And the way we have reunions dear reader. The way we sometimes go back to something that was, back to another time, to another you.
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And you can surely see another you. If enough time has elapsed, you can meet your former self: your younger, more naive, more idealistic, less sensible, less restrained, less pragmatic, more live-for-the-moment self...
I have enormous fidelity to the past, to the great swathes of ‘then’ - and to the people and places, the streets and buildings and moments of my own history. I love the idea that we can still have a sense of deep belonging to something which is no more: to teams, to times, to loves and losses, to fields and breezes, to pets and towns.
But I know that so much of all that is hard - I know that some of ‘back then’ has its regrets, its shames, its pain.
And yet, reuniting with who and what we were helps often helps us understand who we are - and even, what we should strive to become.
I’ve always loved the line: ‘be not what you could be, but what you should be.’ It’s a tricky one though - I mean, well, how do you know what you should be?
It gets confusing, especially when you’re young, when you know less of the world, of people, of yourself. I suppose you just go out the gate and keep on going ...
And sometime later, after a rest, after years worth of water has passed under the Belmore Bridge, you can go back to a reunion and see how you’re going … compare yourself to him, to her, to that young person in shorts.
And now and again, through the melody of a song, in a chorus, in the colour of a jumper - you’ll see you as you were … back to that house, to that road, that ground, that kitchen, that face, those hands …
And if we only knew then what we know now? Oh the changes we’d make dear reader, the things different we’d say and do; the paths divergent we’d perhaps take - would we take the other fork in the road, Frost’s road less travelled?
And the way sometimes, at reunions, you can be amazed at how some people don’t change at all. It’s like they’ve been frozen in time.
But others, well, you know that life has been all over them - they’ve been crash-tackled by it, they’ve been to some dark places, they’ve been hit by the metaphorical bus. The way they’re rattlin - but still rollin ...
And then, there’s the fine-wine brigade - the ones who just keep getting better, the ones who did it tough early, the ones who stumbled along in a kind of perpetual darkness before eventually coming out into the light.
They’re the blind who have been given sight, they’re the ones who understand the old line: “… become what you ought to become.”
And so it goes. Goodnight.
