The man with the beard and long hair who I can see from my studio sitting on the little wooden bench outside his flat in the sun listening to something on his headphones doesn’t wear shoes when he does so. If his feet were bare it would somehow be less unsettling. It’s the stocking-ed feet thing. It reminds me of M who lives in one of the flats along Mill Street. He is often out by the road sitting in his socks and no shoes. And he is unsettled.
The man (or couple it is hard to say for sure), who has bought Elephant’s house has been weeding. Not the garden but the front drive, in between the pebbles. The garden is a jungle (the house too isn’t looking to wonderful now that the decorators have begun and gone again). And yet, there is something rather appealing to me about that full on concentration on the detail rather than the bigger picture. I am guilty of the same thing.
As I walked home this morning a young lad approached on the other side of the road. At one point he stopped and swigged from a large bottle. He literally lifted it up and poured its contents into his throat. I’ve never actually seen anyone do that, I said to him at breakfast, though I’ve seen it in the films, when they are trying to imply that someone is an alcoholic. I’ve never seen it either, he said.
I imagined holding their hands as I walked. The two of them. My younger self (about 5 or 6) and my mother. My younger self, on my left hand side had to skip a little to keep up but she didn’t mind. And my mother, whom I cannot remember ever holding hands with, was also slow, her feet dragging, but she didn’t complain, she was just happy to be out. And I was just happy to have them both with me, my hands in theirs. She died almost 9 years ago on June 28th 2012. And yet she is still so present within me. As is my little one. And she will never grow old and frail.
