🌄 Saturday 28th July: A Time for Reflection 🌄

By Virgil Twobyfour
Muddled Philosopher and Watcher of the Gooseberries

This morning, as the clouds trundle past like sleepy sheep and the village green glistens with last night’s dew, my thoughts have been wandering to some distant streets I never walked myself. On this day in 1969, the Stonewall riots began in New York City — quite a long way from our Little Country green — but they changed the world for many, including those right here at home.

And I confess, as someone who has never rioted in anything more radical than an over-salted dinner queue, I do wonder why people must go to such loud and desperate lengths just to say, “Please, may I exist as myself?” It baffles me that it could ever take shouts and shattered glass for someone simply to be allowed to love who they love and live as they are.

I’m reminded of a nice young couple I knew back in the mid-70s — Anthony and Clive, they were called — who kept a neat cottage on the lane past Mrs Glibber’s goat sanctuary. Always polite and quick to help mend a gate or bring round a basket of damsons come autumn. They kept their home like a showplace and had hands forever intertwined when they thought nobody was looking. Good men, gentle men. Yet they kept to themselves more than most, as if wary someone might look at them askance — which, of course, a few miserable souls did. I often wished they could simply have been left in peace to tend their roses and share their tea without worry.

That they weren’t is a sadness. That folk like them felt they had to hide or explain themselves — and that it took riots an ocean away to change things — is a greater one.

Still, I take heart that nowadays I see village hands held more freely, and laughter carried louder across the green. It reminds me of other joyful events too — the time last year when the village held its Pride Fête and even Old Mrs Potts put on a rainbow hat (her whippet wore one too, and tried to chase a goose in it — a very malevolent goose who spent most of the day lurking near the bunting and plotting vengeance). Or that glorious summer picnic in 1983 when a young shire horse broke into the marquee and proceeded to do a passable dance of the seven veils with the tablecloths. Everyone clapped and cheered as if it had been rehearsed. Even I, standing at a safe distance with a plate of cucumber sandwiches, was swept up in the delight of it.

That is the thing — joy doesn’t come from uniformity or fear. It blooms wherever people can be themselves, whether they’re a young couple walking arm-in-arm past the allotments or a shire horse full of artistic ambition. The world is richer when we all grow in the light.

And so, here’s to Anthony and Clive — and to everyone, everywhere, who dared to stand up, hold hands, and simply be. The world shifted for them and will shift again for those who come after, and I’ll do my bit to encourage it along. Even if that means intervening when the local geese get ideas above their station.

Your neighbour in all gentle things,
Virgil 🌈

A full plate of Waffles can be consumed at notesfromthepottingshed.blogspot.com