Furious Words
I just saw the man that used to shout into a house through the letterbox at the top of the road. Today he was determined in stride and was accompanied by a younger and equally pale version of himself. His shouting used to sound either like a muffled diatribe or pitiful pleading. It was for some years a feature of the street. Presumably after a letterbox rant, I sometimes observed him sitting on the kerb, occasionally looking defeated, at other times eager to press an opinion in my direction. Once I had asked him firmly to get off the less that steady gate post at the entrance of where I live. I was not attempting to be more alpha or even confrontational. Moments earlier I had endured the actions of a young man on a motorbike pulling a wheelie and heading straight for me. I was vexed. When I addressed the letterbox shouter I was riled and he acquiesced.
He did not speak today or even glance my way. His steps were purposeful, his accomplice increasing the magnitude of their combined intention. I had been walking a loop of the park, a regular route. Here in this public space my thoughts are uncontained. There is a motorway of movement that has my mental traffic vying for clear road or lane changes. The loop is a tradition. I presume no one likes to turn back on themselves, although there is a section I need to both ascend from and descend to the house I call home. I like to think of this part of the walk as the stem or an apex of a speech bubble.
The words of these walks vary in colour and candour. I can’t always compile a complete sense of clarity but what I do know is the cadence of my stride pattern allows something to release inside. There was a time not many months ago when I was running, sprinting even, flooded with love and energy and gorging myself on possibility. My greed was unbound. At the apex of such powerful self-actualising I slipped and fell. I could not find my feet anymore. Frozen and frozen out I stopped functioning. There are reasons of course. Things happen. Life patterns change and potential slips away. The balance of everything is an indescribably delicate feature of life, or at least of my life.
Today I am grateful that my feet were pacing. I was grateful that the words came thick and fast and ideas and ideals swerved around each other in less congested traffic shifts. There was a sound track wailing in the recess of my memory. It’s nice to walk with remembered or self composed music, sometimes it becomes the best song I’ve ever heard. It reminds me of the way we connect to people, the sounds of something that seem to come from the soul. And whilst I walk with this beat I think of the people who have heard my ramblings and held open a space for comfort and contemplation. I did not need to hold open a letterbox flap to release fragile and, sometimes, furious words.
Maybe today as I and letterbox shouter walked past each other there was a realisation of the journey, a silent and unconscious recognition that we were moving and that was the most important thing to do right now, move and keep moving. These steps are progressive and reflective and I embrace them and I hope he does too and in that I hope there is some peace to be had for all of us.