Tuesday 24 May 2011

Awakened by the Wanton Wind

I suppose you'd call it homesickness, this hesitant clutching sensation, like the searching hand of a timorous child; this feeling that creeps up from behind and tries to slip its tiny fingers round my lower spine as I walk down my city street. It only happens when a certain kind of breeze is on the air - of a certain speed and freshness and with an old familiar wantonness of direction - and only when this breeze combines with a scent, quite faint, perhaps merely imagined, of the warm scuffing of heather on shins, of the succulent hush of bluebell sanctuaries, of long, tough grass trampled under country feet and the ticklish waft from effusive dog tails. Then I feel this timid, hankering clutch and I mourn for my country childhood and the elusive, clever, dreaming girl I once was. And yet... at the same time, I know that I would not choose to go back. Were a magic pathway to spring up at my feet, I feel sure I would not take it. So how can I feel homesick for a place I'd never return to? How can I feel nostalgic for a past I don't want back?

Perhaps these are not really my emotions. Perhaps they belong to the child I once was. If she is not dead, but sleeping somewhere inside me, then perhaps the breeze stirs her from her slumbers and, in those few moments of wakefulness, she wonders and grows forlorn when she sees what lay ahead.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for this bright analysis of your inner child. If you discover more like her, let us know.

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  2. Normally, I'd prefer to leave my inner child sleeping. I wouldn't want her to accidentally catch sight of my outer adult doing something immoral and verboten, after all. The sneaky little tike would probably blackmail me and make me buy her a roomful of robots or her own circus or cook Christmas dinner every day, and where would it all end, I ask you? Where?

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  3. You would entertain my inner child. But I understand that this is not what you're aiming for. Sigh.

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  4. I've discovered through a TV news story and I really like your universe.
    Fantastic !!
    BRAVO.

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  5. Gosh, was I on the NEWS? Whatever next? I hope I behaved myself. But maybe you meant the documentary. Thanks for the charming comment, anyway. Drop in anytime. My universe is your universe, as the saying goes.

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