cuckoos sing in the sunlit uplands

From the road which snakes through the long deep valleys of Powys, there are tantalising glimpses of an old house on the slopes above. It only appears when highlighted by the morning sun, as if it only exists when seen. It evokes the tradition of Tŷ Unnos (house of one night) in which the freehold could be claimed if a house could be built overnight on common land with a fire in the hearth by morning. Only this particular house seems to vanish again by the next time I pass.

Those clever psychologists would have you believe that a child will, by the age of two, have learned that things still exist even though they can’t see them (“object permanence”). Is that so? Schroedinger’s cat is only “there” (alive or dead) depending upon being observed. And maybe it’s the same with this house.

Social construction argues that reality is created by the discourse, in the language itself. The first line of a well-known book, at least in English translation, says “In the beginning was The Word”. The way each of us think is created, at least in part, by the language we use. Since learning Cymraeg, I am in no doubt that I think differently from previously. I’ve learned that you can’t just translate word for word (as I used to think for le Francais) unless you’re satisfied with “pidgin”. No, the learning has to embrace a range of idioms, metaphors, patterns, cultural references and layers of meaning hitherto unfamiliar. I may actually have become a different person in the process. A fresh perspective. A new identity. Cymro newydd, yn ffenomenolegol.

Access to the house is by way of a steep driveway from the main road, but not really remote thanks to the proximity of surrounding villages with shops that will cater for every need, supplying anything to order, from aspirin to aubergines, beds to broccoli, sheds to sugar, from the days before many surrendered to that growing global giant “Marañón.com”. I picture the cosy security of being indoors during winter storms, warmed by an inglenook fire, cooking cawl on the range, and the sheer joy in sitting outside with a glass of something stronger on the terrace in the short summer. There is something elemental in the simple combination of grass and stone: a garden not manicured, at one with nature.

Poet RS Thomas longed for an idyllic place in a Cymru that no longer exists. Abercuawg (“where the cuckoos sing”) refers back to an eponymous mediaeval poem, and a metaphor for Hiraeth. Thomas scoured the lands of Canolbarth Cymru (the “midlands” surrounding Machynlleth) in the hope of finding even the hope of its existence. I have searched in vain for the above house, or its likeness, on maps, in memories, on virtual street images and property websites.

So where is it? Like Abercuawg, it doesn’t exist, the image generated by so-called AI. But maybe it’s my intelligence that is artificial. Yours too. We are all imposters. Perhaps Abercuawg and the house are both there if we drive slowly along the A470 and pay enough attention. It’s there in the mind.


LINKS


Object permanence - Wikipedia

What Is Schrödinger’s Cat? (Definition, How It Works) | Built In

Social Construction of Reality (simplypsychology.org)

The cuckoos are stirring, and our nation may at last achieve serenity | Jan Morris | The Guardian

The Leper of Abercuawg by David McBride (plough.com)

Powys in the Spring (cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com)

Tŷ unnos - Wikipedia

Hiraeth | On Landscape