All in Thoughts
I am drawn to the quiet. To the rundown. To the old and historic, yes, but places away from where the tourists disembark their coaches. Places that are a little rough, perhaps, and those that have, almost certainly, experienced brighter times and better days.
Heavy set clouds hanging low over rolling, grey / green fields of winter-short grass, lazily dancing in time to the wind, swirling up through a gap in the cliffs way down below by the beach.
Sometimes, from a certain angle, people look no different to lampposts and bollards.
And, as is often the way with a beginning like this, once she had actually been seen, well, she just seemed to stay seen.
Unexpectedly, if I am being honest, as the grey and overcast weather had seemed set for the season. But blue skies appeared and so did the people. It was that kind of day.
She liked to think that she was helping him to be the best that he could be, and to maybe fulfill some of the dreams and desires that he managed to keep hidden most of the time.
So right now I am grateful for early morning walks and unexpectedly beautiful sunrises, especially when the night has been long and sleepless.
Fighting the demons in the hours of silence. Where exaggerated anxieties invade and conquer and fear is the unwelcome norm. And everyone else sleeps the sleep of the healthy.
Perhaps only those with a heightened sense of time would venture out in such conditions, to walk the shifting, crunching shingle and to hold a defiant face up to the weather.
Just a young girl, hanging on, whilst desperate to let go. Hanging on, in touching distance of traffic and people, rushing, rushing, always rushing. With busy lives, places to be, money to make and dinners to cook.
I have not reached the age that I am without experiencing the good things and the not so good things that life has to offer.
When everyone faces the same way, they all see the same things. Walking down the street? Then look up rather than at your feet. In a city with tourists? Look away from the sights and the tour guides. Look behind the facade, face away from the masses and see what they are missing.
The sheer excitement of rediscovery. Finding something again after so long. Something that I really used to love. It's only been 39 years. Almost, but not quite, 40.
And of course, sometimes I will be spot on when I think this way. I am more than capable of being any of those things at certain times. We all are, no matter how hard we try. But often, mostly, it is just my mind working in a perverse, let’s not call this idyllic, kind of way.
A place that had once been busy and vital but now mostly forgotten by those that have moved on and a generation that knows no different.
