Distances
Distance is such a relative concept. Sometimes we feel that the person we are living with is a far-off planet with which no form of communication is possible. Sometimes we have the impression that people who are far away from us couldn’t be closer to our heart.
I’ve spent most of my live studying far-off planets and stars and when I think of them I sometimes forget they are so remote: they seem so familiar, I could list their characteristics just like a priest can recite prayers, with my eyes closed, visualising the uneven crust of an unearthly desert under an alien sky.
With my inner eye I could see Linda as she was talking to me on the phone. She was in a house I had never seen, wearing clothes I had never seen and yet I could picture the scene. In my mind she was wearing no make up but she looked much younger, in spite of the small wrinkles around her eyes. I could see her in a white long-sleeved shirt and large tracksuit pants, managing to hold the phone with her shoulder and pour her nightly milk fix into a glass. The children were about to go to bed, the dog (I imagined an old, growling spaniel) had just laid down at her feet, his gaze following everything she did, mutely asking for attention. I could feel her tension slack when the first, embarrassing minutes of our conversation were over.
She had called me for advice; David had told her I had agreed on tutoring Gwen and she wanted to know why I had changed my mind. Did I think Gwen should quit school, too? She confessed my decision had really surprised her: she had always taken for granted that obliging Gwen to attend school was the best decision but now she was not so sure any longer. Why did I think Gwen should not be educated at school? She was full of doubts. Maybe she had taken the wrong decision, maybe Gwen really had a hard time at school.
I told her I thought she was a great mother and all she had been trying to do was simply protect her daughter. She felt that the difficult relationship between David and her had certainly influenced her: unfortunately the two were not able to put their grudge aside and, maybe unconsciously, she had wanted to punish David and had ended up punishing Gwen instead. I told her I knew exactly what she was talking about, since I had separated from my wife after months, if not years, of subtle hostilities. She sighed and I thought she must have been very beautiful in that moment. A beautiful and sad forty-year-old girl realising she had to let go of her child much before she had expected because she had an extraordinary kid and she needed to be an extraordinarily brave mother.
Linda was speaking her heart and I tried to win my natural shyness and do the same. And, in spite of her being so far away and her two-storey house being a little distant star in the black Saskatchewan countryside, I could feel that special warmth only proximity can produce.
