The Long Wait
Jane Coutts, the author of The Books and the Sea:
There is a thin line between responsibility to ourselves and responsibility towards others, and we rarely sit down to work out which is which. At times, I cannnot help thinking that we confuse interference with responsibility and mediocrity with a balanced state of mind.
I have sometimes had the privilege of meeting people who had the remarkable ability to “go away for a while”. They were, to all intents and purposes, happy to reside there, suspended in an extended dream, and invariably they returned, alive and well, and none the worse for the journey. They are not unusual people, or sick people, nor are they in any way traumatised. In fact, in some cases, they are the most everyday people who have no particular fears or worries.
I have also known people, in some cases children, who were labelled as “strange” by a society which had taken mediocrity as its main ambition and usefulness as its mantra. The Long Wait is a story which challenges these concepts and encourages a society where everyone has the right to look for their place in life, however bizarre that might be, and no matter how many roads are travelled in the meantime, provided it does no-one any harm.
Instead of a world where half the workforce is doing what the other half is good at, perhaps things might run more smoothly if “normal” were redefined a little more loosely.
“Have gone to Patagonia.” (Note left by Bruce Chatwin)