It seems surreal to be sitting back in Malta on my favourite bench, enjoying the sound of the sea and blue skies above, after an absence of almost 3 months. Travelling leaves little time for writing. Family time must be savoured wholly not crammed in between tasks. At least when I travel that's the mode that seems to operate best for me.
Now I sit and digest the experience of the past months. Savouring time with my mum in Northern Ireland where the pace of life is slow. There is a focus on gardening, eliminating weeds and tending borders. Her home is ordered and tidy with even cupboard contents and drawers all lined up with military precision. There is a never-ending battle with dirt and grime but she has fought these foes for seven decades and has honed her techniques. I looked on in amazement as she tackles the tasks of the day. At almost 85 she does not measure her energy levels and recalibrates the duties of the day. No, she looks at the goals needing to be accomplished and just goes and goes until they are completed. Even if afterwards she has to collapse in her armchair, it is with a deep sense of satisfaction – her tasks completed.
I look on in amazement. I am not like this. A book, a thought, a walk comes into my orbit and I down tools, instantly distracted. My tidiness is purely superficial. Examine the cupboard or a drawer in my home and you will find evidence of the chaos that permeates this universe.
Perhaps my writing is also my chaos. This trip has fuelled a thousand thoughts but none of them fully formed. I'll share some of them in the hope that they will give a patchwork quilt of these months.
A close friend has spent weeks in a mountain house in southern France. Situated in an idyllic hamlet overlooking spectacular views, it has proved the perfect antidote to years in the Paris city centre. Normally hard-working and ever up to speed with the virtual world he has had to cope with no Wi-Fi. The shocking change of place and pace from a hectic dirty city to the silence of the hillside and the buzz of insects and happy birds. He took to whittling, carving odd-shaped wooden light sabres and became engrossed in moss removal from old stone flagstones. Both, he told me were the pastimes of paradise. Interspersed with meals and coffee on the table positioned outside to soak up the views. Reading books was the main entertainment and with what excitement did he share their contents. Afterwards, I sighed in remembrance of days past when a slower pace of life allowed us time to digest what we read. Not this fetid immediacy of media assault online.
The permanent indigestion of too much input dulls the senses. It's good to be reminded of other times, other places, other ways.
My other joy during this trip was to spend time with my grandsons in England. After two months of endless rain all summer in Northern Ireland it was shocking to discover that Folkestone still had proper summers. Even in September, the sun shone and school kids wore shorts to school. As my son his wife both work in London, my mission this trip was to accompany my four-year-old grandson in his first three weeks of big school. I also had his two-year-old brother to care for. It was somehow weird pushing a toddler in the buggy and holding the hand of a small school child again after three decades. Given that I hated school myself it was with some trepidation I took on this epic task. Fortunately, Charlie made the job much easier being almost eager to run through the school gates. Other parents or guardians had weeping youngsters to disengage from while Charlie never even looked back. He explained patiently to his younger brother that he was going to school and would be back in three hours to see him, so he was not to worry. Then he’d turn on his heel and scurry into school.
I was left with ample opportunity to notice the tears unshed in parents’ eyes as they faced this cruel test - the first separation. Some mothers stayed on, ages after the school gates had closed in case a familiar head appeared above the window ledge in the classroom.
One father had adopted a prolonged waving goodbye ritual to his daughter. She was a tiny fragile figure who waddled slowly and reluctantly towards the classroom door. He climbed the school gate so that she could still see him waving even from a distance. She would occasionally stop, shoulders slumped in apparent despair and turn to look back sadly at her dad. This would engender a huge arm waving movement and shouts of “have a grand day Leanne, I love you!! “ Not easy to do, halfway up a six-foot metal gate. His forced good humour and bonhomie would end with her entering the classroom. Then, he'd suddenly be silent all emotion leaving his face. He would drop down from his perch on the gate and walk hastily away. It's hard for dads, mostly it is mothers at the school gates and they tend to chat in bunches with other mothers. Comparing notes on how first days at school are doing. Remembering coats, water bottles and school bags. Hugging their children, they reluctantly let them go.
Fathers tended to festoon children rather like preparing them for battle. School bag over head and shoulder, coat over the other arm as if supplying armaments for the day ahead. I noticed one morning, an older boy (P3?) waiting for the school gates to open. A crowd of older students stood waiting impatiently laughing together. The P3 student was tall for his age and had his foot on his scooter. Strange that they have come back into fashion those odd-looking contraptions from my childhood.
As he waited, he rocked to and fro on the scooter. A little bit overweight with thick glasses he seemed absent-minded. He didn't even notice a group of mothers behind him waiting with the youngest children hand-in-hand, his scooter almost hit one mother behind him and she scolded him whispering disapprovingly to the other mothers beside her. Suddenly, the scooter slipped up the gate. Perhaps the pushing crowd put him off balance and he fell awkwardly landing full weight on top of his own scooter. The crowd stood back while he jumped to his feet, face almost against the gate not moving. It had been a bad fall and the scooter was damaged but we all stood as a fellow statues watching his ramrod still back. Then a huge builder type man pushed through the crowd and picked up the broken scooter and asked the boy, “Are you alright mate?” Immediately the boy burst into tears of pain and the man put his hand on his shoulder and lead him away to the open area away from the crowd. After the children had rushed through the now opened gate into school, I spotted the father kneeling examining the damage to the scooter and talking soothingly with the P3 pupil. I then realised the boy was not even his son. His own son, a small reception class pupil, was standing patiently beside his dad. I could see the older P3 boy was calmer now and all three of them walked together to the now deserted school gate.
I felt rather ashamed that in that sea of mummies and grandmothers, including me, it was a father who saw the hurt in that small straight back facing the gates and took decisive compassionate action. It is probably in such small deeds like this real education takes place for all of us.
“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.”
— BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
