Pete's Mission: A New Year Thought

I was going to write a long, thoughtful, slightly meandering piece for New Year. Around the myths of Janus I would paint a relevant look at today’s issues – and tomorrow’s hopes. But then I thought; “you guys don’t want more dreary forecasting, more ill-informed futurology or another lump of maudlin remembrance of 2011.”

You want to party. To celebrate something – maybe a good year, maybe the end of a bad year, perhaps just the fact of survival. And so you should, properly with food, wine, good company and the joys of music.

Tomorrow we start again on our search – Pete the cat’s search:

"...While still a kitten, all fluff and buzzes, Pete had worked out a simple philosophy. I was in charge of quarters, rations, and weather; he was in charge of everything else.  But he held me especially responsible for weather. Connecticut winters are good only for Christmas cards; regularly that winter Pete would check his own door, refuse to go out it because of that unpleasant white stuff beyond it (he was no fool), then badger me to open a people door.  He had a fixed conviction that at least one of them must lead into summer weather."

Tomorrow we will – again – set out looking for that doorway into summer. Some of us will find it and walk through the grass or curl our toes in the soft sand. Others will not find the right door.

But what makes us human is that we carry on the search. If we stop or worse, call for someone else to look for us or even make a new door, then we become a sheep – and we fail in Pete’s mission.

There is a doorway into summer but, unless you’re a cat, someone else can’t open it for you.

Happy New Year. Have a great 2012 looking for your doorway!

...

Summer will pass but not before we sing

It's summer, or at least that's what it says on the packet. We have set aside the big (but just a little crazed and chipped) old mug and replaced it with an elegant, slender-stemmed glass. And filled it with sparkling bubbles dancing in a tartly sweet liquid. No more the thick, pleasing gunk that went in that mug, that can wait now, wait until the nights close in again.

It's summer, I know this as the swallows skim across the surface of the canal their metal blue backs catching the sun as it cracks between the tall trees on the bank. So I put down the solid, heavy-bottomed, tight-lidded casserole and drag, from the furthest recess of the cupboard, the big old wooden salad bowl. No more dark, rich stew of oxtail, mutton or game birds. Instead there's delicate spring lamb, just grilled, fresh sparrow's grass and salads of newly grown herbs, little green onions, juicy peppers and lettuce - crunchy yes but just a little bitter.

It's summer and men in white bestride the fields. A little green and red mars the whites, not like times before when the mud and clay caked knees, socks and boots. The games last a little longer, often ending in a draw. But this matters not as in this season we are less hurried, no longer frantic in our chasing of goals but happy to watch wait, to take our time at the task in hand.

It's summer and the old spirits - the gods of wood, hedge, moor and marsh - are about. Not crashing and bashing like the guardians of rain and wind but gentle, relaxed and smiling. Pleased to watch as the season's good things grow, as they mature. As nature's magic works its way into our pleased hearts to make us smile and laugh - helped as ever by the sparkles in that glass.

Soon, too soon, summer will pass. The cocoa mug will be on the kitchen table again. And we'll wonder if the dark drear of winter will ever pass. But for now we have joy and can feel summer's magic make us sing.

....

A glimpse of that Summer....

A little glimpse - unintended, unmeant, but a glimpse nonetheless. A snatched sight of a better place where the grass really is greener, where seasons are seasons and where time stands still in the Summer of our childhood. A shudder of regret, the smell of things we miss and the sour taste of things we got wrong.

This isn't us turning back the clock or even appealing for that clock to stop in the great Summer. It's us remembering, smiling and taking stock. Recalling the dark times, the times of sadness and loss, that there were good times, times of joy. Moments when we laughed ourselves silly. Days that were filled with the excitement of discovery.

Without these glimpses into that greener world, we would not cope with loss. We would be torn asunder by the World's pain.

So let's take them when we can, treasure them and smile.

....

Looking through to the other side...

It's happened. You don't need to know just what it is merely that it has happened. The turn in the stream has been reached and there before me, that archway.

Beyond it may be something better - who knows. I just know I have to pass through it - to get to the other side. To look up and see what may be the route out - perhaps to a sunnier, lazier river where people aren't so factious, so frantic. A river where the sun shines and the birds sing. A river where the light at sundown makes for a little Summer magic.

An escape from winter's darker, colder magic to a better place.

Now that would be good.

....

Doorways....

One of my favourite books is Robert Heinlein's "Doorway into Summer". Mostly because the real hero of the book is a cat - a boy cat with a rough attitude not one of those pampered housebound metrosexual pussy-cats but one who travelled everywhere with his head poking out from a kit bag. What this has to do with anything is moot but the idea of the doorway was central to the book - the cat would travel from door to door in the house knowing that one would be the 'doorway into summer' and he could go out without getting cold or wet or both.

Which rather takes me to the point of doors. Are they to keep us out or to protect us while we're in? And are we not fascinated by the possibilities that lie behind the door. Don't tell me you haven't tried a door handle or two in your time? Or peeked carefully - and with a slightly guilty feeling - through a door left ajar? Of course you have and, like Heinlein's cat, you're left disappointed. There is no summer, no secret garden where all is good, the sun is shining and the living is easy! Yet we carry on looking. Hoping that next time...

.....