Watercress & Angels

I went to the doctor about two unrelated issues. The upshot was, no action or prescription. But I came out of there a new man, with a spring in my step etc, which lasted at least two hours. All week I’d been dreading it: the inevitable physical examination and its possible verdict. The aftermath could have been a placebo effect, or simply relief. Either way a celebration was justified. My footsteps took me to the supermarket for cans of beer, confiding as I went to my trusty Pearlcorder*, as follows:

When I felt inspired to tell Rama that it’s important to be a nobody, I really meant we need to understand that we’re no better than anybody else. This is the essence of a spiritual approach to life. All the same, it’s good to know what makes you different from others, if only to increase your own patience and compassion.

Perhaps one of my differences — yet who knows, it may be universal — is that leaving the house is always an overwhelming sensation, as it would be to a prisoner who’s been released after fifteen years. The fresh air, the quality of the light and the noise, intense feelings, the gift of freedom. It’s like the experience of Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Sling Blade, a great film which Billy Bob also wrote and directed. Since murdering his mother and her lover at the age of 12, he’s been confined to a “nervous hospital” for thirty years, and they’re letting him out today, an apparent retard, ill-adjusted to the world. It’s a great compassionate deep film, that turns upside down your normal judgements of people. I’ve wanted to talk about it for days. Billy Bob was also the hero in Levity, in a similar scenario: a man released after many years of repenting his teenage folly: the murder of a teenage store assistant his own age, in a botched gang robbery. Now he wants to put right the wrong he’s done, and so gain redemption. I don’t know why, but both movies have enormous resonance for me, though I never killed anyone in this life. Perhaps like Paul Simon, in You can call me Al, I’m still wanting a shot at redemption.

It’s great to see that the stream which flows beside the supermarket is flowing again after being dried up for a year, rippling prettily through the watercress; and in celebration of that, they’ve cleared it of litter: — which hasn’t stopped people from starting to drop new litter in it. There are many streams which flow through the town eventually joining the River Thames. The town is built upon them, with lots of bridges and culverts. They’re all flowing again, and it lifts the heart to see Nature restoring itself from drought, and who knows, pestilence too.

Each day brings its portion of reassurance. Though I often speak of angels, I love it when someone, as a dear friend did today, reminds me of their role in our lives.

* Note appended Nov. ’17: Pearlcorder was a range of Olympus voice recorders using micro-cassettes. Now surely made obsolete by digital models, but still available used on eBay.