Don't look back

Today wasn't what I'd expected it to be. But I'm glad I did it in a funny sort of way.

The idea was to go back to where I lived as a boy and think about my mum, who died a few months ago; to say a few goodbyes as it were.  The theory of unfinished business and unresolved grief. So I took the rather torturous train and bus journey back to the very run down corner of South London where my mind kept gravitating back to. 

I went via Waterloo; there was a curious charity that did shows for ex-serviceman, and had a couple of Andrews Sisters lookalikes singing songs from the 'forties whilst people rattled buckets at you. This annoyed me for some reason, in the wake of Brxit; more evidence that we can't move on. Most veterans are probably more interested in songs from the last thirty years than nostalgia for a war fought before they were born.

And so I made my way home.

The thing is you expect to find someone there and you don't. People aren't places, whatever we think. And places certainly aren't the same as our memory of them. I walked up the very steep hill from my old school to where we lived (an old Victorian house demolished to make way for some ugly little boxes). It wasn't my school as I remember it although the old grey steps and the iron gates were still there. It's nearly 130 years old and I was only there for six of those. And my house was long gone.

I had planned to sit on the common at the top and say a few words but by now I realised that there was nobody to hear them. Wherever mum is, she's not in Plumstead. Plus a traveller community was using the land and caravans en masse always look ugly. Mum would have told me not to be silly and go home. So I walked past the jumbled hills and copses where I used to play as a child and got the bus to Greenwich which is where we used to go for afternoons out when she had dementia in her last few years. She wasn't there either so I had some broccoli soup and walked down to the Cutty Sark. She wasn't anywhere in fact, although the reminders were everywhere, such as the avenues of trees in Greenwich Park or the giant Boat In A Bottle in the Maritime Museum.

It's all bit ugly where I grew up now; people being crabby with each other, every other shop a bookies or an eyebrow parlour, new concrete flyovers, down at heel dogs chained up in doorways ... Better to stick with the memories. The irony of course is that was what was supposed to be therapy was actually just exhausting. Which in itself taught me a lesson. Don't waste your energy looking for something that doesn't exist; just go forward. 

Back at Waterloo the Andrews Sisters clones were still pumping out "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B" and I was even more convinced by now that there was no future in nostalgia.  By this time I was exhausted and fell asleep on the train home, but managed to wake up before missing my station. My chest felt heavy and my voice was croaky, something I've come to recognise as being emotional rather than physical in nature. 

Took this shot at Waterloo East station. I liked the idea of a path of lights. And a station is a metaphor for an onward journey...At this point mum would have said "what are you talking about? Silly boy!" and given me a grin. She could prick pomposity even in her much later years. Maybe I should have left it there. At the end of the day the people we've loved and lost tend to find us, rather than the other way around, and usually in unexpected moments...