Yesterday we visited the Castle of Mey, something of a local landmark, that was once the home of the Queen Mother. I’m a signed up member of the “friends” of the castle meaning that I can get in for free at any time, but in actual fact I only ever seem to go when we have people staying up here [NOTE TO SELF: frequent places of interest more often]. Each time I go, and I’ve been five times, I see something new. It’s like my eyes focus on one thing I’ve missed up until now. I don’t know if it’s that the guides there sneak out new artefacts or that I just never noticed them, but it never fails to amaze me that I have overlooked so many things.
I pride myself on being observant. I used to be quite good at Kim’s Game where you have a tray of different things and have to remember them all when they are covered up. Usually I’d make up ridiculous ways of remembering them, often with rhymes or acronyms. I’ve always enjoyed playing with words - and you’re reading the results of it now, lucky you!!! My best form of observation, though, is not of little dinosaurs hiding in the flowerpots (anyone who’s been to Bowermadden in Caithness will know that there are dinosaur breeding programmes up here) but is of people. Very often, especially when heading south into the busier parts of the world, I will sit in the car rather than wander out into city streets and just watch the people who go by. Slightly agoraphobic, perhaps, but more a fascination with this peculiar species called humans. Virtually all the characters I write of in my various assorted stories are based on persons I have seen or known. Having said all that, my observational skills are clearly deteriorating, as I spent the entire tour trying to work out where I knew the tour guide from, only for her to inform me where we met six months ago.
Perhaps life is getting too busy. When I start to forget people, or overlook them, it may well be time to step back and remind myself of the Fs in life - or F-ing priorities, as I sometimes call them.
Faith and Family
Freedom
Friends
Food
Finance
Forgetting people can be rather embarrassing. It’s just about acceptable to forget names from time to time, especially as many of my friends are currently changing their’s to fit in with married life, but it is a sinking feeling when someone approaches you and begins talking about something as though you are meant to know exactly what they are going on about. I’ve found myself in this position a few times and have promised myself that when it gets to the stage where I can’t remember all my pupils names and times off by heart, I shall stop taking on new ones.
People have touched my life, and they deserve to be remembered for it. It may not have been recently - indeed, some of my best friends are people I formed a bond with over two decades ago - it may not have been positively - I was one of those poor souls who was bullied continually at school - but it is these exchanges with people that have made me who I am today. And I am one of the lucky people in this world who can honestly say that I am happy with who I am. Of course, I’ve got ambitions - who doesn’t? John Denver wrote a song called Poems, Prayers and Promises that talked about how good life was, how important people’s relationships with one another were and how life should be lived to its full with dreams and aspirations. That’s where I’m at.
And so, today’s blog is a thank you. To you, whoever you are. You’re here because somewhere along the ever-expanding road of time we’ve connected. You’ve given me inspiration. You may know me already and have come to this through Facebook; perhaps you found me on Twitter; or maybe it was an accident stumbling across this here because you and I share a common interest that was tagged into this blog. Whatever it was, you’re helping me to be me. I hope I am helping you to do the same.
Incidentally, in a previous blog I talked of the seemingly impossibility of smiling being anything but good. In an effort to prove me wrong today, Judith’s pearly whites attracted a fly whilst smiling at someone… I’m still not convinced that this is a good enough reason not to smile…
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