When I Was Young
Entry posted by caldrail
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Back when I was very young, I remember a particularly vivid dream. I was wandering along a beach, in bright sunshine. My companion was a girl though I don't know what the relationship was supposed to be. Anyway, there was a rushing noise and the sea went out, like a low tide but much more dramatic and far reaching. It seemed as if the sea had vanished in the blink of an eye.
My companion, entranced and excited by this amazing sight, ran here and there, jumping in puddles of seawater among the stranded fish and piles of seawater. I was more circumspect. This was wrong. Very wrong. I didn't understand why but I knew no good would come of it. Although I made an attempt to pull my companion away from this apparent threat, she was too bound up by it.
Then I saw the horizon lift up. The sea was coming back. I vaguely have a memory of clutching my ears at a sudden noise of terrific volume, but I'm not sure if that recollection was originally part of the dream. A great wave was approaching.
That dream has stuck in my mind ever since. Some years ago, I dreamt the final part. Where the wave reaches us. It was simply stunning. A wall of seawater that towered over me. All I could do was stand there slack-jawed at the terrible sight of it. Then the foam at the base of the wave hit me like a brick and remember nothing more.
What on earth was I seeing? A past life experience, a prophecy, clairvoyance, or simply no more than a figment of my imagination, no more than a dream like any other? I shall never know. What I do recall is the terrifying majesty of a massive tsunami.
With the recent disaster that wreaked havoc in Japan, how could I write an entry about anything else? Like everyone else I saw the images of an unstoppable wall of water crashing into the shore and pushing inland, sweeping everything before it? The video footage is in a way surreal. I can sit at home, safe and sound, and realise how terrible it was. What I can't imagine is what the sensations of standing in the way of a real tsunami must be like. Or in a strange way, maybe I can, though arguably there's no comparison.
I know I should be expressing regret and sympathy for the suffering of the japanese. Frankly I don't know what to say, other than to repeat the sentiments expressed by everyone else. Without wishing to be too allegorical or politically incorrect, Japan has never really been the safest place in the world to live. Occaisionally nature reminds us who's in charge.
Too Young To Understand
As part of the Science and Technology Week the museum has hosted some activities for kids, namely communication. We had morse code tappers, semaphore flags, teletypes, yoghurt pot telephones, all ready to give the children a fun hands-on experience, and of course to learn something at the same time.
Maybe I was being naive. What we got was a chimps tea party. The kids seemed completely unable to retain any interest for more than ten seconds, always getting impatient and fed up if something wasn't perfect or worked instantly, and lacking in any sort of discipline whatsoever. This afternoon I am a broken man. Physically and emotionally.
What is it with kids these days? I was shocked by how difficult it was to engage their atention. When I was a kid, you sat up straight and paid attention, or you risked well aimed chalk missiles, loud public humiliations, or in the worst cases, a lonely trip to the headmasters office for a more painful lesson on how to behave. Certainly not like the good old days anymore. No wonder modern kids wander off and paint random heiroglyphs on the nearest available wall.
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