Sunday 20 August 2017

Greetings from the Silent Pool


I remember childhood periods of pure contentment, as when sitting under a bus-shelter watching rain drops hitting a puddle in the road outside.

I love to see children peering into rock-pools at low tide, lost in fascination by the salt water microcosm and breathing in the dark green stench of beached seaweed and dead crabs.

We watched a huge, neckless, Russian man go to a beach in Cuba every day for a week on his own, to spend all day making massive, artless sand-castles with broad sweeps of his thick arms. I don't know what he did for a job back home, but he was on a perfect childhood holiday from it. I think he had re-discovered the old trick of making a week last a whole Summer by just staring at sand for eight hours a day. I never once saw him turn around and gaze at the improbably beautiful turquoise ocean behind him, which took up most of our time.

Fly-fishing anglers always look down on coarse fisherman, but I can understand why they do it. When fly-fishing you are constantly working, but with coarse you just chuck the float in the water and stop thinking if you so wish. The electronic bite-detectors even allow you to close your eyes, and many coarse fishermen take camp beds with them in case - or for when - they drift off. Like scrumped apples, stolen sleep is the most delicious. Only the Poles eat carp here.

We stopped sitting on beaches all day some years ago, so now we seem to go to cities for our holidays. H.I., being a painter, usually has an itinerary planned which involves certain museums and specific paintings within them. Time spent in parks and green areas means drawing for her. I like this sort of a holiday, but it still involves work.

I really do understand why children are often to be seen looking bored to distraction whilst being dragged around museums by their parents. They have their own way of turning something potentially boring into a form of pure meditation.

Mary Beard has tweeted to ask if we can - once and for all - remember that going to university is not about getting a higher wage when you leave, it is about getting an education.

The British Museum has come up with a brilliant idea which I would have loved as a kid. Every now and then, they allow a small party of children to actually spend the night sleeping on the floor of the Egyptian section. Lights out.

When I was on my own, I would quite often book myself into a hotel somewhere, then just stay in the room, only going down for meals. I am not sure if I was kidding myself when I said that I was soaking up the atmosphere of the town in a spiritual sort of way, but I know that it involved no work whatsoever. No looking, no cooking.

25 comments:

  1. The first sculpture exhibition I took my youngest son to was of Kinetic works. Lots of whirring and clanging, etc. The next exhibition we went to was just static work, and my son looked bored. When I asked him why he just said 'They don't do anything'.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like holidays on my own: no time wasted on deciding where to eat. Did you listen to the Wapping Reunion today? It was great.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You would like it. I recommend listening.

      Delete
    2. I listened to it. Brenda Dean has a lovely voice. It seemed so long ago now.

      Delete
  3. I love the thought of the burly Russian building sand castles - playing like a kid again. I've heard of the beauty of Cuba, but Americans weren't allowed to go. Not sure if Trump has changed Obama's decree.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He is about to reinstate sanctions, if he hasn't already. If you want to go, get in via Canada.

      Delete
    2. Oh, and ask the Canadians NOT to stamp your visa.

      Delete
  4. This is a description of the life I returned to. I sit and listen to sparrows. I look, unfocused, on streaming rain. Sometimes the phone rings and I pay attention.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That last paragraph rings true for me too Tom when I lived alone between marriages. There was something so comforting and worry free about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. Farting in bed without feeling guilty...

      Delete
    2. As long as you dont follow through

      Delete
    3. I have a friend who said her husband was a true 'gentleman'. Apparently he didn't fart in bed for the first 10 years of their marriage. A good point.

      Delete
  6. Each year I add holidays 'on my own' - feeling an innocent sense of adventure, freedom, openess , and it reminds me that I can stand on my own "one...two"-feet, is always challenging, and a bit of adrenalin heightens the atmosphere and the colours around me. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I need more on my own, but I will not speed up the process or wish for H.I. to speed it up either.

      Delete
  7. I am, as I have said before, afeared of the Fates, and so don't actually wish for time alone to holiday or wander or do nothing,but sometimes I like the idea of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like pet animals, they should choose you rather than you choose them.

      Delete
  8. We have given up laying on beaches on holiday ..... we much prefer to be doing something but I do like to walk along the beach ..... I am also very at home with my own company and am pretty good at sitting on the sofa for a while !!! XXXX

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I must correct myself ..... we have given up lying on beaches !!! XXXX

      Delete
    2. That's what I meant too. I can still sit down, it's getting up which is the problem.

      Delete
  9. If I got down in the sand I could not get back up. I'll settle for watching the water.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah - I read this before I wrote the above. We have turned into beached whales or upside-down turtles.

      Delete