Whenever I catch a sight of Jamie, or
Nina, when I am not expecting, nor they - when they are busy looking
so much like themselves, so much as I know they are and love them to
be, they seem to take on the qualities of almost a symbol or cartoon.
How can the strength and depth of someone's reality for one, afford
them qualities of fiction?
Part of the reason my heart lifts for
the sight of them so is that they are the few I truly recognise, I
see them really, and that is so much of why one comes to love
someone. To share in the realness of each other, no superficiality or
pretence or self-delusion. Sometime I realise they see me better than
I see myself and I am overwhelmingly grateful that such a real me
does exist, and that they can abide it.
But why is it that the better one knows
and loves the more caricature like such a vision becomes? I suppose
one could argue about the nature of 'realism', that wholly elusive
and subjective concept. As soon as we see something as real, it almost
immediately becomes too much of itself to be so, especially in
memory, that astigmatic mirror of reality such as it is. I miss my
Mum and my sister so much. I remember the last time I saw them as I
left them at the airport. They have a dimension and a colour for me
which is so much more than real.
I think of the fantastically beautiful
plants I saw in Nairobi, in the palatial estate that Amy's grandparents
inhabit. They looked so so beautiful to be real, too large and
bright, my Nina's and my Jamie's. Was it any different in this case?
These 'real' flowers were after all, deliberately placed and
manicured. But then again they do actually grow that way by nature,
they bloom and photosynthesise and wilt in this efflorescence of
exaggeration. And then what else is the inside of ones head, other
than such a garden in which you nurture and care meticulously for
those that you know and love?
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