42 years later and I'm out for a walk in Bristol

So I went out for a walk...

tonight in this charming, ancient little city of Bristol. I really needed this walk. Today was a rough one for me. I was to have attended an interview this morning at the University of Bristol and, at the last minute, I choked. I don't know what happened. I just woke up early today, in a thick asphyxiating fog of self-doubt, fear and self-pity...and,  I choked. Today, I felt, I just could not stand in for examination before them, before those faces. I just couldn't present myself, alongside three or four twenty-somethings, or thirty or fourty-somethings,  for inspection and evaluation. I withdrew my application.

I went back to bed and slept until the crack of noon. Much of the day slipped away after that. I pulled my head up from my pillow, as if it were chained to it, and I floated like a spectre, hour by hour, drearily through Monday. I passed it unsocially on social media - on facebook, or youtube or various news sites. I played some online chess on the Chromebook.

Jesus! I remember how my mother, in her final years, passed lonely days by herself in her village apartment on the edge of that green Edgemont ravine. She spent lonely hours and hours in that flat, playing solitaire on her shitty, old computer. Her face would brighten so, whenever a visitor arrived. She would make tea, and bring out the digestive biscuits on a plate, with a proper teapot and cups and a sugar bowl and a small pitcher for the milk - all served on a tray. She lived for those visits. She lived also for small little items on her calendar. There was the regular appointment to see Dr. So-and-So, the podiatrist, who cut her toenails for free, on the third Thursday of every month ("he is a very handsome coloured man, you know - an American I think - but he's very nice to me.") There were Wednesdays at the West Van seniors' centre - twice a month - when she would meet with her old chum Trudy Bailey. And there were the classes at "Elder College", a popular programme at Capilano College ("they don't like to call it a College anymore - it's Capilano University now, you know?")

In between the appointments, and the visits that my sister Fiona made to look in on her, or to take her home and chat with her and to cook her supper (God bless Fiona), in between those things and the walks and the small trips to the Super-Value grocery, there was a lot of alone time; time that pulled her on to the next visit or appointment or class. It dragged her through unending, tedious games of solitaire, through afternoon television and onto the CBC National ("with Peter Mansbridge") in the evening. Perhaps there might be a telephone call to one of the kids in the evening. "Maybe I'll call Stuart to see how he is getting on." Or, "Maybe I'll call Bruce and Cara over in London - let's see...what time is it there now?" But slowly,  little by little, her contemporaries dropped away. They dropped away, one-by-one, and she remained.

While she was still working her divorced husband, Murray, died from emphysema. I think that the passing of our father affected her much more than she let on. Did she mourn him? After all that time apart, did she yet carry a candle for him. Did she think of her long 26 years with him? Did she think of their family life - when she gave him four children, their Christmases, birthdays, their love-making? If she was hit very deeply and mourned him sorely, she bore it up well, busying herself with work and her family (now there were grandchildren and such.) Suddenly losing her dear, close friend Anna Moore certainly did hit her very hard. Then Joan went, Jim Commery and then Trudy; they all passed on silently. Slowly, little by little, she found herself bereft of all the old, familiar faces - those who had seen the years that she had, those who had lived through the history that she did. Where were they now? Slowly, little by little, she became a shade, as Joyce put it, a half-lucid day dream. And then...she was gone.

By the evening I was needing to get out. I needed some brisk fresh air outside of my hotel room to clear away some of the dark pall of gloom that had wrapped itself around my shoulders, face and spirit. So I did. I got dressed and I went out. The front desk staff looked at me with some momentary curiosity as I emerged from the lift into the hotel lobby. I emerged out in front of my hotel, into the cool rainy night, alongside the River Avon. I walked along the Welsh Back, then up Baldwin Street towards Haymarket and the city centre. I saw that Verdi's Aida will soon be playing at the Hippodrome and I stood for a while in front of the theatre, staring at the posters for all of the upcoming London shows. After a time I slipped into the Drawbridge, a large pub next door, to imbibe a pint or two of local ale, as I imagined the theatre patrons probably did on show nights. The place was almost as empty as my hotel room. So I left. I thought I would grab some take-away at the Pizza Hut I had passed along the away. Outside, in front of the pub, however, I was greeted by the chiming bells of St. Stephen's Cathedral. Their beautiful music sang out melodically and I was truly heartened. It was a sudden and surprising lift for me. It was as if i was reminded that even in dark moments, beauty is everywhere, if you look for it. Expect music and it will play for you. I realised that this was what I came out for.

I left the bells behind, entering the Pizza Hut. "Just for one?" asked the effeminate young Mediterranean waiter inside the restaurant, with his heavy Andalusian accent. "Yes and I just want take-away," I told him in Spanish. We chatted for a bit while I waited for my order - where did I learn Spanish? had I been to Spain? etc.. After a while I noticed that "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band was playing over the sound system. This was once one of my favourite albums. In fact, it may have been the very first album I ever bought. And then it struck me. "Do you hear this music?" I asked the young man. "This is the Steve Miller Band and I first heard this song more than 40 years ago, when I was working at the Pizza Hut on Marine Drive in North Vancouver."
"Really?" he asked. "Do they have the same menu there? Because here at different locations...." blah, blah. It all seemed a funny coincidence to me and I found my self smiling, if only inwardly.

I listened to St. Stephen's bells all along my way home to the hotel. Tomorrow it's back home to London. Back to "the salt mine" the next day.