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I and my bosom must debate awhile…

When do children suspect they are not alone inside their heads? When do they understand that many voices argue conflicting desires in there and seldom identify themselves? Or is it just adults who worry about such things -elderly adults especially, who have begun to suspect they are not unattended in their thoughts, not completely responsible for decisions they are making? Hearing voices not entirely of their creation…?

None of us, are ever really free of past experiences, nor do our desires arise de novo from a vacuum. We all wear fragments of what we have been; we all are dressed in remnants salvaged from our lives.

I am reminded of the creed the great D.H. Lawrence wrote in response to Benjamin Franklin’s assertion that ‘The soul has many motions, many gods come and go.’ Lawrence put his thoughts a little differently:  ‘My known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest… and strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back… I must have the courage to let them come and go.’ The thought is enchanting… intriguing.

And, as Lawrence says in his 1930 book Apocalypse: ‘we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.’ But, perhaps children already know this though; and perhaps for adults, it is only a ghost in the machine…

It began to rain at the bus stop, and cars driving past were splashing those waiting too close to the curb. Only a few of us had brought our umbrellas, and even fewer were willing to share them. Nobody smiled sympathetically at me, so I headed for the overcrowded shelter and tried to insinuate my head at least, under its flimsy roof.

I found myself wedged between two middle aged men who, judging by their expressions, were trying to continue an obviously difficult conversation. I tried not to listen, but old habits are hard to break, and although I attempted to avert my eyes, I was more successful with them than my ears.

At first, it was difficult to pick up the conversational thread; it was continually interspersed with ‘What do you mean’ questions, or on occasion, seemingly heartfelt ‘really?’ exclamations which I supposed were mainly to reassure the speaker that he was being heard, not judged. They were both standing on the edge of the crowd, and also trying to keep their voices low hoping they could blend in with the hubbub around them.

Nothing distinguished them from the others in the shelter, except that they were both dressed in business attire under their raincoats. One of them, a tall thin man with an untidy mop of curly hair that bounced with every angry word, was doing the most talking. He kept throwing his arms in the air, and shaking his head in frustration as if he were trying to convince his shorter, bearded colleague about something important.

An elderly woman in a purple coat was almost hit with his restless arms, and she glared at him aggressively while she tried unsuccessfully to insinuate herself further into the thronging crowd. It was only when he accidentally shoved her shoulder with his hand for the second time that she decided to stand her ground.

“If you want to stand in the shelter with the rest of us, you’re going to have to learn to be more careful, sir!”

“Excuse me?” the tall man growled, although not by way of an apology. “I was just talking to my friend, lady. Move away if you have a problem with that…” he added in a gruff voice and turned back to his bearded friend.

I could tell the woman was offended by his attitude, and unable to get further into the shelter, turned and faced him with a scowl. “Who do think you are?” she asked, staring angrily into his eyes and actually bumping into him. “How dare you talk to me like that!” she said in a loud voice that caused a few heads in the crowd to turn towards her. “Weren’t you taught any manners when you were young?”

The tall man scowled and by the looks of his face, was about to swear at her when his friend grabbed his elbow and steered him back out into the rain. “He didn’t mean to be rude,” he explained to her in a normal voice, “He’s not normally like this; he’s just going through a rough time in his life….”

The woman’s expression immediately changed and she reached out her hand to touch her antagonist’s arm as if to console him. Her eyes softened and she pressed her lips together as if suddenly realizing a shared grief. “I suppose I am too…” she explained, with a barely audible sigh. “I didn’t mean to snap at you…” She thought about her outburst for a moment and then a tiny smile blossomed on her wrinkled face. “My name’s Mary…” she said, and tentatively extended her hand.

The tall man seemed surprised at her apology, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, proffered his hand for her to shake. “I’m George,” he said, “…and that’s my friend Grant -my boss,” he added pointing with his other hand. Then he thought about it for a moment. “Well, my ex-boss, I suppose…”

Grant smiled and shook his head. “George and I both react poorly to stress, I think.” And then he sighed. “We say things we don’t really mean, argue about them, and then calm down. Eventually, everything goes back to normal… this is just another bad day for us.” He shrugged as he glanced at his friend. “But, Time heals all wounds, as they say.”

The woman nodded unconvincingly at the two of them, sighed, and then reached instinctively to rub her tarnished and aging wedding ring with a practiced movement of her gnarled fingers. “Is that really what they say…?”

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