Forgotten it already!

Walking home from grandson’s school I stopped at a huge, old oak tree and said to him. Oliver, absorb this moment. Look at everything, smells, touch of this oak bark – everything. Then remember it tonight as you lie in bed, then tomorrow, and each year as you get older remember this moment. This is how you can enrich your life. Will you try and do that?

He ran off with a stick shouting back, “Forgotten it already!”

Yep, he’s six and already a windup merchant. He’s also thoughtful and will probably remember.

I did it because my dad did it to me, except it was a crumbling red brick wall at a bus stop in Cheltenham. He was an artist and thus sensitive to observation and environment. Alerted me to the microworlds that exist in a crack or in a mossy lump in the mortar. Then now and then he’d say, ‘Remember that wall.’ Every now and then I’d find myself appreciating a ray of sunlight or comfort of an armchair and wondering if I’ll remember this moment next week, next year. I always do even if I forget what I came to town for.

I used that brick wall moment in ARIA: Left Luggage. A keeper at Chester Zoo has caught the infectious amnesia virus, but his intelligence still works:

“Lester Godwin pushed the security buttons gleaming at him from the staff entrance of Chester Zoo. Sandstone blocks formed the gate, their rosy hue harbouring tiny red mites and ants in gravity-defying scurrying. They darted around shiny green-leaved stonecrop plants with their shocking-pink flowers. A miniature zoo for those who couldn’t afford the entrance fee of the real one. He once led a puzzled school biology class out of the zoo and made the students count the species of fauna in this old wall. Although the kids were gob-smacked at the micro ecosystem, they still preferred to see elephants.”

From ARIA: LEFT LUGGAGE

Hopefully, Oliver will remember and revisit the odd places nuances of the world I point out to him. I think he and my other grandkids will.

Here’s Oliver in another part of Davyhulme Park, Manchester. I didn’t intend this blog post to be a sell for ARIA but just in case you are interested: