day.
Nice piece.
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That’s right Dave! Spring, for sure! We are up on Whidbey Island in a town called Langley. You ever visited here by any chance? I was remarking to Dawn that it reminds me of Portland in the way of a place that’s retained its authentic personality. Similar in that regard though obviously different in many ways. Happy new year! I hope you’re well, and thanks for reading. Bill
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Don’t think I’ve been to Langley. Typically if I’m on Whidbey I’m with my dive club and we’re camping on the other end, at Deception Pass. Doesn’t look like it’ll happen this year, tides are not favorable.
Hope your 2023 is favorable…
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And may the tides for 23 be favorable for you too, Dave! Thanks for this, and be well.
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‘through the gap in Shakespeare’s garden’ – it’s like you could plummet through time, whirling back and back, all the words of centuries. If we step through now, where will it take us? I wonder if one dare use it as a meditation mantra…whoa there!
A fine piece of writing, Bill. I hope you’re OK.
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Happy new year Tish! Thanks, hope you’re okay too. Enjoyed that B&W photo you posted recently from 1962, tried to find some resemblance in the woman’s face to yours or the two boys there but couldn’t. What was that about, the Ashford photo if I saw right? Bowie’s birth/death day was last week and I think that’s when I visited you and G back in Jan. 16, when I wrote a piece with the same title as this. Just a sucker for that phrase; you’re right cool mantra or portal idea for sure.
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Ha! You took us for boys, my little sister and me. I am quite like my mother, though it’s not obvious from this particular pic. I have her nose and crossed teeth, drat it, but hopefully not her wayward proclivities.
I’m loving how you tie your post with an earlier version, and David Bowie coming and going, and the time when you came to lunch, and the strange, still dark day it was, and I made Elizabeth David’s chocolate almond cake for desert. That feels like a portal too.
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That’s fantastic, your portal painting and mine. We do a fine sketch. Pleased to know you Ms. Farrell! Thanks for clarifying the subjects in the photo too, I was a bit bleary eyed in the dark reading that earlier today. Enjoy the week and happy new year once more!
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So glad found your page, 30 days clean, off uppers/downers/booze.
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Wow good job and don’t look back…you won’t regret it. Quite the opposite I bet! Thanks for sharing. Bill
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I’m starting to get that, today was a good day though, prepared for less pink cloud days, I m just glad I can start thinking more of others now.
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Well it’s hard to think of others when all you can think of is the substances that have you so drawn in, so good—be kind to yourself and keep up the good work! It’s changed my life.
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i’m glad you are getting better, me too! Nice talking to you. Meeting like-minded souls gets me through even if only online.
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Yup, still a good connection if only online as you say and for sure. I think I got a “sobriety-heavy” piece planned soon re; thinking of others vs ourselves planned in a day or two if you care to check it out. And best wishes with your journey! Thanks for sharing your sitch here, I appreciate it.
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Right on! I will totally check it out!
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