Skip to main content

Forget-Me-Not

 It’s early evening.  I’m nine or ten.  I’m playing with Forget-Me-Not on a sandy beach somewhere on the English coast.  Sand is stuck to our sun-lotioned skin. We have matching white hats.  She is five or six and dancing, spinning, splashing, throwing her hat in the air and catching it and not catching it.  Her hair is strawberry blonde, but the soft evening light is picking out more of the strawberry than the blonde.  I don’t know if this beach is real or not, or a mixture of truth and fiction, of beaches we’ve been to and not been to or maybe just real ones set aside for the future. This is one of many holidays our families spend together.  Sometimes our parents are out of eyeshot but within earshot, other times within eyeshot and out of earshot.  Never neither.  Always either/or.  But where are they now?  It’s a question we don’t ask.  We are mesmerised by the tide.  Splashing ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep.  We chase it and get chased by it.  We are lost in play.  The air is cooling by the minute.  Unburdened by time, we are lost in the magnificent music of the sea.

Then a noticeable fading of light.  Forget-Me-Not stops with a yelp, looks around and calls Tom! with a flash of fear in her eyes.  Did Mummy and Daddy go back?  The tide is advancing, taking over the beach.  I can’t see the steps we walked down from.  Just sea wall, stretching up, stretching out.  Do we go this way or that way? She points up the beach and then down the beach, or down the beach then up it.  I don’t know.  I don't tell her that.  I shield her from my not-knowing. I don’t know anything.  Fun has tricked us.  I grab her by the hand, pick a direction and run.  Make sure you look after your cousin, Mum had said. She’s your responsibility.  And now that's all I can hear.  She’s your responsibility, She’s your responsibility, She’s your responsibility and there’s a horrible, terrible emphasis on the your.  Keep up, Forget-Me-Not, please try to keep up.  We run towards the moon, low and faint in the hazy sky and I remember something from school about the moon and the tide and I ask it directly help us, help us, help us.      

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Expert Analysis of Michael Fassbender's Running Style From the Film 'Shame'

Tom Wiggins: What are your first impressions of Michael Fassbender/Brandon's running style? Paul Whittaker: He's running nice, smooth and relaxed. He seems like he has a good amount of fitness and he is running well within himself in terms of pace.   TW: What improvements could he make to his running style? PW: The main improvement I'd make is his foot plant.  He lands heel first and this causes a 'breaking' effect when travelling forwards.  If he landed on his mid-foot/forefoot, this would be a much better for impact stress and propulsion going forward into the next running stride. TW: Regarding his speed, how many minutes per mile is he running? PW : I would say he is running approx 7-7.30 minutes per mile. TW:   What do you make of his stride lengths?  Is he overstriding/understriding? PW:  The actor is definitely overstriding in this clip.  It would help if his feet landed underneath and below his centre of gravit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Norman MacCaig: Poetry Hero

I cannot say exactly when I first discovered Norman MacCaig.  It may have been at the beginning of this year, but could well have been at the end of last.  I found him through a tweet.  Six months or more is a long time on Twitter, and when tweets get to a certain age, they're as stubbornly elusive as a missing person who wants to stay missed. But I know the tweet was left by poet  Jo Bell , the director of National Poetry Day, and whose wonderful blog can be found  here .  The link she left took me to an enthralling 25-minute interview with MacCaig.  I liked the man instantly.  I replied to Jo by saying what how charming MacCaig was.  He had a warm sparkle in his eye that only Scots seem to have access to.  He epitomised charismatic.  Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled on the video, but it can be found  here .  Fast forward to yesterday.  I was sat in Stanman's Kitche...
3 comments
Read more

Mr Pebble Pockets

I’ve called him Mr Pebble Pockets because if I don’t make a joke out of it I’ll cry.  It was about 10:30pm, I’d just got back to the boat from a late shift and I was waiting for my Deliveroo.  He was standing a little further down the towpath and staring at the water.  The night was clear and crisp and there was enough moonlight to see the shape of him: he was tall, late twenties and had a powerful sporty look to him.  He wasn’t crying, but he was shaking and he stood crooked.    Well, it doesn’t take a genius, does it?  I only came out to wait for a bloody curry.  Mother Florence bloody Teresa Nightingale springing into action, hungry and as tired as fuck and now having to stop this guy from jumping into the canal with an anchor for a coat.     I know now that the best thing to do was offer him a cigarette.   I don’t know why I didn’t.   I had the packet and the lighter in my hand. ‘Excuse me,’ I said.   ‘Ar...
Post a Comment
Read more