days so pregnant with possibility; turgid, burgeoning, overflowing with promise. And then emptied out so quickly.
春夏秋冬奏でて 明日を行く旅積み重ねて
気付けばあなたと 夢の果てまで
---
Last weekend I visited Lincoln to catch up with some old friends. Seven-year-old friends to be exact. We'd gone through five years of medical school together, and then realised suddenly - the way people realise at the end of their life they are going to die - that our quiet ambitions of becoming doctors meant that our blissful little nucleus of friendship in its present form would have to perish. After a frantic, expedient period of fanfare and upheaval, I moved to Preston while they carried on for two years in Nottingham and Lincoln as junior doctors. The last time I visited, V remarked, 'it's strange - it's as if you never left... but things are different now.'
Looking back, there was a distinct aroma - a burgeoning fragrance of 'belonging' that blossomed each year, eventually perfuming every crevice and canal and alley of that final year of university, coating the libraries and sunsets and park benches with its fading scent. And now I realise that it was the stark absence of this one thing - this sense of 'belonging' - that haunted and tormented me. In its place reigned a reluctant suspicion that something had been derailed - that I had stepped out of sync with that world, and when I visited them for the first time a few months later, my suspicions were unkindly confirmed. No matter how much information we exchanged, no matter how many places we revisited, no matter how much we reminisced, nothing could coax that almighty 'belonging' to return. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was a glimpse into a universe where I had chosen to stay in Nottingham instead; this life that I had unwittingly, voluntarily forgone, and a world that had simply shrugged and moved on.
This sense of being an outsider in the city that had sheltered me and formed me like a womb had been, from repeated exposure, successfully worn away, diminished considerably, but evidently not eradicated. Now, nearly two years and three visits later, I find myself in Lincoln again. I'm in my second year of foundation training, doing acute medicine, on annual leave. Both W and V have the weekend off, and they're also doing acute medicine in Lincoln. We're in the car E bought last year, on the way to Tesco to pick up ingredients for dinner, and the snow is all around us, carpeting the sidewalks and car surfaces. W has a new house mate, ZY, a pharmacist from Malaysia. They speak of her with well worn familiarity, in a tone I remember as being reserved for housemates and neighbours. From fragments of their conversations, I piece together that ZY is dating PJ, a Malaysian medic, who is coming around for dinner tomorrow. 'Is PJ driving?' 'Mm. He's post on-call.' 'What time is he coming?' The exchange is a little jarring, just shy of upsetting. These house dinners used to be exclusive to our little group. It's embarrassing to admit, but it's hard not to think of the word 'replaced', and maybe even feel it a little bit.
The future is strange because it resembles the immediate past so closely, but manages to feel completely different. For example, on the way to W's house, I note that the bus station has adopted a shiny new plexiglass facade. The Lidl has reopened in a brightly lit, wooden veneered warehouse just across the road. The Tesco megamart has converted its upper floor into a fancy new cafe and rearranged its clothing and electronics section and retiled its dirty speckled plastic floors. It was as if I had come home from work to find that my toilet was now where my wardrobe was, my oven where my fridge used to be, and everything else exactly where I left it. It felt like I had been deposited into a parallel universe - a duplicate, doppelganger reality - identical in every way yet ever so slightly skewed.
My first reaction to this is usually to be filled with a kind of frustrated yearning, because to acknowledge the change is to quash the cosy fantasy that nothing has changed, but on this occasion, I decide to bracket my disappointment. I know by now where that leads. Instead, I decide to immerse myself in their world, to embrace the newness instead of resent it. I decide to explore without apprehension, to engage without inhibition, like a dreamer who knows his dream is ending.
In this particular dream I am playing not the role of visitor, but of inhabitant - of someone who resides in the dream world, even though I know I am only passing through. But for the time being, I've been invited into their world the way someone who steps outside during a meal to take a phone call rejoins a gathering - catching up on what's been said and picking up where we left off. On Saturday, we visit the Lincoln cathedral. 'Actually I've never been in here before,' V says. We sit and listen to the choir, gazing up at the arches and stained glass. Exploring different parts of the city was another thing we used to do together -- and it feels incredibly natural to be doing it again.
I know it's all temporary, which is what makes it all the more precious. But instead of counting down the minutes with envy and resignation, I resolve to wring each moment of its potential before I leave. I search for common ground, talking to ZY and PJ about mutual acquaintances while cooking pasta for dinner in W's kitchen. I realise this is a little odd for them as well, that this stranger they thought would only be occupying their couch for the weekend has so readily assumed a spot in their kitchen, at their dinner table, in their lives.
It's now my last night in Lincoln. V, E, W and I sit around the table after dinner while ZY and PJ lounge together on the couch, and we discuss medicine. We talk about working in acute medicine, of lousy handovers, of silly referrals. Over the course of the evening, having navigated the countless precarious bids and propositions, the bartering of information, the infinitesimal triumphs and concessions of new acquaintanceship, we find that the six of us have entered into uncharted territory. Our timelines have curved just enough for our divergent histories to meet again. And we find that for as long as this confederate, amalgamated dimension persists, we can be ourselves again. We no longer have to summon our two-years-ago-selves to relate to each other, which is a relief because it turns out we have changed a lot over the past two years. And what we are doing now, among the empty plates and with the snow gently falling outside, is telling each other how we've changed. Recounting our experiences, nodding in affirmation, finding out we are still very similar and still very different. Getting to know each other all over again.
The strange thing is that while we sit and talk, I find that the sense of 'belonging' has returned in full force. There's no more estrangement, no more bewildered fascination - there's only common interest, a comfortable silence, a home cooked meal, the six of us, new and old friends, in a room -- and for once, I don't want to be somewhere else. It quietly dawns on me that in this moment, I'm happy -- I'm just exactly where I want to be.
And I know that it won't last. But as V and PJ compare notes on urology registrars, I brush that thought aside and I tell myself, that's okay, because I know if we're lucky, it'll happen to us again - maybe in Preston, or maybe Liverpool, or maybe even in Malaysia. You know, home is something you always come back to.
No comments:
Post a Comment