T
ravel is circumscribed, as we now know only too well — it means what the Romans must have meant, that our travels have strict, even drawn, boundaries around them.
Three weeks ago, in the small hours, I took a very short journey, what's called a 'noctule'. That's nothing to do with bats, nocturnal, cricket or Chinese,
but a journey that's common in men over seventy. Ask a doctor.
At about half past one, when the moon was full, moonlight shone directly into our bathroom.
On the windowsill is a glass sphere beside an elegantly-profiled marble head — you are never
alone in the shower in our house. The shadow of the head was cast on the shower-glass, creating
a pale human silhouette fuzzed by limey streaks. Through the glass the moonlight travelled,
and the marble's shadow landed on the mirror. Then away it bounced onto white tiles, and then,
by optical wizardry made more marvellous in the murmurs of the moonlit hour, it reflected back
onto the glass sphere, and expelled therefrom a segment of the arc of a rainbow. This was itself
refracted through the shower-glass, lost its shape, and landed like a maple leaf in autumn
on the quarry-tiled floor.
Moon, marble, mirror, murmurs, marvels, maple, memory. Keep minds open; keep reflecting.