Waiting with Magda Mozarka

Waiting. We sit on the island content to wait. Waiting weeks for the moon to be in the right quarter so we can fish. Waiting months for the fruits to ripen so we can start the harvest. Waiting hours for the heat to pass so we can work. Waiting for the time we can leave this island for provisions...the inevitable slow but steady natural clockwork marking time. An hour hand of ferries offering a smaller human scale to the wait. Just waiting. When waiting is part of a culture, patience and acceptance almost to the point of madness is inevitable.

The Boat Road

How do you view the world when you're five years old? How much of that youthful joie de vivre do you - and can you - retain as you hit middle age? Having rarely spent so much time with a young gentleman it's been an interesting couple of weeks, and in some crazy irresponsible ways, it seems I have more in common with my young nephew than my younger brother.

 

This is not meant as any kind of criticism of my brother. Indeed I adore him and he is an inspiration to me; he's a parent, a carer, a survivor of a very different and difficult upbringing in comparison to mine. Those six years between us might as well as be sixty. But as my exhausted adult friend and family nodded off on the final stretch of their journey, the inevitable result of an early flight, me and my nephew bonded on the ferry ride back to mine.