Whithersoever

Stepping outside myself, I caught infinity in a moment; came face to face with a Super Star of Invincibility.

How little we know: whence we came, whither we’re going. We’re on our way. Whithersoever

I went on a small journey in preparation for a bigger one. On Monday I fly out to Amsterdam, so this little trip to Loudwater was to change some pounds to euros at a bureau de change. I set off in walking boots, they’re best for my swollen toe-joint. I might have gone on foot via the Valley Path, but when I passed the bus station there was one leaving for Flackwell Heath, so I gladly leapt on. The warm embrace of a bus, its judder and roar, transports me to the Forties and Fifties of childhood, for in essence diesel buses have not changed, a surviving technology like fountain pens and notebooks. I used all three at once, for there I was scribbling away amongst the peaceful chattering of fellow-passengers, whose cadences hadn’t changed either in the last sixty years. One one side were two white-haired ladies; on the other an attentive mother with her bright toddler. I felt ageless.

I could see the driver from where I sat, an alert young man, apparently half-Chinese, with a pleasant countenance. At the next bus stop a couple with piercings got in. She showed her concession pass; he told the driver he’d forgotten to bring his. “But we’re together,” he added, implying they held their eligibility in common. I’m sure this was against the rules but the driver waved him on, putting the principle of pleasantness before profit. He was sure of himself, his skilful control of the vehicle, his responsibility for everyone’s safety. Thus I surprised myself: seeing as it were through a bus-driver’s eyes.

The toddler had been chattering to his mother, pointing things out right and left, but the motion and noise of the bus put him soon in a doze, and he slumped forward, his little head threatening to bump a metal side-rest. Mother stood up, put her hand in the way like a cushion. Then it was time to get off so I pushed the bell for the next stop. The mother followed, toddler on one arm, pushing buggy with the other, so I helped her lift it to the ground. I was ageless but caught myself feeling like a teenager. Flackwell Heath somehow has this effect on me, wiping out the years. I published a piece about this effect, you can find it dated March 3rd last year. (This blog sometimes acts as my journal, recording subjective states with the time and place of their occurrence.)

Once off the bus, I noted how good my boots felt, ready for a long trek, though it was only a mile to my current destination. It might be a good idea to wear them all the time in Amsterdam. I passed through a housing estate where the lilacs were all out: white, mauve and purple. I saw a couple of birds walking along the gutter, resembling young grouse, but I don’t know what they were really. It was pointless trying to take a photo, birds always flee at the sight of my camera. But soon I was through a gate and into the greenwoods, no forest but a narrow strip planted to drown the sound of cars on the motorway which cuts through these hills, like two fast rivers, with flotsam whizzing in both directions. I saw these roads with their cargo of cars through gaps in the fresh green leaves, through which they appeared bluish and blurry, their rasping roar offensive to the senses as a giant open sewer would be, but with sound rather than stink. I shuddered instinctively at what mankind has done, mankind meaning me of course, despite my detachment in that moment. Some things are necessary though offensive. I suffered this momentary twinge of distaste as anyone unaccustomed would suffer, seeing a production-line of animals on their way to slaughter. The whisperings of those fresh green leaves, the nobility of those tall beeches, were a lullaby to the soul, distancing me so far from ordinary consciousness that I saw the commonplace reality of intercity traffic as a kind of horror.

I looked for the square tunnel under the motorway, built for walkers on the line of a centuries-old footpath, but missed it. Instead I found a magnificent stairway built into the side of the hill from railway sleepers, with a proper handrail, from which I could descend under the motorway where it bridges some local roads. I had to cross one of these: the traffic was busy both ways, but I was in no hurry, looking to right and left, waiting for the moment when I could saunter across at my own pace. I’d never known traffic like this in the Forties and early Fifties. Behind me, though, were some houses in a country style of about 80 years old, above a steep bank, set back behind the road. I imagined their owners keeping large dogs, cooking on wood-fired cast-iron ranges, where they would dry out their boots and wet clothes. I’d never lived that way, but suddenly felt that I could have done, whatever that may mean. For I was in the kind of peaceful state where in moments I could imagine being someone else—that bus-driver, that mother, that toddler; or a house-owner I’d never met, living as I’ve never lived.

While I glanced to the right, still waiting to cross the road, my eye glimpsed a single hair, outside the frame of my glasses, quite blurred. I thus unexpectedly caught sight of me, at least a part of me big enough to carry my DNA, the blueprint of this body. DNA is a special thing. It encapsulates your uniqueness but also your membership of a species. From imagining myself to be someone else, I entered a different dimension, one of agelessness, where time, space and individuality were just constructs. Here was a human being, the thing I call “me”, but my consciousness had escaped it to become an observer, feeling a vast respect for that thing, and its membership of something vaster than itself. The experience lasted half a second at most, so I obviously didn’t think all these thoughts at the time. I probably had no time to think anything beyond “That’s my hair”, but I’m trying to convey that which had no words, for it was a very specific feeling. And the reason I’m writing this piece at all is for the sake of that feeling, to preserve it as a kind of reference point in life. a>This sense of individuality we normally possess is a practical necessity like that roaring motorway. It’s certainly not an illusion, but all the same it’s a kind of screen or curtain, hiding whatever lies behind. Sometimes, in a special case, we can see through a chink, and try to comprehend something bigger.

I wasn’t awestruck or anything. I crossed the road safely, thanks to that necessary instinct of looking after oneself. Above me was the motorway, a fine piece of civil engineering, a Leviathan in concrete. Then I caught sight of a cheeky graffito, carefully constructed in mosaic tiles. I looked for others, but it was a lone star.

Someone had taken the trouble to design a smiley star from mosaic tiles, and glue it to a pillar, for a reason, knowing that others would come along, and wonder what it was, and why. As I did. Later, after much research, I concluded it was inspired by “Super Mario Bros”, a video game with its own lavish entry on Wikipedia.