Remembering Pass the Parcel

Remembering Pass the Parcel

Ring a ring a roses

A pocket full of posies

Attishoo, attishoo

They all fell down

 

They all danced around,

 

They sang the nursery rhyme,

 

Some fell down, some never got up.

 

As the music stopped

 

The string untied, the paper removed

 

She had survived; she had the gift of life.

 

The music came again

The year 1956 – she sang along to Doris Day

Que-sera-sera, what will be, will be

 

Along came the motorbike

 

Whipped her up like a rag doll

 

Deposited her, broken, in the middle of the road

 

The next layer of paper was removed

Things weren’t too bad – just broken legs and lacerations

Really she was so lucky - another gift

 

 They were Twisting away to Chubby Checker

She twisted right out of Birmingham

Freedom!

Parcel in hand she took off the wrapper – the next layer

She landed in Dolgellau and then Aberystwyth

Rural gifts, seaside gifts, mad and crazy gifts

 

The Beatles are singing

All you Need is Love – ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

She sang it, they all sang it – it was their anthem

She stopped singing, the music faded

 

She opened the parcel

 

Her beautiful firstborn lay there

 

All olive skinned and honeyed

 

Wow, it’s 1968 - Louis Armstrong

He blows that trumpet and croons

“It’s a Wonderful World”

And it is.   The music stops again

The wrapping removed and there she is

Another girl – all golden and blue-eyed

On it went – the music of life

Or as they say

The soundtrack of her life

From Ella Fitzgerald to Stevie Wonder

Luciano Pavarotti full volume in her tiny kitchen

And Elvis Presley, always Elvis

A rollercoaster of packages

Ups and down, good stuff, bad stuff

But always a gift to be found amongst

The string, the pretty twine and crinkled paper.

 

She’s lost her job –

The company has gone to London!

It’s 1985 she tries to play the music, to sing, to play the game

But it’s not easy

U2 Joshua Tree full volume –

 

She loves this as she drives her old car

She a temp for one week

They meet.

 

And then she hears

 

Nick Drake’s beautiful, melancholic voice

 

Sing “Northern Sky”

 

She opens the paper – this time the wrapping is The Guardian!

Funny.

 

Her latest gift – this man loves her, he loves her.

 

Amazing Grace lifted high

What words, what an exultation

They all sing this together

 

What friends, friends are some of the very best

Of shared gifts. 

She guesses, as time passes,

She will now have fewer wrappings to undo

It’s been such an enormous parcel

This life parcel

So much music having played

But still she’s excited at the prospect of remaining layers

 

She’s got a wonderful cd – West meets East

Ravi Shankar on sitar

Yehudi Menuhin on violin

It was playing in her head, over and over

And June 2015

They made their way to beautiful Ynys Mon –

The island of Anglesey

She let the music stop awhile

She  opened her gift’s latest layer

She opened her eyes, opened her heart

Listened to the birdsong

What a gift – she asks herself does she deserve this?

That big, big night sky flung with stars

Those mountains,

That welcome, those waves clawing at the shore

Those fields, those winding lanes,

That ever-changing heaven and all its colours

What a jewel, what a gift.   

 

Gifts are there amongst the layers

Sometimes tiny ones

Sometimes vast.

Keep listening carefully to the music

Enjoy the rhythm of life

Untie the knots, peel away the wrapping

Gifts await us all

Sometimes big, sometimes small.