Hope

In a recent post, “Alchemy”, Rebb attributed a phrase to me: “a song I’ve felt since before time”. I’m sure I wouldn’t have used those exact words, but nevertheless I’ve been looking for its source. It sounds like her paraphrase for an odd experience that I’ve often tried to express in these pages: the sense of echoes that go back and back so that even in earliest childhood, they still seem like echoes of something earlier. Going through the archives I found an early attempt to note this down, in a post called “Hope”, dated 30th October 2007. No comments were ever appended. It was written in an odd way, using third person and past tense, like a fictional story. So I’ve altered that, and improved it in other ways too. So here it is, edited accordingly.

A dream:

Today’s the day I’m meant to wear my Royal Air Force cadet uniform, just as I did fifty-five years ago at school. I’ve been promised it will be hanging ready in my closet: not the actual one I wore then, but a replica, indistinguishable from the original one issued from the quartermaster’s stores when I was fifteen, except a size that fits me now. I’ve forgotten to tell them that for authenticity it needs sergeant’s stripes sewn to the arms of the tunic. I stop myself from actually checking the wardrobe to see if it is hanging there correctly prepared. It’s a feeling that I should have trust, and ignore my nagging suspicion that something will go wrong. If I have faith, it will be OK. But if it comes to it, the stripes don’t actually matter, as I’ll have no authority on this parade. I’ll just be an honoured “veteran”, not that I was ever a combatant, you understand, just a cadet, play-acting.

So I first look for socks. In the drawer they all seem odd or the wrong size. As I recall, grey socks are correct with the blue-grey uniform. Ah, here’s one. Now all I need is its twin. Here’s one but it has a hole in the heel: that’s all right, it won’t show. But it has wires sticking out, making it spiny all over, like some ugly fish from the ocean depths. It must have been done for some long-ago fancy-dress costume which I can’t remember now.

Time’s running short: the parade is soon to start and I still haven’t looked for my uniform. What if it isn’t the right size? That will be worse than no sergeant’s stripes, or incorrectly sewn ones. (You can’t just leave it to a seamstress. Her stitches may be neat but she must understand the regulations for precise positioning of badges of rank. I quarrelled with my mother about this once. She thought the promotion had gone to my head, and had no inkling of the great importance of these matters.)

I get so absorbed in de-spining the defective sock that I think no more about the uniform and parade. I pull out the rusty wires with my hands and teeth. Then the sorry remains of an outsize woollen stocking lie limp in my lap. I chuck it away in disgust.

Some giggling from a corner of the room makes me look up, to see a girl of five or six, fixing me with her cheeky gaze. “Oh, it’s you!” I exclaim in mock exasperation, seizing a soft frond from an indoor shrub to beat her with, whilst she curls up to fend off my playful blows. Now another little urchin catches my attention, emerging from the shadows with its golden face none too clean: some kind of cheeky angel, maybe innocent and wise, maybe knowing and foolish. It comes close, looks deep in my eyes. At any rate, that’s how it must have happened, for what else would have induced me to kiss it on the lips in an unconsidered gesture? The cherub splutters in confusion, spitting out crumbs of rust which the wire spines of the sock have left on my lips. The first little girl complains “I’m jealous!” in mock or genuine outrage. “Beating me and kissing her. It’s obvious who’s your favourite.”

Mercy! What now? What if I’m accused of child-molesting? If it reaches court there’s no chance anyone will believe my story. The sense of horror as this sinks in is enough to wake me up.

Later the same day:

The waking world is a comfort, if only for keeping to rules and providing continuity. You awake with memories of yesterday and a parade of earlier days, going way back. In truth, this waking world is shockingly alien, but you can’t go on rejecting it day after day; and you can’t wake from it as from a dream. Every morning I get used to it again, like finding myself exiled in a foreign country and setting my brain to speak its language. These beings called “people” are the problem. Cats, dogs, cattle and horses are easier to be with, less tricky; they look at you curiously, but stay placid and unjudging.

I’m charmed out of the house by the colours of autumn leaves against the blue sky, then captivated by their scent. Something makes me flee to a remote place. I take a rough track down a gentle incline into a kind of fold in the landscape, a place where normal civilisation disappears. I’m passed by a small white van, whose driver stares at me as if memorising my features for the police. The track forks in two beside “Ridings Farm”, a compound of decrepit caravans and horseboxes guarded by excited dogs on heavy chains. I hesitate then go left. Further on, I find junk dumped in the hedgerows, result of the crime known as “fly-tipping”. Suddenly I imagine being first on the scene where an object dumped in moonlight is revealed in daylight as a human corpse.

I ascend the hill out of this sinister fold. Now the sunshine warms my spirits once more. Wafting scents silence my thoughts and my very capacity for reason. No wonder a dog let off the leash becomes deaf to its master! If I could have spoken, I’d have simply said “This is beauty.” The sound of crows, larks, my own footsteps, my own breathing. At one narrow spot is a heavy scent, like something designed by a perfumier, an expensive soap maybe. I see nothing to account for it.

Elsewhere the very faintness of the odours lets the interplay of imagination and memory take me back, not just to a time and place in childhood, but beyond that to an earlier time, before there was anything.

In a well-prepared field, a bone-like piece of flint stands alone, thrown up by the plough. My heart leaps up, as it once did in a similar moment. I must have been nine then, and had the same feeling, a leap of hope. Why should a little stone stand as a monument to hope?

What is hope? A vision of what we once knew? These are the questions I ask later, in the stillness of home, now that thought is restored. Perhaps these “moments”—the moments I live for—are the doors to another world, in which souls are not separate. Or perhaps (I’m astonished by the audacity of this idea) my memories and imaginings are threads binding the world together, ordering its pieces into a tapestry of Hope.

14 thoughts on “Hope”
Bryan M. White
I have nothing to add, detract, or quibble with here. Simply a beautiful piece of writing. (Pure Vincent.)Speaking of which, I also like that you recognize that “a song I’ve felt since before time” isn’t something you would say, at least not in those words. Yes, it’s spiritual and sentimental and even a bit mystical and yet somehow distinctly unVincent-like. I like the self-awareness that suggests. It’s good to know ourselves.
Davoh
There is always ‘hope’, my friend – in every blade of grass; in every seed
Rebb
Lovely, Vincent. A ”tapestry of hope.” This string of words stays with me, binds the whole piece together, leaving me feel calm.
Ellie
You took us on a little journey through various states of consciousness which are joined in one mind but know little of the other. The journey was a search for affirmation of connections to the mind which is not limited to one’s own brain. You arrived at ‘hope’ but ‘faith’ may be closer to what binds the world together. I suspect that faith is a word you avoid but to me faith is what gets us through the door to the unseen world where the real substance lies.[1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1We are all trying to understand and to be understood. Pardon me if I distort your intention.
Vincent
Ellie, I don’t even know what my intention was, when I wrote the piece several years ago, other than to write about what moves me, whilst the feeling is still there; and then the other day to try and improve the writing without altering the feeling, or the facts. You are right that I don’t use the word faith; not from avoidance or denial, but from not needing it any more; and perhaps from joy at having escaped its clutches – having put my faith in something unworthy, for thirty years. I like your quote from Hebrews because it sums up why I have no use for faith. The hope I was writing about had nothing to do with any things hoped for; and everything to do with hope itself, in the purest possible form: a kind of comforting inward leap. Or if you prefer, faith itself, but faith in what has been experienced, the underlying Presence behind all phenomena, the silence behind all sound. Faith in those experiences which have been known: that they are real, and never far away. And that something binds the world together, without need for any theory on my part.
Vincent
Rebb, the words “tapestry of hope” were included as part of my revision the other day. The original post here http://perpetual-lab.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/hope_30.html finished with the words “his memories and imaginings were the threads binding the world, keeping it full of Hope.” I suspect those words would not have stayed with you so well.
Vincent
Davoh, it’s absolutely true. There is hope in every blade of grass, every seed. And in air, and stones. And most importantly of all, in the eye of the beholder.
Vincent
Bryan, it’s easier to recognize what I would not write than what I might have written. A dear friend, who shall be nameless, just in case, sent me a piece the other day comparing one of his stories to those of a world-famous writer. I read it almost to the end, agreeing with the whole thing, before I realized I’d written it myself and forgotten all about it. I would perhaps publish it here except for his threat: “Please don’t publish ‘ – ’ unless you think I am your enemy and intend to make my life miserable by whatever way you can.”
Davoh
“Hope” has to also reside as a base premise within the individual human life and existence. While yes “hope” can inspire many violent acts (we hope for ‘equality’, a bit more food or ‘opportunity’ – perhaps I’ll win the ‘lottery’ – whatever that may be). Methinks the base notion of ‘hope’ remains with the individual. Lose ‘hope’ and suicide (bombers, child soldiers) looms. Long story, Vincent.
Ashok
lovely posts and lovely photos. I have a lot on the horse recently in my blog too. Vincent my latest post is dedicated to you. The title is Vincent and the Numinous Presence – The Voice of Reason 
Vincent
Thanks Ashok. I’ll read your new piece after this. .
Ashok
Thanks a million Vincent. I have save saved it. A comment from you was missed in the post. If there was something i did not write correctly do let me know and it will be fixed pronto. cheers mate.
Vincent
No, there was nothing like that. I read it a couple of times and wanted to do you the honour of a well-considered comment. I liked it very much. Now I’ve read it more times and left you a couple of comments!