The ego is a presence that must be understood on the same platform as learning. I was fortunate that the separation of my parents did not anchor me on platforms of rejection; thus, I grew within the realm of my godfather and godmother, within a world that found no space to judge the origins of their conflict, which dwindled away as I expanded into a world of my explorations and an environment of learning rather than of sadness. One character who held my interest was an artist named Mr Fullington, whose studio was the cottage he lived in. I concealed my eleven-year-old self and observed partially undressed females in a motionless state, except for Mr Fullington’s hints and directions. Then, on weekends, a car would visit Mr Fullington’s cottage and, as I would later call it, his studio. A nearby character, addressed as ‘Doctor Paul’, interpreted most of what I learnt for me; despite the swagger of his alcohol tics, he had an intellect that showed no person should be defined by swift assessments based on quick social assertions of type.
Doctor Paul was perceived as an alcoholic, and he did drink to his life of better times, but he had a quick mind and was aware of many things. He was no charlatan; in any conversation, if unsure, he would postpone. People saw that he drank, yes, but it didn’t define his intellect or his archive of memories, which were sharp and playful. As he would say, “At all times, knowledge is our friend, and every person has an understanding, even the fool in the man who dances with the invisible Darlin in the rum shop that reminds him that he too was once a man of some means, and prays for its redemption.” To share something as he did with a young artist who was thankful so many decades ago…
De lamentables