Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be!
It was hinted at (by the indefatigable Alan Higgs , the ever present Sileby Parish Councillor, community fixer and mender) that I ought to change the theme of this letter,
and choose another subject than seats. That one has run for 6 months, and the patience of our hard core of readers might be wearing a bit thin.
So, this month I start on the theme of cardboard boxes. “Ah Yes!” I hear the cries, “Far more interesting”
But, please read on.
Mary and I were putting away our Christmas tree and decorations to rest again in our loft for another year, and I worked out that this was the twentieth year we had performed this ritual together in our little home in Sileby.
All our baubles, tinsel, angels, and decorations live in a cardboard box for eleven months of every year, in the dark and lonely loft of our house.
The cardboard box they live in, was given to me, along with half the decorations in the box, by my parents, many years before.
The box, I know, is as old as me. This was what my parents had to put their Christmas decorations in after their first Christmas in their new council house in Ruddington in 1953, the year I was born
I wrote a poem after that Christmas in 2005, after Mary and I had visited Rome.
We happened to be in St Peter’s Square when they were taking the Vatican 108 feet tall Austrian Fir Christmas Tree down.
The workmen were taking off the oversized baubles and handing them out to the small crowd who were watching the proceedings.
From that day we were the proud custodian of one of Pope Benedict XVI’s balls! The picture at top right is of that very bauble, in St Peter’s Square with Mary’s reflection as she held it up for me to photograph it.
At junctions in our lives, often we can feel sad. If it’s mild sadness, like returning from a lovely holiday, going back to work after a happy Christmas, or putting the Christmas decorations away for another year,
this is one end of a continuum. At the other end is the grief we feel for a lost loved one, a mum, dad or a partner.
I have known all of these in my life, and it was when I lost my partner in the year 2000, and I was grieving, that I wrote a book full of poems.
Funny how a mind works isn’t it? It was at the end of this prolonged period of extreme sadness that I met Mary, and indeed wrote the poem mentioned earlier.
In these last twenty years I have thought long and hard about the process of grieving, and asked the questions like Do I grieve for me, for the one I have lost?
For the chances I have lost to complete our lives? For the wrongs I feel I did? Or for the rights I never had the chance to show her?
I’d say all of these things and more.
But at the end of this process we move on. It’s one of those lessons we learn in life, if we survive long enough.
The poem is called Cymbal of Symbolism
Here’s the first verse:
Each tinsel strand, bauble, band,
Coloured light, joyous sight,
Card posted, feast hosted,
Gift wrapped, afternoon napped,
Hand shaken, embrace taken,
Smile received, tale believed,
Cracker pulled, wine mulled.
All, now, in this old box refrain
‘Til the cymbal sounds again.
And as we live on maybe this grief changes and we change and adapt,
and we yearn for times past, forgetting the hurt we had overcoming that and remember only the best of times.
So, yes, nostalgia, perhaps, ain’t what it used to be!
Happy New Year
Steve
