I think as a humans we put too much store in the visual, we pour over photos and get nostalgic when we visit places that trigger emotions, its not that these feelings are not valid, they are. Memories, however, can be triggered by all sorts of things, in all of us, and I am no different. The smell of honeycomb always reminds me of school, the sound of a zipper being opened or closed always brings back memories of childhood camping holidays, when the zip to the tent was first opened in the morning. Songs! Now there's a memory trigger we can all relate to, I worked for a while at Heathrow airport and before night shift in the pub where we had our evening meal, the landlord always played 'nothing compares to you'. Now when I here that song it always brings back that thought. Another most enduring memory triggered by a song is when I hear 'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree' oh how I hate that song.
Derek was one of those friends I grew up with, you know the type 2 families that have known each other for ever, we were the same age and we were both sat behind the big rocking chair in the dinning room. "Sooooo" He said protractedly, "Your dad, when's he home?". I sat quietly doodling patens into the brush velour of the back of the chair, not looking at him but just staring aimlessly deep into the swirls I was making, "next week" was my somewhat curt reply. In some ways the last year had flown by, and in another sense it had dragged, oh it had been so long. I had got through the daily taunts at school, mainly from the headmaster, I had spent an average of 6 hours a week outside his office, and now dad was coming home.
That last year had changed us all, my mum had become a lot tougher, she had to, holding everything together on her own, not sure how it affected my sisters, but I know it had left me with a real and ingrained problem with authority. I hated it, I hated teacher, police even the guards in the shopping centre anyone with even a air of authority was on my hate list. The seed of mistrust had been planted, but hey next week dad was home and all would return to normal. That following week was the longest week I had lived so far, mum tidied the house about a million time and tied yellow ribbons everywhere. You see the song is about a man coming home from prison and he tells his wife if he doesn't see a yellow ribbon from the old oak tree he will know he's not wanted. I can assure you from the amount of yellow in our house mum wanted dad home. When the day finally arrived we all got to give him a hug and a kiss and then were shipped out to friends, I guess mum wanted him to herself for a while, even then I could understand that, what shocked me was he had changed, he was harder and quieter than before, never quite the same man I remember again.
From there, with him home, it wasn't over, it was only just starting....
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