Where Did That Time Go?

 I suppose we all ask these questions when we are reminded of things in the past and we then calculate when that was.  My mind transported me back to a party that I went to when I was around 19 years old.  I was by then quite fit having worked for 3 years on and off on a building site and a very good friend and I started dancing and for a short while it went quite ermm, well, you know, things took their course I suppose.  It was a great evening and night and that was it, we didn't go any further, I have no idea why and it was something that I recalled only today.

She was indeed a very beautiful lady and I remained in touch until just after our first child was born and we all met up and that's it, the Christmas cards dried up and I haven't seen or spoken to her or her husband for 35 years or so.  That's sad.  Her husband and I shared a house together for about 10 months.  We were great buddies and I have some amazing tales about our adventures and the girls got on great and all was well in the world.  I didn't seem to be bothered that she decided to go out with my friend and then marry him.  It didn't matter at all really, we were all school friends and there really was no point in being bothered by these things we were after all, all meeting, going out with, breaking up with people we knew from school and there were lots of parties and getting to know one another and so on.  I did write these down in my biography but I think perhaps it might be worth ripping those pages out. 

Then I thought to myself that was 48 years ago!  It seems like less than that but of course it isn't, I've lived through so much and now a grandparent so it is what it is.

What I have been meaning to say is that these recent flashbacks and relived experiences seem to be connected.  A lot are past partners and situations that arose, lost opportunities and what might have been.  Funnily enough like this one and perhaps another 10 or more I could think of.  Yet, there's more to  it than that.  I think that I am recalling those times in my life when I was happy or perhaps alive is a better way of saying it.  These instances were, looking back on them, amazing times, there was no "agenda" to this, there was no pre-planning, it was just as they say "in the moment" and that moment is when you just let whatever it is happen.  That night, that dance with a friend and I'd call it love, but a sort of melting together perhaps I might try and call it, was a spontaneous thing, no thought, no malice, just two of us.

I've mentioned before that there have been times in my life where I moulded into the surroundings became lost in the sounds, smell, warmth and being-ness of what I was doing.  Perhaps driven by love (let's say) although I think it may be two way there being in and being loved?  I don't know because on other occasions that wasn't always the case.  It is easier to look back and recall these times than to be aware that you were actually part of it there and then.

What I do recall is the touch and strangely the smell and an awareness of sound but it not being overbearing.  Just melting and heady perfume or the wind, colour of the fields, swaying and the smell of the corn and the warmth of the sun.  Things like freshly cut grass or perhaps the smell of flowers, a Privet hedge is bloom, roses, damp woodland.  

A old friend mentioned a few names of girls we used to know the other night so perhaps that's what triggered this memory.  He also reminded me of someone I was close to when I was in my twenties and that brought back thoughts of late night car journeys and buying cigarettes in petrol stations on the way home from work.  Some amazing things to recall all many years ago now.  Where indeed did all that time go?