My dad used to buy dried plums for me when I was little. He would take my hand and I would feel my tiny hand in his, big strong hands and I would know that no matter how many cars on the road and how many streets we will cross, he will not let go.
We used to go in this awful marketplace – you would have people begging, people negotiating their price, unwashed people, the smell and the hygiene…. were very doubtful to say the least.
I have never eaten dried plums as delicious as those that he used to buy.
He would buy a handful for me and then we would go for a walk. We would have all afternoon for ourselves and just walk for hours and hours. We would stop from time to time in some shaggy, old playgrounds. There were barely any swings that weren’t broken. And that was all – no colourful playgrounds as capitalist kids have these days.
All was mud and the metal would be rusty and it would be the greatest ride in the swings ever. You could even go all the way up and round if you balanced hard enough. Now, they are security-protected against going all the way rounds. But you cannot really fall, can you? That’s what the centrifugal force does – it keeps you in the bloody swing!
He would tell me all these amazing things about everything around us – all the chemistry of the earth, the physics and the forces that rule us, about great battles and great men in the history, about all the far away places that I could one day travel to. And I would take his hand and let my mind wonder for hours and hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment