Meeting, parting, meeting...parting
This is dedicated
to my best readers (apart from my Mum); Jenny and family.
Once long ago I
found myself in a strange city which did not speak my language, in charge of a
particularly intense and demanding very small boy who was very difficult to put
to bed.
In search of
company, and a place where my very small boy would be welcomed, contained and
perhaps even loved, I made a pilgrimage across the entire breadth of the large city by U bahn,
to find an English speaking playgroup in the basement of a church.
When I arrived my
very small boy found space and freedom and small companions and most
importantly new toy-gadgets. This left me free to look around. As
usual I was feeling out of place, when I noticed someone.
She stood swaying
a young baby in her arms, her face was turned up and to the side, in
conversation with someone next to her. Her face was utterly open and
utterly concentrated at the same time, and it's strange because in my memory
her face is a disc of pure white light. This mother continued to sway her
baby and exchange unflinchingly with her companion and this would not have been
particularly remarkable but for the fact that at her well-planted feet clung a
small boy purple with rage. He was pink purple and orange with rage and
he thrust himself at his mother's feet and dragged on her legs and writhed and
crashed about. His face and hair were
wet with tears and sweat, his clothes were wet with tears and sweat and the
whole room was flooded with the meltwater of his tears and sweat like that
scene from Alice in Wonderland, and tear-snot flew from his nose
and enraged spittle from his mouth. His
message was clear, it was roared and screamed and yelled : I
WANT TO GO
HOME !
His mother with accepting calm and total openess and concentration
carried on her conversation. The drama
was down there, the baby in the middle, the exchange at the top. The small boy was by now hanging upside down between
his mother’s legs and looking dangerously purple. I
managed to turn upside down too ( I was less stiff in those days) and as we
faced each other upside down we managed a sort of wordless hallo. Shortly afterwards (I like to think because
of the sort of wordless hallo) he launched into the centre of the room, his
emotional suffrance quite forgotten and found a toy locomotive on a long
string. He raced round the wide floor in
ever increasing arcs never once pausing for the entire duration of the
playgroup. I knew I had to meet this mother and when I did it was friendship at first sight.
When it was time to pack up the playgroup and sweep the floor and just as we
were about to leave, the small boy cottoned on and resumed his former position
(purple with rage clinging to his mother’s legs etc) and this time the message
was : I DON’T
WANT TO
GO HOME !
I laughed about this for 12 years (so far). In those 12 years (and a little more) this
family became our dear friends, and the two boys had wild times together and
the baby began to grow into a girl, and we explored the sandpits and the
Palmengarten and the station and the Christmas markets, and I was saved from a
life too lonely and overwhelming. And Jenny always understood in every sense of the word and saved me from actual death in all senses of the word by knowing to bring me Bach Violin Concertos in the hospital.
 |
| The small boys grew up and remained firm friends |
 |
| Home made mince tart on finest Australian porcelaine |
This Christmas our friends drove for 8 hours in a hired car to
come and see us in our Gite in the Jura mountains for 2 and a half days just after Christmas and before they left for Australia this time for
good. The joy of reunion and feasting
and music and love and laughter and wisdom was great and it still is, and the sorrow of parting
was great and it still is.
 |
| Rustic plates and plastic cocktail flutes |
We do not know how the story
of our friendship will continue, or how it will end. I wish we could have lived in the same
continent, the same country, the same town and the same street. But perhaps this sort of friendship is
stretched into something bigger, and perhaps "close" has quite another meaning which we need to learn to understand. In the meantime the whole of my world is flooded with tears and people and animals swim in it, like that scene from Alice in Wonderland.
