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Cadwell NOT Caldwell
Conscience beats shame
[5 minute read ]
I can't do things differently
I think this year, I may have confused my neighbours a bit. Well I suppose, more accurately, I have recently confused my neighbours. For the last six or seven years, I have grown about thirty tomato plants from seed and left them out the front of my house for people to take, when I have decided that they could be transplanted into the ground, or I suspect, into grow-bags (Grow-bags are not the best idea, unless there is no garden to put them in). This year, I grew about forty plants, and didn't put any out for the neighbours or passers-by. Someone left some plant pots by my front door a few days ago. Was it a prompt, a silent request or reminder?
Sometimes, I leave new art supplies outside my house for people to take. I usually leave a sign out too, to let people know that they should only take a couple of items. Most people get it, but there are one or two who, I suspect, would take everything and then put it all on Ebay, or sell them at school, hence the sign. In any case, I am not a charity. I rather see myself as inspirational. No, I am not inspirational. Inspirational is what I want to be. My hope is that more than one person takes an item or two, and, with the complimentary items they have at home, come up with something that they later regard as being fun to do, and so be inclined to follow a new creative bent. I recall doing a Level 1 Art course after having sold my artwork throughout Western Europe (for beer and food money, mostly - no big price tags). That course opened up a new avenue of activity in how I produced art.
During the last few days, I have hung an analogue thermometer from the ivy gripping my gatepost. It is quite low down, but it is on a piece of string so it can be tilted up and tall people can see it. A couple of days ago, the distinctly dapper man with his silver moustache, who is my neighbour, and his trailing wife, passed by. It was just after 7am.
'Look at that! It's 25 degrees already!' The man exclaimed, as he passed the thermometer.
'I don't think it is', his boxy (sic) wife skeptically replied. 'It is probably broken'. She doesn't like me, and only reluctantly might mumble 'Good Morning', but never without me prompting her first. I have been looking at articles on Victorian women and this woman would fit right in with the fashionable method of presenting women of that period, in films; skirt down to her shoes; dark clothing; shuffling along in her seventies, with a disapproving, head tilted back, stare at everyone she passes. I can't help but imagine that she is forever wanting a Hansom carriage to arrive, to take her somewhere. I imagine she would want everyone to see that happen. In my head, I can hear her call over-loudly to the smartly-dressed driver, 'To the theatre!'
There is only about three feet (a metre) that separates the position of the thermometer and where I leave 'FREE stuff'. However, the thermometer is not on the pavement, it is tied to the ivy. I am not certain if people understand the distinction as I do, so I bring it inside at night, and didn't leave it outside yesterday after the temperature got to 22 degrees. 'It is there, and then it isn't, and then it comes back. Probably not a free item then'. I hope people think that.
The only thing that is free at the moment is my time and the information the thermometer gives.
I had a strange conversation with the father of a little boy. The family all live a few doors down. Their little girl, about two years old, walked up to me and said, right out of the blue, 'You are my friend.' I had a chat with her about six weeks ago. I looked down at her and told her that she is right, I am her friend and I sweep up the stones from my neighbours drive so they are not on the pavement and she can scoot along without falling. I never really know how clever toddlers are: they are probably all geniuses. The father, obviously making a valiant attempt to be polite, quite formally said, 'We appreciate that.'
'I really couldn't bear knowing that [...] fell on her face because she hit a stone with her front wheel.' They are not even stones from my property. They are my neighbour's stones from his gravel drive.
He added, simply, 'They are children on scooters.'
I am still feeling guilty from ten years ago when I noticed a small girl, about seven years old, allow her scooter to gather speed as she passed over the brow of a bridge spanning a river. I knew she would experience a speed-wobble. Science tells me that there is not enough gyroscopic effect from small wheels on scooters for inexperienced riders to go fast and still keep accelerating. I just watched her gather speed, and, sure enough, she developed a speed-wobble. Her wail of terror, before she fell off and slid along the stony path, still haunts me. I could have easily caught up with her, if I had run a bit. I didn't. Just like when I was rammed by a car when I was waiting to pull out of a T-junction in my car, I just watched it happen, fascinated. I mean 'fascinated' to be frozen in thought, not delightfully engaged.
'Oh my goodness, parents!' I didn't say it back then or turn to look at them. 'Have you never fallen off something with small wheels because you went too fast? Did you never ride a skateboard without much skill?' I never said it.
It is one of my characteristics that if I think something I usually need to act on it. There are limits of course. If I think about a cup of tea, I need to make tea. We are, pretty much, all like that, which is why advertising works. If I think of leaving gifts outside my house, I have to do it. If I think that kids could be damaged by stones on the pavement that block their scooter wheels, I have to remove them, even if they are not my stones, or stones that I am not responsible for (except we all are, in my head). Who among us, can imagine or foresee an awful event, and not do everything in their power to prevent it?
'Look at that! There is broken glass on the cycle-path. Children cycle to school on this path. They could get a puncture on the way to school and they then have to walk to school; they will be late. They will also have to walk home, probably a bit upset.'
I looked at the glass for a while, shrugged my shoulders and went home. 'Not my problem.' I thought. Not! I cycled a mile back home, collected my kitchen broom, and swept the path. Drivers and their passengers pointed at me and laughed. I do care that I am pilloried, but I am not important simply because I am an adult. People will react harshly if they see an adult do something that is quite strange to them.I know this and of course, i have control over what I do. I could never put my head above the parapet. I am only relevant, at least to me, because I understand the cost of losing face is tiny compared to how much I will hate myself if I don't act on my conscience. You can all mock me in the moment, and for a few hours afterwards. I, on the other hand, will inevitably do it to myself, for the rest of my life, if I don't try to fix future problems; problems that will occur if I do nothing.