Robert strikes me as being consistently sad and down at heart. Maybe this melancholic streak (which he’s inherited from Dad) accords with Buddhism’s acknowledgement of mortality and destiny in death. I have it too but it’s often overridden by the everyday joys of youth. It’ll emerge in time I suppose, abiding and permanent.
I’m scared of getting old. My life now is full of zap (no matter be it bad zap, still zap all the same) and I don’t want to lose the great sweeping tides of feeling and end up middle-aged in mind and outlook. As Carol and I listened to Roxy Music’s first album today, she told me that inside she feels just the same as she did in 1972 when she was 18. Dad too has often said that inside he feels just like he did when he was my age. I can’t believe I’m almost nineteen. It doesn’t seem so long ago since I was the kid who regarded nineteen-year olds as adults.
Now I'm part of that world too.
I planned on going back to Egley, but just as I was shoveling down food so I could catch the last bus, Mum and Dad showed up, fresh from Badon. They had a good time and visited Avebury, Silbury Hill, Castle Coombe etc. Andrew got a 2.1 degree, much higher than the 3 he’d expected.
It was a fine evening, so Mum, Dad and I walked down through Saxton village. The sky was clear, the green peaceful tree-topped hills were bathed in warm light, a scene marred only by the raw scars that mark the new bypass that has cut straight across the little path that used to lead up past the farm and into the grass and woodland beyond. We paused at the pub for a pint, overshadowed by cool green trees, before continuing on past the village and out along the road towards the roundabout.
Mum picked wild daisies and I ribbed her by telling her that she was committing a crime. This semi-jocular banter continued all evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment