A friend from overseas recently told me about a boy he once knew who walked backwards.
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“The darn kid went the dang wrong way,” he said - “everywhere, all the god-dang time – completely and properly backwards.”
One day, it seems, the boy just dropped it into reverse, and away he went...
Upon hearing of such a remarkable circumstance, I immediately wanted to know why a boy would choose such a path? What could make a boy, a girl, a man, do such a thing?
I pressed my friend for an explanation.
“That’s easy,” said the storyteller, “he was trying to recapture time.”
And, of course! ‘Recapturing time’ – in a bizarre way, it made complete sense. He’s not alone in his bid to recapture what he had, in the scramble to hold onto what he has, what he was…
It’s a deeply human thing; something ingrained in us, something we do in all sorts of ways: the taking of photos, the preserving of things, the dyeing of hair, the lifting of face, the firming of thigh.
I walk backwards often - in the country of the mind, I go back to it all - replay the good stuff, revel in the warm glow of beautiful moments, taste again the sweetness of then. And sometimes, when I least expect it, I’m taken back to more troubled times too - back through turmoil, through losses and defeats, through scrapes and scraps, through mistakes and regrets, to when I should have, could have...
Having it back again is not without it’s perils. On those backward walks one might stray too far, might lose oneself in the ‘then’. One might not be able to see a way forward again.
And I often wonder where the old folks go to in their daydreams? When, in the soft sunshine they sit and drift: is it to the future or to the past they go? Do they concern themselves with tomorrow or is it, ‘back then’ that calls them: back to the children, back to High Street, to the river, the mill, to a particular voice, a particular song, back to their gone best friend?
But I like that boy who walked backwards; I like his nerve, his outrageous courage - to defy, to try… And I reckon it might be a walk worth taking, a time worth having; a time to reclaim what you were, a time to find what you lost, to see what you had, what you were - and what you might be.
And I’m told that’s precisely what the boy that walked backwards did - he reclaimed what he needed to; he went back, found the key to it all, unlocked his mystery, made some sense of what was, got back what he needed, perhaps left the bad bits behind - and then started on ahead once more. And my friend says he still sees the boy - tremulously marching forward.
And so it goes. Goodnight.
