Phases, moods, directions, retreats and upsurges are all part of the climate of being a human being. The weather systems of chance and choice follow each other, raking our lives, laying us low, lifting us high, overwhelming our sense of control and direction. Stressing us into fear and submission; energising us into creativity and love; nudging us into eddies of calm and numbness, and again whirling us into crashing circles of danger. Growing old takes you past many familiar landmarks, places you have visited before but have not seen with these aged eyes of concern or unconcern, these new distilled impressions, compressed over time, refined and reduced. Hollow echoes of familiar footsteps gain new complexity.8 I was amused by Esther Rantzen yesterday interviewing random people in the street, about bullying and ending up with a bright smile (that toothy smile) "They say the best vengeance is to live well". My goodness, so much contained in that remark. How marvellously true that is: living well, as I do, changes everything, especially the past. This little boat below, some 25cm tall, fluttering in the breeze that moves its hull like the skin of an egg, still pristine and untinted, still raw and uncertain, the water lapping up to the rim, the sky scooping into its bilges, the space breathing fully into the fat chest, that boat lives well. That large vessel above, rusty, tall, riveted, vulnerable, has to be aggressive, has to be desperately lonely and hard, sucked in by misery and despair. War has used it, God has forsaken it, it will stand for the pain and suffering of the hero. We make our choices and we live with them. And they live on after us.
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