Why’s and what’s…

So here is the question I really can't answer... why do I bother? I ask it a lot, about lots of things, this and my other question… what’s the point? Why do I bother and what’s the point?

Driving in to work today I saw something wonderful, a puzzle, an intriguing scenario that made me smile as it lightened my spirit a little and set my mind to working. It wasn’t much, just two boys walking to school, but what a contrast between the two. It was almost unreal in its clarity and I’m not even sure now that I really saw them, although I must have. Nothing remarkable, just two boys walking, but so remarkable that I need to remark upon it here.

I’m not sure if they were walking together, but they definitely went to the same school. I could tell by the maroon blazers with machine-stitched school badges, gold-thread emblazoned on their breast pockets.

The first boy was about thirteen, tall, with hands thrust deep into his long-trousered pockets. His dark hair hung over his downcast eyes as he trudged to school, coolly disinterested in the world around him, untouched by the sunny day, immersed in his own thoughts. For a moment I wondered what was going on in his thirteen year oldish head. Such a lovely day, so much life ahead - ‘smile, whistle, sing, and walk with a spring in that dullard step of yours.’ I wanted to wind down my window and shout at him. But then I remembered my own thirteen - exams, cross-country runs, girls, spots, homework still to be done, detention, head down untouched by the sunshine, trudging.

The second boy was much younger, nine or ten, his blazer far too big for his tiny body, a huge satchel - just like the one I used to drag the three miles to and back from school - dangling from his back. No, couldn’t be, not possible, he was wearing grey flannel shorts (grey flannel shorts, in this day and age?), and short grey socks. His pudding basin haircut caught the sun as he happily made his way to class. He was smiling, beaming – and here’s the thing that struck me as remarkable – he was skipping. Skipping high, one foot in front of the other, as he followed some six feet behind the bigger boy, his friend / brother / schoolmate?

Skipping along alone like a loon as they both made their weary, joyous, way to school.

The scene captured me immediately. What was their relationship? Who were they? Where were they going? Was the small boy really wearing grey school shorts? Was that small boy real at all? Could he be an echo of the past, a shade, a ghost, an imagining? Why was he skipping? Real boys don’t skip these days do they? What did it all mean? How had they engrossed me so?

I must have watched the pair for less than a minute, but in that minute I experienced my own past as memory, shared an experience with the pair unnoticed by them, had my curiosity peeked, even began to weave a story around them. And then I was past them, driving away, leaving them behind as just more flakes of memory. Leaving them behind, driving back to me, driving back to where I am today.

So where am I today? I’m not quite sure. I can’t quite work out real from wish. I’m caught up in longing for then, the comfort of doing now, and not really thinking much about the planning of to be. I feel I should be doing more, I just don't know what I should be doing, I think I should be able to solve the problems, but I’m not sure what the problems are and my pencil seems blunted anyway. I know that I must be positive, but some days I wake up with that 'why bother?' and ‘what’s the point?’ in my head and on my back.

Then sometimes.

Two boys on their way to school, each an echo of an old me; surly me, happy me, unhappy me, cynical me, innocent me, rebellious me, joyous me, so many me’s in those two boys. What’s in my bag? Where am I going? Why do I bother? What’s the point? Two boys on their way to school.

What a strange country I’m in.

Anyone got a map?