A Certain heft of Stone
Brandon Lewis That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. —Virginia Woolf, “The Moth”
We expected more: swans floating in some pre-Raphaelite dappled light of weeping willows that sway along a milky river. Desperate for shade and the means to make something, anything out of this pilgrimage, I scan the riverbank for a spot to rest. No, you absolutely can’t sit here, she insists. It’s endless, she says, waving her hand down the riverbank studded with giant cow pats goldening in the sun. She grabs my elbow and leads me to a redberried hawthorn. Hardly tall enough to call a tree, but it’s the only shade in sight. This godforsaken land is where Virginia Woolf decided to stuff rocks in her pockets and depart this earthly realm? That’s not entirely fair. There is, in the distance, the South Downs with their massive chalk interiors split open and gleaming white to make space for a highway. That and the solitary red dot of a paraglider clinging on far above the downs. Virginia was hearing voices again, she told Leonard. Birds sang in Greek from the treetops. You have been, in every way, all that anyone could be, she wrote, then began her walk to the river.