Crossing Places

A few days ago, while playing among our books, The Toddler pulled out a slim volume which caught my eye. It was a book – or, more truly, a notebook – which I hadn’t seen in a very long time.

A very long time.

Photo credit: SJ O’Hart.

This notebook was a gift from my schoolfriends to me on my 17th birthday. In it, they had each written a little note wishing me a happy birthday and how much they were looking forward to celebrating with me; some wished me a bright future, and others shared funny stories (some of the details of which, sadly, have blurred with time). Many put their first names and their surnames, just in case I lost the notebook and didn’t find it again for so long that I’d have forgotten who they were. One spent four pages insulting me in the most colourfully hilarious language imaginable and didn’t bother signing his name because he knew (rightly) that we’d be friends forever and I’d never get around to forgetting him – and his message still made me laugh out loud.

I read it with a huge grin and, if I’m being honest, a few tears too – and not just because my 17th birthday is so long ago now that you’d need a telescope to see it.

This notebook’s reappearance in my life made me think a lot about intersections and choices, the random algorithms that bring people into your life and take them out of it again. I’m delighted that most of the people who wrote in my book are still my friends; a few I haven’t seen in a couple of years, and one I haven’t seen, sadly, since we left school. But I remembered them all, even without the surnames. Each of them was important to me, and many still are – and there’s not one among them I wouldn’t be glad to see again, right now. They’re all (as far as I know) still alive and well, and though most of them still live in Ireland there are a couple who left – one for America, one for the UK – and very few of them still live at home, where we all grew up. We all entered one another’s lives through the simple coincidence of being born at around the same time and either growing up in, or moving to, the same place in time to attend secondary school together. Besides that, we are as disparate a group of people as you could find.

And yet, we are bound to one another forever.

I was thinking, recently, about the ‘quantum’ versions of myself – by which I mean, fancifully, the versions of me which exist in every other imaginable universe. Would I be doing the same things I’m doing here, in this space? Would I be the same person? Would I live in the same place, with the same people? Who’s to know. Every life has its ‘crossing places’, points at which the choices you make determine the path you take. My life has had several of those, some of which I would dearly love to relive. If it were possible, would I take different paths? Would I make different choices? I have some regrets; people I have lost whom I miss, people I loved who never knew it, things I wish I’d had the bravery to do when I had the chance.

And yet, the choices I made have led me here, to this room, in which I’m typing. My child is a few feet away, playing. John Grant is on my stereo. The proof of my first book is sitting on the table beside me. Things are not perfect: the world is far from good. I, like many, have found the last few days very hard, for many reasons. But as lives go, I can’t complain about mine. It has been circuitous and challenging, and I look back on so much of it with a nostalgia bordering on pain, but – in one manner or another – everything I have ever wanted or worked for has come to pass.

But as my child grows, these are the lessons I will impart:

1. If you love a person, tell them. Even if they don’t love you, and you know it; even if you fear rejection. Tell them, without expectation, because regret is a far heavier burden than embarrassment, and it grows heavier with time.
2. If you have an opportunity to travel, take it.
3. Ditto with studying.
4. In fact, if you have an opportunity to travel and study, take it. With both hands. And don’t worry about how you’ll work things out – you will.
5. If offered a job you don’t think you can do, try it anyway.
6. If you want to go on an adventure, do it.
7. Always treasure your friends.
8. And never stop working for what you want, fighting for what you believe in, and doing everything you can to help others, as far as you can.

Every life has its crossing places, but hopefully my child’s will have fewer than mine – and, with any luck, friends and friendship will be a big part of it, as they have been for me.

Thank you to my friends, all of them, past and present and future. I’m lucky to have, and to have had, such love.

 

‘Wednesday’ Write-In #78

Alors! Apologies for being late with this week’s Wednesday Write-In, chers. Life – including a storm complete with winds strong enough to almost bash the windows in, a power supply which saw fit to flicker on and off, and hail fit to batter holes in the roof – interposed. But, to my very great delight, everything is fine, and things can resume as normal today. We got away lightly compared with some of the rest of the country, which has seen extensive damage and widespread power outages. Winter storms, eh? Great fun.

Incidentally, this is my fiftieth Wednesday Write-In. Incroyable.

This week’s words were:

maple :: collection :: coarse :: husky :: cigar smoke

Image: megthegrand.blogspot.com

The Morning After

We’d driven to the beach to watch the sunrise, a collection of people too random to be friends, but joined by an inexplicable and unspoken bond. Someone, from somewhere, had stolen a cigar; smoke hung in the air inside the car like incense, and the heavy scent of it was making me feel sick.

A guy in the back was humming a song I loved, one about the Maple Leafs and ladies with lacy sleeves. I settled into it like a favourite shoe, my eyes sliding closed, wanting so desperately to sing along, out loud.

‘Hey,’ said Robin, suddenly. ‘There it is.’ His voice was husky – too much shouting and not enough sleep the night before. ‘The sun, guys. It’s comin’ up. Our first day as adults!’ He pulled himself up using the steering wheel, the bowtie on his rented tux coming askew.

‘Oh, gimme a break,’ moaned Stacey, curled up like a golden lullaby in the corner of the back seat, her head tucked under Brian’s arm. ‘It’s too early for this.’

‘Well, sadly, the sun has been rising early in the morning for a very long time, my dear,’ said Brian, stroking her arm. Whimpering softly, she folded herself further into him and he shifted, slightly, to make room for her. I looked right at him, but he didn’t see me.

‘Hey, I wonder what we’ll all be doing a year from now,’ said the guy in the far corner – the one who’d been singing, I thought. I didn’t know his name, though I was pretty sure we’d had art class together.

‘Time, I should think,’ quipped Brian. Stacey slapped him in that gentle way that only pretty girls can get away with, and he laughed.

‘Bri-bri! Don’t be coarse,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’ll all be doing wonderful things. You and I’ll probably be in college. And you!’ She pointed at me. ‘Shirley? Sharon?’

‘Sasha,’ I said.

‘God, sorry. Sasha. Of course. Well, I mean, you’ll probably be working, right? In the shop, with your dad?’

‘My uncle.’ I cleared my throat. ‘My dad’s dead.’

‘Oh. Wow.’

I lowered my eyes against the barrage of pitying stares that washed over me, and wished I’d just kept my mouth shut. A long, empty moment passed, and the sun crept up the sky like ink bleeding into a piece of paper.

‘You do know we’re never going to have a truer moment than this one, right here,’ said the guy who’d been singing, his eyes distant. ‘We’re never going to be, like, between things the way we are now. Not ever again. This is it. The turning point of our whole lives.’

Nobody said anything. The car filled up with sharp, harsh light, the sort of light that makes dust motes look like tiny Tinkerbells, and makes eyes sting and shutter themselves away. Already, it felt warmer in here. Crowded. Full.

‘Hey. Maybe we’d better get back, yeah? People will be wondering where we took off to.’ Robin’s voice was soft. He started the engine without looking at anyone, and had already started to pull away from the cliff’s edge before we’d even started settling our uncomfortable, unfamiliar clothes around us, and sitting straight in our slept-in seats.

I took one look back as we drove away. The sunlight danced across the sea, and the sky was like the inside of a blue bell.

It was going to be another beautiful day.

Wednesday Write-In #59

The words for this week’s CAKE.shortandsweet writing challenge are:

window of opportunity  ::  churn  ::  rubicon  ::  advance  ::  breeze

 

Image: photocase.com

 

Charm Offensive

‘What in God’s name are you waiting for? How many more chances like this do you think you’re going to get?’ muttered Luke. ‘I mean, we’re talking a prime window of opportunity here.’

‘‘Window of opportunity’?’ I looked at him, eyebrow raised. ‘You sound like my dad.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he replied, fixing his eyes on the prize. ‘It’s still the truth.’

I sighed, and looked back. Our position was good – upwind of the breeze, sheltered by heavy foliage. The target was hemmed in, distracted. If we wanted the advance, it was ours to take.

So why, I wondered, was I so uptight? My hands trembled, and my stomach boiled. My heart felt like a churn, pounding heavily behind my ribs.

Luke’s elbow clattered against my spine, and I yelped.

‘What the…’ I growled. ‘What are you playing at?’

‘We’re spotted!’ he hissed. ‘Forget about making a move, my friend. That Rubicon’s already crossed.’ With that, he got to his feet and ran. I cringed when his feet hit the gravel pathway, giving away our presence with every crunching footstep. It hardly mattered, really – within ten minutes, everyone would know about this. Luke could never keep his trap shut.

I glanced back at the target, keeping low. Damn! She’d seen me…

‘Are you ever going to come out of that hedge?’ she said, grinning. ‘I don’t bite.’

‘I – um…’ I brushed off a stray leaf as I shook my way out of the greenery. ‘Well, it’s like this…’

‘All right, all right,’ she sighed, closing the book she’d been reading. ‘Don’t beg. I’ll go out with you.’ I blinked, trying to figure out what had just happened.

‘But – what?’ My throat was a dead river.

She winked as she passed me. Somewhere, a bell trilled. ‘Hurry up,’ she said, ‘or you’ll be late for Maths.’

‘Hey – wait!’ I called, turning to follow her. ‘How d’you know I have Maths now?’ She turned, smiling, and held out her hand to me.

‘I’m a better spy than you, I suppose,’ she replied, when I got close enough to hear.