Retirement – Life Review

I am finding the passage of time very strange since I have been unstructured by the obligation to work. One of the elements of that strangeness occurs when I sit down and write whatever comes to mind. The fragments that have presented themselves represent very varied and different periods of my life and I am often caught by surprise at what I find myself remembering.

Retirement Lesson Number 5 – When you pause your life, physical , mental and emotional forces work come together in a process of taking stock.

Take The Pearls – A remembering

When the water eddied across the sea moss, I was reminded of rows of long haired legless blobs lined up and transforming themselves into other objects like the lizards of the M C Escher drawing that I had bought for my lover and which adorned the wall of our bedroom. I was transfixed by the rivulets of water , seeing them in xray and the brilliant blues and yellows of the vibrant tropical day. I was also unable to move from the rocky seat on the cliff face on which I was perched and had been for several hours.

In the glorious dawn I had shared in a tablet with a friend who had come to visit us in our tropical paradise. He was my lover`s best friend and we had recently slept together when I had passed through his town on my way back up north. It was a funny, clumsy night of little passion but great tenderness as we too had shared much as friends before suddenly finding each other beautiful. In the morning he saw me off at the bus stop and I remember focusing on the tiny bird which balanced on a blade of grass at his feet. Long after this time in our lives we wrote letters to each other.until we did not and I heard he developed a mental illness.

But on this morning he had found his way up the coast to visit us and made his way into the eye of a perfect storm because I, wanting to hurt my unfaithful partner, had shared the story of our coupling and my partner demonstrated all the jealous fury of an innocent and very wronged man. Both my friend and I loved my charismatic mate and we were under no illusions as to the irony and egocentricity of the tantrum he threw when his friend arrived. He had taken himself off in high dudgeon and we had shared a tablet to lighten our mood before I repaired to my favourite beach alone for a swim.

It had seemed a wonderful idea to climb the cliff face however there came a point when I could go no neither back nor forward and from there I spent the day watching the ocean transform itself into a variety of little repetitive monsters, sea urchins and oysters. The oysters would open their shells and glowing at the centre were pearls which dissolved blue green white and pink before the shells shut with the out rushing of the tide. A symphony of pearls captured me for most of the day as I wrestled with a leaving that I knew had become inevitable.

As the evening drew in, my lover and his mate came to find me. I can remember still hearing them talking and laughing as they came down the cliff path to the beach and looking down at them both, as they stood arms outstretched to catch me.