We meet most Sunday mornings. She is much older than me but I don’t care. Funny how she always seems surprised as I gasp ‘Good morning’, as if she’d never seen me before. ‘Good morning’, she answers back. Then we are apart again.
Shuffling along with her stick, skirting Grouville Common, set on a destination unbeknown to me. To her daughter’s house maybe. A cup of tea and a chat. Looks forward to seeing her grandchildren.
She certainly has a past, a long one too. What stories could she tell if I were to fall into conversation with her? Of her Jersey childhood, the village school, visits to the nearby beach, a weekly visit to the town of St Helier. Then the arrival of the Germans and the five long years of hardship before the Liberation. Love, marriage, a family. Maybe none of the above. I know nothing about her.
Perhaps she was a champion swimmer as a young lady. She wishes someone would ask her about her medals. Now she walks to keep fit, unbelieving that her body could ever let her down.
And does she know, or care, that this puffing stranger is also raging against the dying of the light? One day, sooner or later, we’ll meet no more.
I wonder who will let the other down?
Back On The Rock 
And Mont Orgueil watches over you both
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Hello Sue 🙂 Hope you’re well. Yes, that beach shot was from Saturday, and I ran that way along the road on Sunday. What a great website you have, though horses aren’t really my scene. Nice to hear from you.
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Very well thanks Roy, hope you are too. The bookclub I’ve just joined is studying The Guernsey Literary and Potato peel pie society at the moment, (think I’ve got that long winded title right!) Have fun seeing in the Spring weather, we have just had so much heavy rain parts of Auckland flooded.
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Beautifully written, Roy. Now you HAVE to stop and chat with her because you made all of us curious about her story, too.
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Thanks Juliann, do you know, I might just do that. Hope I don’t alarm her though.
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She clearly intrigues you! You should definitely stop and talk to her. For all you know, she could be thinking the exact same thing. Keep us posted! 😊
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Hello Ali 🙂 Maybe some things ought to remain undisturbed? Maybe there’s an awful secret in her family… Thanks for the RT 🙂
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Oooh… that’s a creepy thought!
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Loved this story Roy… good old Dylan.
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Thank you Bruce. Yes, old Bob writes a good poem 🙂
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😉
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Very poignant, Roy. It would be great if you struck up a conversation- she’d probably be delighted. But the imagining is fun too, isn’t it?
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Thanks Jenny. Maybe she murdered her husband and stashed him in the cellar :-O
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One of my favourite poems. I hope you aren’t really focused on raging against the dying of the light, Roy. Or is that just how you feel at the end of a run … when you’re gasping?! I enjoyed vicariously cogitating on what stories this woman might have. Everyone has a lifetime of stories; perhaps she’s been waiting for someone to listen to some of them! Thanks for getting your readers thinking.
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Thank you Jane. Too many people pass on with their stories untold. Often their papers and records are dumped as ‘rubbish’. We never listened to them properly. History is the minuscule amount of stuff that is written, recorded and preserved. There’s so much we’ll never know.
Thankfully we’re becoming better at capturing much more and technology is making it easier.
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Beautiful musings, Roy:). Poetic, you might say. I like this softer side of you!
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Ah, thank you Kristine 🙂
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Wow, yes, now I want to know more about her …
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Hello and welcome Cecilia. Maybe best not to pry…
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I read your comment about murdering her husband and stashing him in the cellar – you certainly have a writer’s mind (in fact I was thinking along similar lines)! Great story and sometimes it best to just imagine what she does and where she goes, although I’m sure her life story would be amazing xxxx
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Hello Dianne. Perhaps her life story would be amazing indeed. Maybe even now she’s a CIA plant reporting back to the Chief on subversive elements in the Channel Islands. Sunday’s her day off 🙂
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Funny those relationships we have with strangers. I wrote a story once about an old woman who used to feed the pigeons every day, imagining a rebellious, colourful life nobody would guess at. I no longer see her, so I fear she’s let me down first….
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Hi Andrea. Indeed, and she’s taken her story, colourful or otherwise, with her.
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Oh NO! DO NOT Let her go gentle into that good night..you MUST stop and ask her so her deeds can dance in a Green Bay….and maybe you might get a plot for your next book! Ah gwan, gwan. 😀
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I’m tempted SV, I overtook her going the other way on Sunday and I didn’t want to alarm her. Maybe I’ll ask around, see if anyone knows who she is. (Nice extension of that poem’s imagery 🙂 )
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Yes, YES. I want to know her story now too, thanks to you and your meandering thoughts. Yes, she wants you to know, if only in the fiction you draw from wondering about her life. And I hope that when I’m elderly, and walking my same walk day after day, a “young” man who passes me by will realize that I have a lifetime of incredible stories inside my old body.
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Hello Pam 🙂 For sure I’m getting more and more curious about people’s back stories. Strangers are usually two dimensional to us – we haven’t got the capacity to know everything about everyone. But every stranger has a book waiting to be written about them, stories even they may have forgotten about. We’ll see about this lady.
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I hope you bring life into her, Roy! And other strangers who you meet. You do that so well with your writing. ❤
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Gosh I love the writer’s curious mind in you Roy. I often am curious about people I see too. I hope you will be meeting her for a long time yet. The fact that you are both walking is a positive step in longevity. Beautifully written and had me transfixed wondering who she is and whether she was a character out of a story.
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Hi Kath, it might look like walking but I’m trying to run 🙂 Yes, she’s like a character in a recurring dream all right – I come to expect her. I’d certainly notice if she suddenly wasn’t there.
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