Ah me! The meal was just as sublime the second time around, only now I could identify the smells in the air quicker than Paul, order my own food without help, and truly appreciate the artistry of the kitchen. La Couronne was the same, but I had become a different person.
Chapter 3, Part 2: Home Leave, My Life in France.
I feel this way about so many things - like it's the same but I appreciate it in a different manner because I have changed myself. I'm like that with books and music, even people, if I haven't seen them for a while. When I was younger, I would always have in my mind a certain book I couldn't wait to read, and it was often that people would say to me: "why don't you read it now?". My answer to them was that my 'literary maturity' was not at a suitable height. I took it very seriously. I wanted to be older so that I might read the book and enjoy it from a more mature and understanding perspective. This works both ways. I look back now and wish I'd read certain books as a child because if I go and read them now, my appreciation of them will be completely different. Sometimes it's a great thing, like growing up. Sometimes its a sad thing, like growing apart.
It is like a letting go and a discovering the present. As a young boy when my father and I went to Sydney everything was so big the story bridge the opera house. Just recently I took him myself as an adult. As we steamed up the Sydney harbour I yelled out to dad “who shrunk the bridge”. It was now all so tiny. It had all changed for me. I had grown and expanded. And so had all the important things in my life especially my relationships. There is an enjoyment of my own relationship with the still very active inner child little David and the older self, big David. The dialog between the two is full of nurture compassion and empathy. What a wonderful experience to attend to our selves, growing is full of excitement and wonder.
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I love your use of paradox - I've heard it said that the answer to the most profound mysteries of life are contained in a paradox. And I've found it to be true. Some must maintain life in blacks & whites, bulldozing individuals & relationships with their firm opinions & right answers. But it seems to me that the answer to the deepest of questions can only be found in the paradox & I think that's part of our humanity & part of growth - knowing we can never have all the answers but only hold things lightly...
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