April this year I had a dream about going to look at a vintage car I couldn’t afford to buy.
Inside it wasn’t like a car at all but a country hotel dining room. There was a table with a checkered cloth, a menu for breakfast. There were waiters & waitresses, all very polite. I began to lose my sense of not being able to afford the car. I was filled with enthusiasm.
Next I was running down a sloping field towards the house of the owner. I took big, bounding strides full of elation. I ran down through a stream, which became deeper near the house. I wasn’t worried. The owner knew I couldn’t really afford his car, yet he was friendly and polite. My only mistake was to ask him if I could keep the car’s papers while I made up my mind. But even that didn’t make him angry, or spoil my delight.
What was on offer here ? I didn’t even dare drive the car. It was as big as a bus. The moment I got in & let the handbrake off, I knew I didn’t dare manoeuvre it, let alone take it for a test drive. I was vastly admiring of it but I knew the controls would be too brutal for me. They would be too old fashioned. It was only after I had relinquished the driving seat & gone back into the car’s interior that I discovered the restaurant & its kind staff. They assumed I could afford the car, & anyway it didn’t worry them if I couldn’t. They weren’t patronising me & neither was the owner.
I woke up puzzled. Had I taken delivery of my new book (not in the sense of receiving it, but in the sense of having signed for it) ? In the end I decided no.
4 Comments
June 12, 2008 at 6:35 am
MJH, is this really you ? back to liberate… well, everything really ? Bloglife has been dulled without you (not exactly dull, you understand, what with all those other great blogs you got me onto last time you were here – Andrew, Ed, Laura et al – but the blog-browsing experience has been distinctly unedgy since you left. So I hope, I really hope, that this is you, really you.
And what village _is_ the next village ?
June 12, 2008 at 9:02 am
I really hope it’s me, too, Robert. I’m going to keep acting as if it is & let’s see what happens.
June 13, 2008 at 12:46 am
When you put it like that, I realise that’s pretty much what I do every day – hope it’s me, act as if it is, and see what happens. As good a way of approaching life as any other, I suppose…
Welcome back, Uncle Zip.
June 16, 2008 at 1:28 pm
It´s good to read you again! welcome back!
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