Come Fly With Me. Or Maybe Not.

I had the strangest thought today. I’d just seen Sarah going off for a bike ride with her sister, and it struck me that it would be nice to go somewhere with her. Somewhere a long way away, on a plane, like America or Russia or Venezuela (Venezuela?) Sarah and I together, now that’s an unprecedented fantasy. And it got me thinking about the word ‘together.’

Together we stand.

We’re all in this together.

Angels cheer ’cos we’re together...

I’ve been trying to work out what it means, and it’s elusive. I can think of only one situation I’ve experienced so far in which the concept comes close to coalescing into something meaningful, and it has nothing to do with going to Venezuela. The word embarrasses me. I remember my mother saying once, about something to do with me and my brother, ‘You two can work it out together.’ It made me uneasy; there was something pretentious, even presumptuous, about it.

I think I’d quite like a taste of together, but I doubt I’d know what to do with it. ‘Together comes before disappointment.’ Ah, right, so that’s why it’s always been so alien to my perceptive faculty. Back to the trial of the Grail quest, it seems.

And while I’m on the subject of Sarah, I really need to collar her and explain what a fraud I am. She’s far too sweet to associate with the likes of me under false pretences.