Just For Me
The jagged, red letters painted on the path read “Today is just for you,” and the absurdity of this makes me laugh. I do this just as I’m passing a man, his arm outstretched, hand resting lightly on his daughter’s back; her face is a mask of intense concentration as she wobbles slowly forward on a bicycle that can only be a few days old. He looks up sharply and I realise how bitter the sound I have made is.
I force a smile. Look away.
The bicycle has strips of metallic foil ribbon dangling from its pink handlebars and they catch the afternoon sun, reflecting lake and sky, blue on brown. Today is just for me.
I’ve spent the morning reading the same two documents over and over, hoping for some sudden flash of clarity that has thus far eluded me. I swim in the words, struggling to make connections that should be apparent. But they are not and I force myself to take a break. Upstairs there is ironing to be done, a repetitive chore that usually relaxes as I turn up the music and focus on process and consistency. Today, I have no patience. I stomp downstairs to the coffee grinder purchased the day before. It spins up, crunches, whines and spews half-ground beans onto the bench. I take it to pieces and clean it out, replace the beans and press the button. Nothing. Enough, I need to breathe. I need to get out.
Twenty minutes later and I’m pushing along the foreshore, over those red letters and toward the angular collection of hexagons that make up the National Carillon. To be considered a carillon, the instrument must contain at least 23 bells. I can’t remember where I read that: a vague recollection of some terrible historical drama on late night TV. I stand at the base between the three shafts connecting the main chamber far above me and read the small brass plaque. The National Carillon has 55 bells, the largest of which is six tonnes in weight.
I’m alone on this island of music, but over the bridge everywhere I look there are people being people. I watch a group of men about my age engaged in an intense game of touch rugby. They are running hard and there’s more contact than I would expect of a social game. Without warning, half of one team jog to one side, gesture at the hills, and then drop to the ground. They lie in the grass, palms supine, and pray.
The idea of loneliness, a lack of connection, is at times worse than any physical isolation. It is just as real.
A rookery of cormorants, like a fleet of tiny black submarines, duck their heads forward together as they angle toward the bridge. I think we are all guilty of being caught up in ideas.
Posted in Mwah on Sunday April 13, 2008.
