Memory

Memories come flooding back, over the 30 intervening years, more than at any other reunion time. Perhaps it’s safe for them now.

My intense need for poetry, for words. My absorption (the only word for it) of any poetry I came across, from cummings to Eliot, whom I was assured was too advanced for me. Yeah, right. Kind of ensured me loving it, that did.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
(robert frost)

Driving all one sunny Saturday with Vicky Bentley in the car with me. We put a hundred miles on the car that day, and I have no idea where we went. Cappel’s, I think, but that would only account for five miles.

Lying awake for hours every night, and then hours every dark morning. Insomnia and a hiatal hernia the physical result of my having to live with my mortal enemy, my mother. We reached a sort of truce at the end, but it was more the kind of truce that exists between North and South Korea. We were both armed to the teeth. Always.

Bits. Pieces. Too incomplete for complete sentences. More to come.

Film at 11.