... from last night: I fly over to England to visit my parents (both now, in reality, long gone.) I take an old-fashioned steam engine train from London north toward Bedford--a slow train with frequent stops at unfamiliar stations--aware that I'll be arriving late in Bedford and that I'll need to get from there to Sharnbrook, the village where they live. My father, I know, is too old--or perhaps too ill--to ask him to pick me up, so this will be a problem. I get off the train early, thinking obscurely that it will be easier to get to Bedford this way, and notice long lines of people trying to get on board. I start to walk, wondering how I'll get a ride, asking at a major intersection which road leads north, to Bedford. Pointed in the right direction, I find myself riding a child's bike--all chrome with white and mauve trim--and leave it in an open lot where children are playing while I stop off at a wine shop to pick up something to bring home. I buy a very expensive bottle which turns out, after long delays, to be something called "Barbeque Bay Rum"--a small bottle of yellowish liquid that I would normally never buy, still less drink--and return to find the bike has been stolen by one of the children. I get it back, leave it again--and it's stolen again. By this time, I'm getting angry. I chase the children and catch a little girl with the bike. When I scold her, she tells me I'm drunk, and I'm glad to recall that the seal is still unbroken on the bottle of Barbeque Bay Rum that's in my pocket, as proof that she is wrong. Still, I'm thinking about how comforting it would be to take a little nip. Holding her up in the air by her two wrists--I realize I'm in danger of being physically abusive--I warn her not to do such a thing again and ask for her parents' telephone number so that I can let them know if she does. End of dream. Sorry, I can't remember any more. What does it all mean? Hmmm. Beats me.
A movie recommendation: "
Les Choristes." Belgian. About a boys' reform school, straight out of Dickens, with a draconian headmaster. Salvation of a kind arrives in the form of a sweet new teacher and his love of music. Sounds weird. Try it. You'll love it, as we did.
In haste....
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2 comments:
Riding a child's bike signifies that you are returning to your parental home, and to ones parents, one is always a child.
The fact that the bike is stolen - twice, yet, seems to me to mean that there are insurmountable difficulties in getting to Shambrook which is not surprising since they are dead.
You are aware that you may indeed be too late because your father is old and in poor health.
Still, you are determined, and also want to give something back to them for all they gave you, hence the bottle of run. I don't know what "barbeque" means to you, but it seems like a significant detail.
The little girl? Perhaps she emphasizes your frustration in accomplishing your mission in that it is so easily derailed by a little girl.
That's all I get, Peter.
Thanks! Great insights. I wonder if "going home" has anything to do with being in the latter part of my life? Barbeque is a bit of a mystery. Something to do with searing meat...! I'll have to sit with that one. The difficulty in getting back home fits with my recent return for a few days to the old country, and with that sense of myself as an exile about which I wrote in the blog a little while ago. All interesting stuff. And thanks, again.
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