July 7th, 2006
He is watching her, waiting for her to say more, but there is nothing more about the English patient to be said. He mutters. “Some of the English love Africa. A part of their brain reflects the desert precisely. So they’re not foreigners there.”
“The English Patient” - Michael Ondaatje
I was in Cambridge today, colleges, that’s all I’ll say. When we had some time to ourselves I went off alone to sit on a bench to watch the punts drift underneath the Willows. I like the way they slowly part the fronds that dangle in the water. Then there were the people that splashed other people, but I also liked that too, but not as much as the Willows. Boring? Well, I was also drinking out of a styrofoam cup, so that changes things.
My mind wondered to the London bombings that happened this day last year. I don’t like to say “anniversary” because that brings about happy-connotations, so its a commemoration, but I don’t tell other people that when they say anniversary. I was so wrapped up looking towards the future that I didn’t observe the 2 minute silence, or perhaps I was silent at that time, but wasn’t thinking about it. Where ever I must have been, the people around me couldn’t have been either.
However I spent 10 minutes thinking about it while watching the splashing and the Willows. Danny Biddle could easily have been some other Biddle. Then that quote out of the English Patient entered my mind. Some of the English do love Africa. I know I’ll love the desert even though I’ve never been. The desert is devoid of anything but the bare minimum of elements. Sitting there silently watching the Willows and the splashing felt like bare simplicity, and it was then that I gave the things and people that needed thinking about some thought.