A watershed ...

Yesterday was one of those bittersweet days when one chapter ends and another begins. Having dropped Cath off to do a locum shift at a local hospital (this farming lark costs a bit) my reflective frame of mind required a long walk on a deserted beach with Pepper to try and find some perspective. The reason for all this introspection was that our youngest son was about to depart for the UK where he will study history at university. Officially I guess that makes Cath and I empty nesters. 

For us, as for the rest of the world in 2020, things haven’t turned out exactly as planned. In addition to starting our journey at Cracroft Farm, the timing of our long service leave was also chosen with a view to giving us the opportunity to accompany our son to the UK and see him settled, but the international border closure put an end to that idea. Then we thought that the Queensland – Tasmania border would open at the end of July, then the middle of August, then the end of August, but all this came to naught as well. So now he has left Australia without us being able to see him or knowing when we will be able to visit or have him return home.

 

There are so many things that I wanted to say to him before he left. The words of Polonius to his son Laertes in Hamlet Act 1 Scene 3 spring immediately to mind

 

Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear ’t that th' opposèd may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.

Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy—rich, not gaudy,

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

 

Loosely paraphrased this advice seems reasonable even after 300 odd years: don’t blow your budget immediately, look out for your mates and trust your instincts. But then I remembered things didn’t end so well for Polonius, Laertes and also the other sibling, Ophelia,  as they all end up dead by the end of the play!

 

After a moment’s thought, I realized that I had probably said everything necessary to him countless times already. Indeed I wondered if it was perhaps the father that was in need of advice. As Mark Twain remarked with his usual acerbic wit (ages changed slightly)

 When I was a boy of 18, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 25, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

 I resolved immediately to embark on the getting of wisdom phase.

In the final analysis,  all one can do is clear the runway for a smooth takeoff, share (from an appropriate distance) the exaltation of solo flight being experienced for the first time and stand by to soothe ruffled feathers in the inevitable event of unexpected turbulence. 

Anyway, Pepper didn’t seem impressed with my musings and wasn't overly concerned about anything at all  ...