Enchanted Evenings
Along with Michael, I got teary-eyed as he recited the lyrics of South Pacific‘s “Some Enchanted Evening” to Gail during their wedding. It made up for a lot about this long, drawn-out, convoluted story. Then Gail knocked the whole thing in the head, for Michael and me, by saying sorry, can’t do it. And Michael stormed off again. Please, when will it be over?
There was, however, an enchanted evening this week. Roy and new acquaintance Cathy having a cup of tea at her new fold-out table in the allotments. They have adjoining garden plots and, like Roy, she is recently widowed. She tells him that her husband always said he had three loves: her, his ale and his allotment. She is not much for gardening herself, but she wants to keep it in good shape in his memory. Also it’s a place she feels close to him. Roy understands her, maybe better than she knows.
They drank tea from Roy’s flask and talked about things mundane and important. They each seemed aware that this comfort in the company of another was something they hadn’t had for a long time. It was a lovely, and needed, break for them.
Pleasures of ordinary life
It gave us a break too, a moment to sit back and reflect on the pleasures of ordinary conversation and normal life. That’s something in short supply on the Street right now. The Platts are sharing their nasty little three-ring circus of deception and crowdedness with almost everybody, Jenny isn’t sharing anything with anyone, Todd is messing with his mother’s love life just for fun, Sean and Billy are headed for a huge and public fight thanks to Julie’s sense of justice, and Tracy is wrecking other people’s lives because she hasn’t got anything else to do.
Michael gave us the words to “Some Enchanted Evening,” but the expectations of one for him quickly became derailed. Let’s hope that Sharif “my middle name is sensitive” Nazir doesn’t derail the enchanted times that Roy and Cathy may have.
