There are certain familiar structures for contact across the
generations: parent to child, teacher to pupil, master to apprentice. But there
are also contacts that elude these categorisations and, in doing so, become
particularly charged. The older person who is neither parental nor teacherly
can open a door to something beyond what is already familiar. I am thinking of
Charles, whom I met some fifteen years ago and who simply said ‘I see you’ – a
remark that rang like a bell and resonates still when I think of it. To be seen
as I was and not as a unit in a predetermined system was an experience so
striking and so strong that I have never quite forgotten it.
There is also something about being with someone and not speaking. I once went to visit a famous sculptor called Dora Gordine. She was quite old and I was quite young. At one point, she let the light go out of the room and we sat in silence in the half darkness. It seemed significant that she did not turn on the light.
ReplyDeleteI've just been skiing with my dad he is 76 at the end of the 5th day he looked very tired but still came for the last run of the day - This was both wise and stupid- he never shut up though so nothing about silence
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