Rye can be very distracting. Not long ago, I popped into town for a few quite boring and practical items – potatoes, carrots, things like that – and returned home with some of what I needed, but with the addition of a pack of make your own greetings cards and a gold felt tip pen. I must have had a fleeting desire to engage in such an activity, but it was certainly very fleeting and the cards and the pen still remain exactly where I put them when I unpacked my bag.
It was for that reason that I started to write a list of what I actually needed before I left home. It felt like something of a defeat, as I had prided myself that my memory was still pretty good and I had at least one useful system for enhancing it should that be necessary. But I do not have enough space in my house for an unlimited selection of craft materials that will most probably never be used, so I gave in.
I suppose it is an indication of my deep-seated aversion to lists – or at least the implication of some sort of inadequacy that they contain – that I tend to write them on tiny scraps of paper, for example torn from the edge of a newspaper; the narrow white space provided by the page margin.
The other day, I was searching for one such scrap in the depths of my pockets when my attention was attracted by a conversation nearby. Two women were standing outside Boots, waiting for it to re-open at 2.30pm, and discussing a friend for whom one was collecting a prescription. While I attempted to distinguish today’s crumpled fragment from its predecessors, I could not help hearing more of the conversation. They knew I was there and they were not speaking quietly, so it didn’t feel like eavesdropping.
The gist of the conversation was the nature of the extensive informal arrangements that had been made to help their friend. Someone had collected her from hospital, others popped in to check on her, and yet another went to the shop for her; a network of support was already in place and would remain so until they were no longer needed, and I have to admit the search for my list was abandoned.
Yes, I did continue shopping, but my thoughts lay elsewhere. What a community there is here in Rye. Maybe it’s the same in other places, I don’t know. But the conversation between those two women stayed with me and still gives me a positive feeling when I remember it. The woman who had been in hospital could not be considered lucky in that respect, but how lucky she is in her friends! And how lucky we are to live in a place where such support is discussed on the doorstep of Boots, not as something unusual or problematic, but simply as something that needed to be done.
Image Credits: Dan Lake .