The first swifts arrived on the 10th of April. They had survived the high winds over Greece that had battered their numbers by the thousands. A week later, I heard the cuckoo, calling from somewhere near the mountain.

The husband gently scoffs as I take photos of flowers in the verges during our walks. But they're not meant for sharing, for albums or Instagram. Field notes I call them, records of my curiosity, an invested interest in things outside of myself, a promise to discover their names, so that when I see them again, this or next spring, the landscape acquires more specificity, developed from my growing relationship to it.

Also, more than field notes: a record of myself alive at a certain moment. The days I'm not writing or noting these things: where do they go? I fear losing the substance of time, becoming a mote of dust floating away into the ether. Gather the flowers, the birds, the names into me, and I attain the marvellous weight of the world.

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