Stones and speed bumps
I went to our residents meeting this week, which as I’m living in the family home, just happens to take place at my secondary school (is there no escaping it – I’d just missed a reunion at the weekend)… So I found myself sitting in my old school gym for the first time in ah-hum year’s, trying to concentrate on the size of stones and the height of speed bumps, when all the while my brain kept transporting me back to a younger version of myself attempting to play basketball, I think I spent most of the time trying to decide which hand to bounce the ball with, in the unlikely case it ever came my way.
I was introduced to the new principal of the school – who’s come over from NY, she was just starting to tell me about being involved with Holocaust education when we were interrupted [hey the first time I’ve used the H word in this blog]… so ironically having missed the reunion, I ended up being asked back for lunch.
[…] That time of year for this again. This year I was much more vocal, I even got to stand up against 4 x 4’s and was pleasantly surprised that I was not the only one, although someone did shout out what’s wrong with them and I’m proud to say I shouted the ‘environmentally unfriendly’ line back. It’s actually quite nice to talk to some of the neighbours, although I just wish the ‘Bleak House’ thing wasn’t always such a big part of it, but maybe I wouldn’t go if it weren’t for that. It’s quite stressful having the same conversation every year and not getting very far. It was at my old school again, this year in the hall and I was so ‘engrossed’ in ‘Bleak House’ conversation and drugged up, because it’s that time of the month, that I couldn’t switch my brain over to another topic to talk the Principle, so I just stood there looking a bit stupid and I’m disappointed because in theory I had been looking forward to talking to her again. As various issues were brought up, even amazingly our ‘Bleak House’ issue, even if it was in a way that I had to protest against, I realised that we were sitting on the same chairs that had been there in my time and I wondered whether my younger self had ever sat in the chair I was on, I imagined an image flickering back and forth of me then and now. […]