It's strange that I still open my email every day with a little molecule of the old grey matter pushing expectant for a casual hello from this boy I once knew, a sweet chap, wild and unpredictable in a curiously demure way. But it's been ages now since he waved a white flag and ducked into the trenches behind his granite wall. I wonder what he's doing. I think of him fixing the bannisters or giving the garden a final once-over before the winter suspends it in yearly petrification. It's those little things I miss the most: his mundane always enraptured me. Take the rest of the world: bombarded all too frequently by the plastered smiles depicting mock ecstatic shock at their supposedly outrageous lives. Photos of groups all laughing or pulling faces. Always with the manic happiness. I don't buy it for a second. Even the world "friend" means nothing anymore. But He - He wrote about buying a new squash racquet. About the wrong shelves that were delivered - twice. About the trailer he replaced. About ordering too much mulch - what to do with the surplus? It was all so real, so grounded, so completely alluring.
The lure of the exotic pulls people to twist their tales into bold events, smattering their one liners with 'ha ha's' of guffawed laughter, fingers pointed to show cameras their shocking behaviour, everything supposedly new and unique. And for what? To get attention; to paint a self portrait for the world to see how happy they are; what extraordinary lives they lead. The lure of the exotic is in the mundane. Heaney knows this: his quiet subject matter, a woman with floury hands or a grumbling iron monger, can echo for years with gut wrenching nostalgic reverberations. He knows the real secrets of the extraordinary lie in the ordinary. In the quiet irritation of a conscientious home owner who cannot find the right colour for the bannister, and resignedly covers his colourful attempts with neutral white. Like the rest of the walls. The inner workings of reality, not the weary bullshit of the public faced. A feigned moment of glory broadcasting to the whole wide world.
It turns out He was strolling up the gentle black-brown curves of Dame Etna. The casual hello came: the old grey matter's psychic reach is not obsolete yet.
