In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Camille Dungy talks about developing particular and intimate relationships with place, adding “everyone with a vested interest in the direction the people on this planet take in relationship to others … should … take some time to plant life in the soil. Even when such planting isn’t easy.” This series of posts #Plots&Plants offers a chance for writers and environmentalists to talk about places and plots to which they are particularly attached or invested in. #Plots&Plants will act as an archive and record of places which we will later be able to reflect on as we continue to experience environmental emergency and loss.
Rhiannon Fielder Hobb’s work has been published previously in The New Welsh Review and the ASP Literary Journal. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Lampeter University. Rhiannon was featured in the Just another Poet’s “Seren Esgynnol” Youtube series and has an interview forthcoming on the Sinister Myth Poetry Podcast.
introduction by rhiannon fielder hobbs
“Walking is how the body measures itself against the earth.”
Rebecca Solnit – Wanderlust
In my recovery from postnatal psychosis and its aftermath, both walking and writing have
become medicinal to me. I need to write with my feet before I can attempt it with my fingers. Much of my work explores the psychogeography of domestic spaces. The experiences of the women particularly, that inhabit them.
‘A Recipe for the Living’ ventures outdoors, along a local path. It is a route I can walk, now
that my children are a little older and I am a lot better. It could be any path though. Mine
wasn’t always this beautiful. There was a time when all I could manage was the pavement
between my front door and that of a good friend.
This piece is as much about the healing properties of the landscape, as it is about the act of walking itself. Mincing the frustration, the loss, beneath the feet. Finding that a sprinkle of sun on the face, can taste sweet again.
Talyllychau, ‘A Recipe for Living’ by rHIANNON FIELDER HOBBS
Take one godforsaken day and add an outdoor path: a path that curls to the back of the house before it breaks away, chopped at the incline. Here you will need to pulse the gravel with your feet. Mince it if you must until the gravel turns into dust, the dust into mud, the higher path fully consumed by the mountain when mixed with rain from the day before.
Today you will need to apply warmth. Enough sun so that the peak of the hill is visible beyond the gate, not so much that it’s necessary to remove an outer coat. Whisking air into the lungs will achieve height. Leave it rest a while, no need to overdo it. It may be useful to roll it out across a bench, a log, a kinder stretch of grass. Let it set.
You may want to fold in the flecks and jars that line those shelves in need of dusting. May as well make use of these. May as well empty them out. A whole jar of rage could risk overpowering the mixture, make it too sharp on the tongue. You will not need much hope to counterbalance. One spoonful, maybe two and the rage will become equal parts palatable and necessary. The hope, not so sickly sweet as to condense the mixture beneath the feet.
There is kneading then, at the knees between the conifer trees that shouldn’t be there, and the flat long line of bramble that marks the outline of the village you have left. Timing is everything of course and you are not out of it, remember that. The lungs will be hissing now, climbing up the hot sides of the pot, then at the pique, cooked.
For the downhill you may choose to add a peppered laugh, find that your legs can cope quite well again with running. Do this at pace, unwatched, and you’ll notice bubbles form and pop, the edges of the mouth begin to curve towards a breathless grin.
Season to taste, and decorate with daffodils, snowdrops. Notice these on your descent in a way you could not when the body was consumed just with breathing. Beware of course of frost. It will not do to freeze it. Add some rain again, though not too much and watch, as the day springs out warm and sweet against a sky that has a tendency for turning quickly, from light to dark, dark to light.
Modron Magazine 