This is me aged 5. As you can see I have the doll and pram but
look carefully and you can see a gun and holster. What an odd mixture, hand on gun and pram. Perhaps it comes from having only brothers
and to this day I wonder how different things would have been had I had a
sister. However, no complaints the
brothers will do fine. Only, they don’t
visit me, ever!
I used to think it was the fact I lived
in Greece for a decade and that, admittedly made visits tricky and
expensive. But actually living in the
same town has the same result, no calls.
But, to be fair Northern Ireland folk are pretty strange. Perhaps it is the same where you are? Here, people polish and clean their houses,
fuss over tiles and curtains, sofas and bedding. They match carpets to lamp shades and a whole
lot of other stuff I have no time for.
Then, they establish a routine that is stuck to. It may be watching soaps, football, endless
work or hobbies but when that routine is established not even the end of days will
shift them. You sense it, when you
visit, that an inner sanctum has been breached.
The place of security that homes have become and in which others should
not come.
All of us become foreigners outside our
homes and feel strangely adrift until ensconced once more on our coordinated
turf, remote in hand. The only outing
tolerated is to the shops and that is too is part of the routine. Don’t vary from the norm, don’t risk changing
anything, after all so much crap happens even when you have constructed this
spider’s web of activity – heaven knows what might happen if routines were
abandoned.
Well, I reckon we need to challenge the
norm. A friend once said, if you want to
do the wise thing look around and watch what just about everyone else around
you is doing and choose to do the exact opposite. There is something in that.
