How to get Lost in a Small Space.

I sit in the garden with my eyes closed.
I hear the breeze rattling the bamboo leaves. I feel it lifting, cooling, while the sun makes hot patterns on my eyelids. When I concentrate I can hear the air.
There are distant voices, distant traffic, machinery cutting something some way away. People are going to buy things, keep appointments, look at things they might want to buy, meet and talk to one another, work in a myriad ways.

A wren chirrs. It's probably annoyed because I'm near its flight path.
A blackbird proclaims loudly about something very dangerous, probably me again.
High above me a buzzard mews, above the trivial fuss, circling, spiralling, riding the air. I resist the temptation to open my eyes because I know what I will see.

A sudden crescendo of sound - like an aviary erupting in joy or panic or both - as the children from the local school troop past on the other side of the house, more or less in crocodile formation, more or less pleased to be going out to swim or to run about in a competitive way. There are screams and shouts.

I do not need to open my eyes.
This space, this garden is printed on my cortex, etched into every part of me. I could probably weed it with my eyes closed, which is sort-of comforting when I think of my declining sense and sensibilities.
With my eyes closed I can be lost.

There's a muddle of memory, ancient and modern.
There's small granddaughter, picking her careful way through plants as tall as she is in order to get to her swing and the raspberries.
There's a magical evening with a son playing classical guitar as the light fades.
There's an equally magical time with other son, in the darkness, watching for shooting stars and seeing them - lots of them.
I can see a great collage of happy times; my husband, deep in conversation with his nephew, a group of friends drinking sherry through Cadbury's finger biscuits (used as drinking straws - worth trying!). Friends and family, good wine, cucumber sandwiches and scones, and yes, there is honey still for tea.

I am here, and I stay here while my body sorts itself out.
There is nowhere else that I would want to be.

So many memories, so many people loved and missed.
And then coming back.