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When I were young …

Are selective memories shaped and reshaped by the years between then and now.  Memories I like to think are factual but which are as much fiction as the best ever written.  Flashbacks of moments without context airbrushed more skilfully than any software can.

When I were young …

I have many such memories from my childhood.  A pot-luck as individual to me as yours to you.  A pot-luck we share as though the only recipe for life.

When I were young …

We had an outside toilet that froze my arse and more important bits.  We ate broiler chickens cheap as chips (and with less taste) for a Sunday Roast.  We took the bus on days out and to go on holiday.

When I were young …

People died of stuff all the time.  Of young-old-age as much as scientific-ill-health.  Of accepted stuff that could not be changed.  Cars were made for the freedom they offered.  The freedom from buses and another’s schedule.  Freedom to go and be and do and see whatever whenever.  And die in crashes quite a lot.  I don’t remember the mundane or routine.  I remember what moved me, what scared me, what lifted me up.  And what let me down. 

I remember moments that I have since recast.  Recast in forging my I Am.  That I now think fact.

When I were young …

We were as cruel but thought it normal. We were as careless but thought nothing of it.  We were as accusing of the old as we are now.  We were as self-centred as now but thought it ambition.  We were as global as now – as global as our small world allowed.

When I were young …

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Is what the young today will say in their years yet to come.  When I am gone and my memories no longer intrude on theirs.  So why not allow All these personal and selective moments that will be the “I Am” of each?  Why not accept that when I were young is as much I Am for me as it will be for all in All’s years to come?

It’s what we do – recast the past.  It’s how we get by – creating and recreating our own universe.  It’s what we think normal – reshaping facts to fit.  It’s called progress by some – and fantasy by others.  We live dynamically and fantastically and alone in a world full of others.  Alone building-up and tearing-down – as changing and changeable as any city centre development.

City centres when I were young that were the beating-hearts of every community.  And which now fight for survival.

When I were young … out-of-town superstores were the future – now the reason city-centres are dying.

When I were young … progress was great – now the reason for the ills we face.

When I were young … we fixed stuff with no thought for the cost of fixing.  We still do.

We change and yet we don’t.  We move forwards yet yearn for the past.  We look back and see facts.  But never selective reformed reconstituted moments.

We are built to survive and we do.

We have evolved but the cost of surviving is not ours.  Perhaps it never was.

The cost is paid by others.  Our neighbours.  Our future generations.  Our planet.

Never me.

Never now.

When I were young …

I needed to change the world for you.

Now I want to protect the world for me.

And mine.

Although mine are not “mine”.  Mine is my past, my present and mu future – you are my past, my present and my future – we all are.  Each one of us our own selective reformed reconstituted I Am.

That’s why all SHOULD be welcome (without any need for a twee sign).

We are what we have in common.

Not what we have in difference.

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