Village Life

Do I live in a village or a town?

I once lived in a village that had so few houses that it would barely have deserved the title hamlet, but for the church, school, fire brigade shed, and the trading post/wine bar/fuel stop/stockfeed store that formed its centre.

 It is said that there has been some sort of inn or bar on this site (legally or otherwise) since 1837

Now I live in a town that most of its residents refer to as a village.  Wishful thinking?  Or perhaps the locals are applying the designation of village merely to the commercial core, with its little row of shops facing the railway line and highway in a straggly "L" shape?

My Geography teacher, so many years ago, would probably have called it a large town, and been adjudged correct by authorities.  Perhaps it is a medium sized town with a number of village areas comprised variously of the shops and the older residential precincts close by, with another couple of older villages along the creek and ridge lines that lead to the grand feature of the district - Wentworth Falls - plus those late arrivals that have pushed outwards beyond easy walking distance of the railway station, along rocky ridges, through twisted gums and native scrub, to the heights that offer a panorama of The City on The Plain.

It feels like village life, though, as I work in my garden and accept compliments on its behalf from passers by, discuss the weather, give directions to tourists seeking the lake or the falls, or exchange news with a passing fisherman.

It feels like a village when you can greet storekeepers by name each day, and be named in turn by the quiet tide of patrons that flow in and out of the library each day that it is open.  It feels even more like a village when particular Magpies, King Parrots, and Cockatoos come to talk to you when you are sitting on the veranda or working in the garden, and you can greet passing dogs by name.

So how big is a village, really, and why don't we all live in one?  It feels a better place to be than the anonymous stacks of brittle concrete and flammable foam our developers and politicians seem determined to foist on most of the population.

The Wonderful Serendipity of the Library Shelf

For one reason or another, I was browsing at one of our local libraries (I might have been working, or just filling in a few minutes) and, not for the first time, became the beneficiary of that wonderful serendipity that swirls about the shelves. After a couple of weeks of being busy with all sorts of work and family issues, a quick browse of the non-fiction shelves put me in temporary possession of a brace of books that carried within their covers both hope and inspiration.

One, small enough to fit in my coat pocket, was What W.H.Auden Can Do For You, by Alexander McCall Smith.  At 137 pages it seems a quick and easy read, but is worth taking time over - a chapter or two each day, followed by some thoughtfullness and gratitude, and perhaps a diversion into the whole poems from which the various excerpts contained in these chapters have been taken.

Gratitude is a theme addressed by so many poets, preachers, and philosphers, from Horace through Marcus Aurelius, and on to Auden himself;  gratitude that often arrives all unexpected, lighting up an  otherwise dark time.

In the final chapter of McCall Smith's book there is a quote from Horace that reminded me just how fortunate I am, and which took me at once out into the garden and wood which I so love, and within which I so often find peace and inspiration........

This is what I had prayed for: a small piece of land
With a garden, a fresh flowing spring of water at hand,
Near the house....
It's perfect.  I ask for nothing else, except to implore,
O Son of Maia, that you make these blessings my own,
For the rest of my life....

Auden wrote something similar only a couple of millenia later, in his "Thanksgiving for a Habitat"....

....I, a transplant.... at last am dominant
Over three acres and a blooming
Conurbation of country lives.......
.....................
What I dared not hope or fight for
is in my fifties, mine, a toft-and-croft
where I needn't, ever, be at home to
those I am not at home with...... 

 Each of us needs a spot we can claim as our own safe place, a place where we need not keep the company would not wish to keep.  We own it, or borrow it; we may be a caretaker, or squatter, or regular visitor - but we need that place we can feel grateful for, in which we can feel gratitude.

We won't be immune from unexpected visitors, but they are more likely, there, to be visitors whose company and conversation we can enjoy.....

Did I say that serendipity had granted me two fascinating tomes from the same shelves?  What of the other, you ask?  How much do you know about Paul Otlet?  No, me neither.  How can it be that none of my teachers or instructors or colleagues ever mentioned this man?  To be continued........