online: 18 june 2013 modified: 16, 17, 18 june 2013 16 june 2013 children and adults
in the garden theatre
...on my way to a randomly-selected point i paused while someone was photographing several people on the 39 steps... after which one of the men drew me into the next photograph as if i'd suddenly become one of the family...
...a blackbird stands at the edge of the rectangular pond... the water is about 15 cm deep and with insects jumping about on its surface (supported i suppose by surface tension)... and there are circular ripples about 20 centimetres apart where raindrops strike the pond and instantly become part of it...
...a woman kneels with a camera to photograph a boy posing with arms outstretched at the water's edge... he wears a bow tie and long trousers of school uniform (as if we were still in the 19th century and the liberations of the 20th had never happened... and perhaps that is why among other reasons i write this and write thus)...
...a youngish man smiles as he watches a small boy trying to get a toy boat with transparent sail to cross the pond... steered by a long stick... and now a Jewish family of three or four adults and five or six children (some in Hasidic dress) who pause as rapt audience to the boat (barely sailing)...
...and now two young boys in Jewish caps race as fast as they can on scooters round the pond...
...and now the girls produce skipping ropes and footballs and a frisbee with which they play in semi-supervised games with the adults... not at all i think like the invented and less prescribed actions of children at play without adults... or the serious games or even wars that adults play without chldren... (or even assisted by boys or even child soldiers)...
...and now the man and the boy with the toy sailboat look contentedly on as it sails in the wind without guidance and the Jewish family stand again in near silence to watch the rare spectacle...
...and now a tall and large Jewish man with a beard (and with a bunch of keys hanging from his belt) plays with a small girl who is learning to walk and they smile as they grapple together with a big ball... and then the man picks a buttercup for the infant... (to me the most touching moment in all this)...
...half-a-dozen adults eating ice creams arrive from the north and walk the length of the pond while the Jewish family (so well prepared with playthings and a collaborative discipline that is i think rare at this time) play various formal games simultaneously and in apparent enthusiasm... (i write from memories of compulsory games that i hated... still do...)
...i'm reminded of Gertrude Stein's story* of the man telling his son it is a cruel thing to catch and kill butterflies and beetles... and then (as a 'good father') doing so himself...
*'The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans' in Gertrude Stein, look at me now and here I am, Writings and Lectures 1911-1945, Peter Owen, London 1967, page 88.
...on leaving i spoke to one of the women in this large family group and remarked on how unusual it is to see adults and children playing together... at which she said 'we don't have television'... and at which i began to see the virtue of an ancient culture kept alive perhaps artificially...and how it has the strength to oppose a social force as strong and perhaps as harmful as television (which i don't have either)...
...sitting now in one of the wildest parts of Sandy Heath i still find it a relief (from any form of invented sociality or (war) game)... to be alone (or even in company) in a forest... or on a beach, on a mountain... or in any sort of wilderness... so called... and particularly if (like this forest) it is surrounded by city...
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