RRobinson expressed a familiarity with the brand of French heavy building plant 'Manitou'. Our Jean-Paul was very proud of his Manitou, which he brought along when he re-aligned our lintels and smartened up our chimney. He was very keen we should pose in the shovel of it at some height from the ground, so here am I,
and here's Tom - blimey, he still wears that shirt:
Those were taken probably fourteen years ago, long pre-digital, scans of old film snaps I've looked out. The changes in the landscape, how trees and garden have grown up since, is noticeable to me in the first picture. Looking into the old photo album is quite unsettling, possibly salutary. In many ways it feels as though life didn't really begin until we came here to live, and since then that time has stood still; I can't quite believe it's been well over fifteen years, that I was still in my mid-thirties, Tom not yet into his sixties when we came. Yet looking over those old pictures, it's apparent that we have covered quite a bit of ground, and indeed aged. I'd pick out more to scan and show here, but it makes me feel rather sad and shaky to look too much at them. I find myself wondering if we haven't reached the tipping point. I'm afraid I do think there might be a tipping point.
Those days were also pre-Molly, and later pages show her puppy years, which also makes me feel a bit wobbly inside. But it's been good, and worth everything. I'd be a coward to say otherwise.
Molly, in her first year.
8 comments:
Great fun whopping Manitou shots!! I shouted, "me, too! me, too!" when I saw them. And beautiful Molly!
I know what you mean about the wobbly part ... almost 2 years after my sweet Mama's death, I've decided that I'll take a week off between the years and finally crack open that box of old photographs. I'll have a bottle of booze close at hand.
I always think: "a great long improbable run, luck from beginning to end, already I've outrun anything I could have expected. Anything from here on out is pure gift."
I believe I've felt that way since my 20s.
Moral: we all profit from well-founded logistics.
Recycling pix. Don't forget the one at the wedding where you're wearing danglers. My dear, Dorothy Parker but without the booze.
There is a strangeness in this process. Comes the pup, an infant, needing attention, shelter, sustenance, training and love. We help socialise it, encourage play, keep it safe, make it feel we are its family, and it ours. It becomes bigger, stronger, more confident, passes through adolescence and reaches adulthood. The bonds grow closer, tighter. Some dogs are never far from their master's/mistress's heels. (Some dogs, I whisper softly, even sleep on, or even in the family bed.) At some magic point, dog catches up with master/mistress, and both are level-pegging in age, side by side on life's road. Then at first imperceptibly, then with worrying speed, dog moves on ahead, the magic point past, and we see it growing older, moving into territory we too must one day face. And therein lies the strangeness and the tragedy. They share so much of what we are, accompany us on the journey but then turn aside to launch off the cliff-edge into that greatest mystery of all. And it ALWAYS hurts to watch. I've had two dogs in my life that died before their times, and two that lived to be very old indeed, and there were deep wells of sadness to be negotiated in all four losses, because the young dogs could have had so much longer... all that promise unfulfilled... and the older dogs left gaping chasms where affection had been poured for many years.
It's that old cliché: Grief is the price we pay for love.
Yes there's a tipping point. It comes at different times for different people. My mother's came at about 93. She died at 100. My aunt's came 5 months before she died at 86. You never know. Every so often I ask -- Is this it? But nobody ever answers.
But Lucy, you definitely are not there yet.
Lucy, you have a piece of spam above my comment. I looked for a way to email you but couldn't find an address. You can delete this along with the spam. Anne
Thanks all.
Clive, beautiful, thanks.
Anne, got rid of the spam, didn't like to delete your comment, it seems rude!
I might have more to say on the tipping point...
The tipping point is surely related to physical or emotional health. Either one can drive the wedge. I am past mine but so far the gods have been kind. I have thought like Dale that most of my adult life has been gift anyway. It was when some of me started to fail, a few years back, that I reached my tipping point. 62, maybe.
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