I love people, all people generally, and during my travels this summer, I have especially come to appreciate the friendships forged and kept with those of older generations.
I think golden-agers are walking windows into history, wonderous opportunities to time travel, they carry such unique insights into a region, a culture, into the collective history of a community. Most places I travelled I would stumble upon old people more often overjoyed to transmit their knowledge and wisdom to me. I could make the argument that one doesn't really discover a place until they've chatted to the local grannies and grandpas.
Stories, anecdotes, memories, regrets and dreams. Recipes, lots of recipes(why do we all remember food so much?), especially traditional family dishes and homemade alcohols. Following every encounter I left inspired by such transmission, by the resilience of these older people who have had lived such hecks of lives. I think all us hind-legged apes have things to share and experiences to impart, and naturally I suppose, the longer you've been around, the more stuff you have to share.
I met people who had lived through world war, invasion and occupation. Had seen countless presidents and prime ministers ascend and descend. Had witnessed regimes shift, attitudes change. I met one man who had worked for and partied with Richard Branson, one founding member of the Sports franchise Decathlon, who, in his youth, had travelled the hippie trail to Afghanistan in an old combi van. Pictured above is my dear Mamie, with whom I had many a deep chat in Brittany this July.
I wonder what stories have been left untold, or forgotten, evaporated into the passage of time. I wonder about the stories we are all creating each day. I wonder what I will have to share when I reach that ripe old age.
תגובות