Popping Up
I remember him popping up.
Popping up on the old Metropolitan Line or at the gym in Latimer Road. Popping up at the pond, Hampstead. The Mixed Pond, it always was, pulling himself out of the water, or more often, it seems, at the far end where willows hang and you might catch the cobalt fire of a kingfisher. We always felt more at ease at a popping up, away from those meetings with the capital letters: Trustees, Managers, Community. The two of us just a mix of shared elements, of the water, air, light.
“I am a superb swimmer,” he’d said once. I must have asked him. Odd thing to ask, now I think of it, but, back then, at the beginning, I used to ask those questions: “Can you swim?” “Do you ride a bike?” “ Have you got a job?” And — “Are you a Buddhist?”
He took a step back, whether as a show of mock unease or to signal a theatrical draw of breath, I couldn’t tell. The room was tiny, perched hopefully, roof-high like a pigeon nest above the vault of Baker Street, hardly big enough for the eight or nine of us to stand, Then, against the window’s nimbus of evening sky he said: “Yes, yes. I suppose I am.” Deep voice, just the slightest waver to flag emotion.
So that was it. My first meeting with a Buddhist. He’s dead now. But he still pops up, remember the elements, he seems to say. “Be human.”
