So many moments of our lives disappear into eternity without leaving a trace. Even if we record those moments their legacy through time is fragile and decays. If time is like a river flowing ever out into the eternity of the ocean then trying to record a moment in time and keep it is like rescuing an autumn leaf from the river’s flow and setting down it in the water further upstream.
So here are three autumn leaves that, having caught my attention, I have taken up out of the river. They all relate to time spent as a youth in the little Welsh town of Dolgellau, a place on the river Wnion, surrounded by mountains.
The first took place on a rainy day, it had been relentlessly raining for days. My friend and I were sheltering under one of the arcade arches in the market square waiting for a bus. There was an old lady close by standing by the bus stop out in the rain, we must have looked miserable because she turned to us and asked, ‘what’s the matter with you two?’ I cannot recall our exact reply but it must have made reference to the rain as she told us, ‘oh don’t mind the rain, its liquid sunshine so it is!’ It did not lift our mood at the time but it is a challenge that has made me smile many times since.
The second occurred as I was waiting to call home from a phone box. I was patiently sitting on a bench when an old lady, I don’t suppose it was the same one, came to sit beside me. She was very chatty and commenced to tell me why she had come and sat on the bench. She was not waiting for the phone, she was waiting for a friend. They always met at that time of day, they had for years, they went for a coffee together in the town square. There had originally been four of them but time and mortality had whittled the group down to two. She was very grateful for the companionship of her friend as she had lived a long time and seen her generation slowly passing away.
Her friend was a little late that day.
My phone call was not long, but I was concerned to see that she was still waiting as I walked away.
The third took place in the hills above Dolgellau, the progress of my ramble had been arrested by the splendid view over a gate, and soon I was joined by an elderly gentleman who proved to be a shepherd. He asked where I was from and when I told him Leicester, he asked what it was like. I did my best to describe it but it is very different to Dolgellau.
I asked him if he was from Dolgellau, and he replied he had lived there all his life farming the fields where we stood. The land was rough and wet, only good for sheep. Suspecting I knew what the answer would be I asked him if he would ever visit Leicester. He replied that he had visited Bangor once as a young man but that he didn’t like it and so hadn’t been anywhere else since.
Taken aback I realised he had judged the whole rest of the world on the basis of Bangor.
Some moments no matter how commonplace seen to capture a glimpse of something greater, something transcendent. Perhaps all moments do but we don’t notice. I have long recalled these three conversations as illuminating things deeply human and told the stories over to myself to feel close to those deep meanings once again.
Comments