Simply A Moment: same as it ever was.

Alexa has started hosting Simply A Moment, a lovely idea to record a moment in time each month and then of course you can scrap it if you so wish. The moment I wanted to record came on a walk with the family on Monday.

I can share the start of the moment, but then it is Louis' moment.

SIMPLY A MOMENT.

Monday 29th October 2012.

Walking along the railway line, chitter-chattering with Mum and the boys.

The sun is shining weakly through the trees, the trees are dark-barked and damp, the branches are showing their shape as the leaves are mostly gone. Some of the leaves are drifting down but most of them are already on the path. They are a small bank at the edge of the path, why do they not settle everywhere? They are soggy and feel hazardous to walk on. 

The dogs are ‘bellowing’, after seven years of walks they still don’t get that if they pull on their leads their throats hurt, I wonder how old they will be when they trot alongside rather than pull. I look forward to it and of course I don’t.

Louis and I stop to look at the mossy bank, it is so steep and so high, like the cliffs just a mile or two away. It is covered in ferns, small shrubs and young trees, below them is the most amazing array of mosses. I love the texture of them, I remark this to Louis and he stops to look and agrees with me, he points out the vibrant lurid green of one of them and we muse on the variety of greens that there are. Mum points out how many things we don’t know about the natural world that carries on not a mile from where we live and we have a conversation about the amount of things about this world that there must be to know and how very, very little any one person, however clever, would ever learn.  

As we turned around at the tunnel Louis looked a little pensive and thoughtful so I slowed down with him and let Mum and Ali get ahead. I asked Louis if I could take his photo as there was great light. He looked a little annoyed and so I told him that I had been scrapbooking and it made me sad that I hadn’t any recent photos of him to scrap. He agreed and I took a few shots. Right at the end he put his head in his hands and said “It’s just too hard”, I said “What? Having your photo taken?”, “No, growing-up”.

I stopped sharp and took a breath. I kept my face calm and then gently smiled whilst I braced myself. 

“It’s going to be hard, the next bit, is that what you are worried about?”...

*****

...sometime when you are in your twenties you will turn round and think, I know, i’ll go and see Mum, and you will and we will be fine.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I love you Mum.”

“I love you too, more than anything.”

And we walked the last few steps to the end of the path with our arms around each other, same as it ever was, (Ali is a hand holder, Louis and I have always hugged as we walked) apart from how far up my side he reaches and how bittersweet my feelings are about how time is running out for us for this stage of his life. Boyhood; every day of babyhood feels like a minute and a day, every day of toddlerhood feels like a lifetime and then it just starts to speed away......until it is very much a memory.  

Good grief, I just want to stop time, rewind and enjoy him all over again, he is the sweetest kid ever, has never given me any trouble, literally since he was born. I love it that he is worried about being an awful teenager which makes me think it will be fine. Famous Last Words.