So many things – and people, and situations - are not what they seem. Yet we cling onto our first impressions, reluctant to call our judgement into question…
For some reason, I was thinking about a few of the defining moments of my life earlier today. One stood out as a classic. Aged 16 and completely innocent, I was at a Christian youth camp and had been swimming in the sea. I stopped on the way back up to camp to wash the salt out of my hair under the waterfall, where a cold North Devon stream plunged over a low cliff. Suddenly strong arms encircled my waist from behind, and warm lips caressed my neck… time stopped, just for a second. Then he released me. I knew who it was, and whirled round, eyes wide with shock. He winked, and grinned at me, every inch the Alpha male, and sauntered off down to the beach where his beautiful Norwegian fiancee awaited him…
For many years I carried that moment with me, knowing that one theology student, a camp leader, a potential pastor, was not what he seemed, or that others believed him to be, and that maybe I wasn’t all that I’d wanted to be, either. He was, without doubt, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and he had seen something in me that responded to him; I did not scream and try to get away, as virtually every other girl there would have… Not long ago, I saw his face and name again, grinning up from the newspaper. He had just been sentenced to something like 12 consecutive life sentences for drug dealing and worse. And for years I’d thought of him, if at all, with a wistful, “I wonder what would have happened, if things had been different?” I’ve had my answer…
I also thought of a highly-respectable elderly lady I know, a veritable pillar of polite society, who casually let slip the astonishing fact that for nearly 30 years, until very recently, she’d been conducting a passionate affair with someone I know to be 25 years her junior. I do not doubt her for one minute; she’s as sharp & bright as a new pin to this day, not given to fantasy or exaggeration. And I rather think that her erstwhile lover is desperately missing her kindness, wit and sparkling humour. And whose business is it anyway? Neither of them was married to anyone else, and she steadfastly refused to marry him in case he met someone his own age. But I wonder what her whiter-than-white colleagues and constituents would have said if they’d known?! Sadly I suspect they would have torn her limb from limb, but she has been – still is – a huge force for good in our community.
And when people congratulate me on my well-behaved offspring – well, enough said! None of us know what’s going on behind closed doors, or behind other people’s eyes…
