Value is relative, I suppose.
In what do I find most value? My daughter’s sense of humour; sharing a bottle of wine or two of a summer evening with my wife; a long walk on a crisp, clear day. I also value some things which, to others, might seem inconsequential and pointless, like this time, right now, at the end of my working day. Were I to offer the children in my classes a little extra time to call their own, I imagine they would laugh or pull a face before returning to what is really important in their lives – their mobile phone perhaps, or their games console, but those precious few hours between the end of the last lesson and my going home for the day, seeming much longer than all the other hours in the day, and so much quieter and more productive, can feel worth their weight in gold.
Gold. Why gold? Why have so many wars and skirmishes been fought, so many lives taken and given for it throughout the centuries? Who decided upon the ‘gold standard’, ‘gold star’ or ‘gold medal’ as indicators of achievement or worth when it seems almost absurd to think of a piece of yellowish metal being a reward for anything? Thinking on it, though, maybe, just maybe, those who elevated the status of gold did so because of a view like the one I have from my office window.
The trees up across the slopes of the hills behind the school, in the fields and yards all around, burn through all shades between yellow, orange and far beyond, their leaves scattering like golden flakes from a careless jeweller’s bench. This, then, is real gold: the quality of light at the end of a beautiful spring day, a light so rich as to be almost tangible, especially when the sunset over Swansea bay begins to pour out its dregs into the window panes of the houses facing down from the slope of Mynydd Dinas. It belongs to no-one and everyone, and we all, if even for the shortest time, can live our lives as rich men and women.
Since becoming a Head of Year at a local comprehensive school, time has been at a premium, and I have often had to be content to watch others bask in this wealth, finding only time to step out of the office for a breath of air and a quick coffee before heading back into its confines to get the day’s work done before leaving for home, even on a Friday. I drained the last of the coffee in my cup, took another glimpse up at the hills and plonked myself back into the chair, the accusatory glare of the PC demanding I complete the week’s attendance figure spreadsheet. Pffft. I sighed and prepared to dive back into the percentages when I glanced up at the back of the office door, where my eyes were met by an even more accusatory stare. From the image, the eyes of the great American author Edward Abbey observed me calmly, their message already clear, but reinforced by the words below, words that I came to know by heart a long time ago:
“…Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure… I promise you this one sweet victory over…those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
I realised, with a start, that I was now one of those whom Abbey so seemed to despise. I looked back again at the spreadsheet. Half an hour’s worth of work left, at least. Back to Abbey:
“…get out there and hunt and fish…ramble out yonder…breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.”
I clicked off the monitor, grabbed my jacket and locked the door behind me.
Less than an hour later, the sky to the east had just started to sink into grey, but the western fringes remained clear, suffused with sun-blush. As I tackled up at the water’s edge, I noticed to my right a man squatting on his haunches where the tiny curl of the surf flopped onto the sand. He neither moved nor made a sound until, after another ten minutes or so, the sun sank to that point just above the hills of Swansea and began its clockwork slide into flaring oblivion, at which point the man reached down to a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
Every bright shaft, each burning angle, was trapped by the photographer, and I imagined the images slipping down into some digital vault, squirreled away for posterity on an SD card somewhere in the camera’s internal mechanisms, a modern palimpsest set against darker days to come.
I thought then about how many of these beach sunrises and sunsets I squandered and took for granted over the years before I chose that step and shut myself into the office. I stopped what I was doing for a few minutes and just stood there and watched, completing the pair – photographer and fisherman – sharing out between them those last moments of spring sunshine that would be gone soon enough. The ‘last oozings’ drained out, the moment passed by and we slipped into shade. As though a circuit had been broken, we snapped-to and went our separate ways – he to his car and I to the water to make the first cast of the night.
The next three hours or so were eventful enough, passing in a string of small flatfish barely bigger than large coins, a few glinting, silvery school bass and yellow-flanked rockling. Although small change in the grander scheme of all things piscatorial, I was tremendously grateful for them, for the place, for all of it, a collection of things small and useless to anyone else, but priceless and more than enough for a man who already felt wealthy far beyond counting.