The Company of Air

Snow has wrapped itself around the house, fresh and lovely in the morning.



Only to be followed last night by the most eerie wreathing mist, sucking all the light out of the streetlamps. I decided to watch Onibaba again, after something like 50 years.

Of course it couldn't scare/thrill me in the same way; the story recalled in my head was at once more simple and more marvellous than the production. I've learned how to critique, and folk stories cannot be poked at too hard. But what I always loved was the storm over the field of reeds about an hour and thirty minutes in. When I was a child, the sound of the wind poured out beyond the tall grass dancing, out through the TV, all around me! Beware, they said, there's a demon in the field, a demon... But of course, there was only that cursed samurai, the old woman, and the pit.



My love of tall grasses stirred by the wind has been with me always, that sense that every field of high crop is somehow close to Aaru. It was one of the things I loved most about the unseelie house. Here there's no tall grass but this is definitely a corner where the winds congregate. It's frustrating cos sometimes they knock over all the bins, but worth it. I like the company of air.

For a moment I was up and out, aware of looking down on various matryoshka realities; the little world of Onibaba within a TV in a room in a house in a capsule of Winter in an atmosphere in some unfolding series of celestial spheres... and there I was again, like a tiny little figure parked on a sofa in a dolls house, captivated by an imaginary storm.

Welcome Sunday. What a rotten week this has been!