Life – Page 49 – Achilles & Aristotle

Still Life

Water Jug, Patrick Caulfield: Tate

In a slow meander of a large management meeting, I found myself contemplating a jug of water… How many colours therein? Such scintillations of light; and patches of shade.

How pure. How clean. What pipes and processes got it to this table. How rare in the history and geography of human existence to have water to hand in such pristine abundance. How much rarer – in the universe – to have the temperature and circumstances to sustain this elixir of life?

Art, origins, progress, luck and gratitude – all in a jug. And then back to tasks and voices and faces and work. But a wistful smile at the corners of my mouth perhaps betrayed I’d briefly escaped the mundane – and enjoyed a moment of wonder at the natural world. Life is in the small details sometimes.

Children, Life

Simply, Beautiful

My daughter and I have started pressing flowers – we have three on the go. My son likes a flower too.

So I was pleased, last weekend, to cheer our kitchen, with an old gin bottle saved from the recycling and a tress of roses I found forlornly hanging heavily over the bins.

Simply, beautiful.

Postscript

Ingredients:

Sunday
sun
cheap plastic bag
park
boy
wild flowers
grandparent
phone

Children, Life, Poetry

Glad to be Dad

The kids are getting older
And a little wiser.
But not much.

Bigger limbed,
Larger but still largely children
Both in impulse and action.

I see younger Dads,
Babes in arms,
Pushchairs and scooters.

I’m through that now.
Less needed for physical support,
More for moral.

The seasons change,
And the ask
But I’m always glad to be Dad.

Walking about a cafe-lined street – waiting for my boy to finish his latest activity – I notice lots of younger dads. Some tired faces, lots of kit and caboodle; prams, scooters and constant distraction and vigilance for trips, tears and tantrums.

Phew, I’m glad we’re through that. So far through it, that I’ve rejoined the adult majority – mildly irritated a set of young parents couldn’t stop their toddler screaming – as me and the boy ate a breakfast muffin. Shame on me.

The ‘ask’ is changing. Not physically fetching and carrying but constantly ferrying and permanently travelling: to netball, skating, rugby, dance and school fêtes and events. And there’s a growing need for encouragement and some tough love, in enforcing ‘sticking at’ stuff.

The job is changing with the seasons but there’s no need to be sad. There’s plenty of demand for Dad.

Children, Life, Odysseus, Work

Tree of Life

Instead of ‘keeping plates spinning’, I’m coming to the conclusion that a better metaphor for my middle years, is a spreading oak, full of twittering birds.

Many feathered, they can’t be tethered; birds come and go and freely choose your branches. Some stay a while, some just pass through. Some coexist peacefully with the rest of the tree. Some scare others away. Some sing beautifully, others cheep incessantly. And quieter birds just appreciate the support and shade.

Right in the centre of my tree is the ramshackle but solid nest which is my little family: cheeping, pecking each other and squawking periodically for food. Sustenance delivered, this nest is the driving purpose of my whole tree.

Sadly my oak – like so many urban trees – suffers regular vandalism. A couple of people regularly urinate on it. Every now and then a f#ckwit carves “I am a f#ckwit” on it. Periodically someone tries to strip the bark and make my branches droop.

But my tree is home to a good many happy singing birds most days. From the smiling faces in the coffee shop, via the cheery waves from security and the cleaners to the rather more demanding nesting birds of the people who work for me. And of course the noisy but life-filled family nest, bursting with love, at each end of the day.

My tree of life ain’t a bad habitat. And seeing its many occupants cheeping, twittering, singing and flitting in and out is a happier picture than the pointless spinning of plates.

Keeping the vandals away, the ravens at bay, the roots deep and the branches strong, is all I need to do to enjoy life-filled and happy days. That, and a heart of English oak.

Children, Life, Poetry

Petit Prince

After darkness comes the light. Bath time, a happy face under a towel, a hug, a chat and a cuddle.

There is no sweeter, kinder more caring and thoughtful boy in the whole wide world than this one…

My saving grace,
His smiling face.
He asks if I could be king?
As he fancies himself a prince.

“But you’d have to share the food,
Not be a greedy guts…”
Unlike his cheeky sister this e’en.
We’d all live very well, ruled by
The kindest boy in all the world.