We walk to the beach along an old familiar track. The crops change a bit over the years but the dykes and the path are the same as ever. Richard remembers blackcurrant jam sandwiches and wasps! I remember people. The people who surrounded our Suffolk holidays who are, like the old uncle and aunt, long gone are as present to me as you are to yourself.
There is Billy Wright, driving the old tractor down to the marshes early in the morning with all you children balancing on the back and there is Peter Buck, the butcher with his sad-eyed wife Hazel, running the shop despite losing their one well son and being left with Michael, disabled and tiresome, who would swing endlessly on the noisy swing outside Rumpty's house.
There is Basil, the handsome older widower, bringing up his three children in the old Post Office which he bought with the old stock on needles and cottons. All the single ladies in the village loved him! He is especially present to me.
Then Rumpty and THE GREAT GAME in the woods. Holding the big oak tree with a stash of pine cones while all of you tried to creep up on him. He left us that game and Zulu too. We are going to play that game and watch that film while we are here and feel we are still young
And in my mind, we are here with them alive and us the same as ever.
I really believe that meditation collapses the walls between the past and now, and maybe it even throws its magic on the future.
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