DailyMeander

Is it a bird? A butterfly? A bee? An excrutiating boil on the bottom? A pain in the neck, and a nasty-tasting medicine? Yup. It's an extension of me; warts and all. A third arm if you like. Always handy, if you know what I mean...

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Location: Letchworth, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

Welcome to Daily Meander Dear Reader... This blog is intended to simply be an online diary. Like my real diary, it will contain political, funny, sexual, thoughtful, sweet and engaging entries. Some will be true, and some will be patently untrue. Imagination is part of life. I use mine. Use yours.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

On a less maudlin note...

I'm rather pleased.

Not in a 'I Predict A Riot' kind of way.
Not in a 'Fiddler On The Roof' kind of way.
Not even in an 'Article in The Times' kind of way.

Just secretly, in a 'Jam On Hot Toast' kind of way.
A 'Sunny Spells are forecast' way

My Sister knows why.

Pleased, pleased, pleased.

It's just the way I feel.

;))))))))))))))))))

Sergei x

Dorian Gray Snaps

No. I'm not about to tell you some fast breaking news from beyond the grave about Noel Coward's literary creation - though the film does have a bearing on this article.

It is, however, this.

There is a picture or two in Grandma Sergei's house that I particularly like. I haven't seen them for a little while, as there is some redecoration going on, but like them I do.

One is of big Sis, at the height of her badminton career, about to serve a shuttlecock. The other is big Bro, in road-racing mode, resplendant in CC Breckland colours.

I often look for these two pictures. They mean rather a lot to me.

Here's why.

I'm a bit younger than my siblings; five and seven years respectively to be precise. This means that - academically - I never got to go to school with them at the same time, in the same schools. They were up and out with their friends long before I could ride a bike. They were passing driving tests, working, drinking in pubs before I was yet arrived in High School. We were born in the same decade, but it might have been a generation apart.

Before I reached the age of about 13, I found it difficult to see who exactly they were. They were conceptual: a little distant but loving nevertheless, and rather tolerant of the bespectacled, aggravating little brother that I probably was.

So, those pictures. Those particular pictures, are the very snapshots of my siblings that I carry around with me in my little locked-up treasure-chest of memories. They are the mental pictures that flash up each and every time I speak over the phone with them. They are the perpetual portraits in my gallery. Unchanging, age-defying, ever youthful.

It explains why I feel slightly shocked, each time we meet. Surprised that they don't look like that any more. I mean, they do, kinda. But older.

In my mind, they are still 19 and 21. Still beautiful and handsome. And they still are. Really. Just - older.

I'm older too, of course. In my forty-first year. And I also have a mental self-portrait of myself in that private gallery. It also is an image that doesn't age, but again, each time I look in the mirror, I'm slightly shocked by the middle-aged man staring back at me. I don't recognise myself.

When I'm on court, I'm still 19. Still surprised when I ache so terribly the next day. When I can barely walk across the office for two days. But it allows me to keep that portrait looking youthful. It's a magical secret, and I don't know why I'm sharing it, but here it is.

Spend some time with yourself. Paint that self-portrait in that private gallery. Frame it with happy memories, and then remember to take a peek every now and then.

If the portrait doesn't age, then neither will you. Because it is you.

It's not magic. But it really can feel like it.

Sergei x