Who Can Tell?

Dear friend,

The airline app has rolled me another window seat. The wing has no branding, its paint is scuffed and peeling off where the arrows say you can walk; in the event of an emergency. Presumably judging by the amount of wing traffic it’s used for safety inspections too.

We’re heading out for Venice airport and from there I’ve a short ride to Vicenza to see the last performances of the opera.

It looks like I’ve given up talking to people on flights. No internal promptings are forthwith so I’m mostly visiting Maycomb around the trial of Tom Robinson, curtesy of Harper Lee.

The first time I came across Atticus Finch was when Mr Head, our English teacher read it to us. He ought to have been on the radio, he brought the book to life. His first name was Richard, which seemed cruel or thoughtless for his parents to call him that. Surely a family by the name of Head knew what they were handing down with a name like that?

I wondered was it anything like “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash. Maybe Mr Head senior wanted to toughen his son up?

Unfortunately Mr Head, the teacher suffered from a compulsion to help himself to items he didn’t personally own. The talk was he’d been discovered helping himself to the innards of his colleagues wallets and purses.

I felt sorry about it because of how good a reader he was it was embarrassing thinking about him sneaking around knowing he’d been through his colleague’s things.

One day he was gone. Replaced by Mr Code.

I wonder what happened to him?

The false self can make you do all kinds of odd things when it’s in charge.

Imagine living with a compulsive liar and mistaking them as being sincerely concerned with our best interests?

It’s like that when our ego is in charge.

It’s bright and sunny and we’re following the English coastline. If I look back and down I can give myself a faint feeling of vertigo. I’m not great with heights but I reckon I could jump out of a plane. It’s so high it feels unreal. You’d have plenty of time to pull your parachute cord.

We’ve turned out to sea. At 300 miles an hour it only takes minutes to cross the English Channel. Looking down I can see the beaches and then we sweep inland across France. A small lake catches the light like a shard of mirror nestled beneath the dappled clouds.

For a moment I feel the freedom of flight.

Suspended way up by the curve of the aircraft’s wings.

Now it’s the grey cleanliness of a train.

There’s a group of primary aged kids onboard with their teachers.

I’ve just left the book at the point where Atticus comments on the injustices perpetuated by everyday people; that it’s only children who weep over it.

The chatter of the kids is like a brook running fast over smoothed pebbles.

Innocence.

Generation after generation all the way back to the very beginnings of human kind; an unbroken thread that connects us all.

It’s still there.

Under the layers of experience.

Inside even the most jaded of characters.

Forgiveness will find it.

The peace at the core of our being.

But you have to give it to have it come back to you.

I’m beginning to recognise regional accents. The one Chiara uses when she plays a character based on her grandmother, the lady next to me sounds like that. I think she’s talking about food, amongst other things.

It’s nice being here in this moment, hunched over on a seat on a packed train.

I’ll bet my old English teacher has no idea how much I appreciated his love of literature.

I’ll bet you’ve touched people’s lives in positive ways you’ll never know about too.

Better to ponder the good we bring to the world and learn from our mistakes.

How else are we supposed to learn?

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey