Indelible Images....

[Anjuli_Bai]

As I walk along, old woman that I am, I see in my mind a little girl - about ten years old.  She is alone and running across a green field of grass, bathed in sunlight, saturated with her youth. 

 

Hair streaming out behind her, she is running as fast as she can, until her legs almost get into a tangle.  She laughs aloud with the pure joy of it. Out of breath she drops down on the cool grass, gasping to get her breath.  It easily returns to those young lungs and off she runs again.

 

Caught somewhere between the warp and woof in the loom of time, she will always be running and laughing.  As a child she seems to take her youth for granted, and yet she doesn't.  She is already aware of the clock that is never still.  There is already a hint of understanding of the transience of her simple joy.  She has suspicions about her mortality, but she can afford to look away.  She has time.

 

I don't remember what I ate that day - but I must have eaten.  I don't remember what I wore - but I must have chosen something from my closet.  I've lost the feeling of that young body, but I know it's still somewhere inside me.     

 

She is me and I am she - even as I walk on legs that will never run again.  But I have learned from all these years and I am grateful for that walk.

 

Why is it that some images - seemingly of little importance - running and laughing - stay so indelibly in our memory - while others of much more import - are gone?

[Terpsichore]

If you have not already read it (and you probably have) or seen the film or dramatization on the stage you may like to read Rosamunde Pilcher's "Shell Seekers" because that book starts with a similar image to the one you describe and develops a similar theme.

 

Yes, Anjuli_Bai it would indeed have been fun for me had I attended your class when I first came to California in 1972 but we are still not old to take tea together or walk in Balboa Park when business or pleasure next takes me to your state.

[Anjuli_Bai]

If you have not already read it (and you probably have) or seen the film or dramatization on the stage you may like to read Rosamunde Pilcher's "Shell Seekers" because that book starts with a similar image to the one you describe and develops a similar theme.

 

Yes, Anjuli_Bai it would indeed have been fun for me had I attended your class when I first came to California in 1972 but we are still not old to take tea together or walk in Balboa Park when business or pleasure next takes me to your state.

 

No, I have not read this book - nor heard of it.   Except for M.M. Kaye's "The Far Pavillions" I can't think of a work of fiction I've read in decades.  I know it is a big hole in my reading experience but fits in with a persona born a century or two too late.  

 

As for my post above, sometimes I wonder why a stray image from our childhood takes up residence and is so clearly remembered, when others very similar are lost.

 

Taking tea with you would be my pleasure.