This Actually Happened

Sunday, 18 December 2022

This actually happened.

I remember a school project, one where we had to write down an old memory, one of our earliest ones. Something light I guess. Thats what I chose anyway. I chose one of me falling off of my skateboard in the local park on my estate, it wasn’t deeper and I guess a childhood infatuation with extreme sports led me to romanticise the event in my mind. Helmets sketched into the illustration that illustrated the dream like situation. I guess I naively exaggerated the fall a little as a child does. Exaggerating the pain of the accident alluding to a concussion when a full face helmet might have been worn. You never really know the truth, but a white lie here and there when you’re ten or eleven years old can often go along way, although I was ‘Honest John’ and these things never quite sat right with me. We had to read the memories to each other in the class and as embarrassing memories have this affect on most people I cringe as I find myself reflecting on how I was saying “This actually happened, this actually happened”. Over and over again to my classmates, I mean honestly who actually gives a shit right? This was a train of thought as I mulled over a book of stoicism that rested on my partners parents living room coffee table, the unlit fireplace with burnt coal across from us and the lights of the Christmas tree to our left. My girlfriend spoke to me about a memory, a conversation that she had with a friend whilst visiting her in Edinburgh, Scotland. I wanted to listen to her. Just take it in. Earlier I had been reading that book on Stoicism. The prologue and the first two pages of the first chapter. I wanted to listen so bad, I’m being ‘Honest John’ here, so I started thinking about what the greeks would do to listen. What would they do to focus on what someone is saying to them. What would a stoic do, is this what stoicism is about and so forth. She asked me if I was annoyed. I said no, I’m just thinking about how this actually happened. My mind wandered on to Plato and Socrate's final lecture, that famous renaissance painting of the lecturer speaking to Plato and the rest of his almost disciple like followers and students, before he drinks the poison that his fate lead him to drink, the punishment that he was condemned to for whatever crime he had committed. Although the artist took some artistic liberties with the painting, putting himself into the painting. I still thought about how the main figure, the philosopher, genuinely drank a poisonous plant for a crime. I thought about how me and my mates smoke weed every now and again. I thought about how Mandela and so many other South Africans suffered in prisons for years listening to white noise. I thought about the holocaust and all of the other atrocities and then I thought back to that eleven year old me saying yeah this actually happened bragging about a skateboard fall to my mates. It put things into perspective, one that I have obviously realised time and time again before, but to put it so simply whilst hearing my partners anecdote about something that actually happened about a month ago, just made me feel that a lot has actually happened in this world and what does it matter. What do I have to show for it. Why do so many people suffer hardships in the past and why can I just get to sit here in a living room hearing stories from a country that once had to fight for its independence from the country who’s capital city I have just arrived in and am currently sat comfortably on the sofa of. Why did a genius have to suffer a painful death from poison from a potion of a plant that burns your insides for questioning the reign of authority when me and my friends act a fool smoking over plants for the fun of it, questioning the monarchy, capitalism, the government and all of the rest of it through our music and poetry and talks in a pub over poisonous pints that we wash away the side effects of with orange juice and a greasy spoon breakfast, why do I have it so lucky when so much in this world actually happened. Boar wars took place, lands were conquered and women raped. Then only yesterday I was watching James Cameron’s avatar, a million dollar film made to be as realistic as possible, I almost cried as I watched it. It was realistic. It made me question a lot of things and also begin to despise humanity. It made me hate industries and wince at the thought that I can’t handle the sight of CGI characters being given the same treatment that real human beings have been given in the past. Things that actually happened. Parts of my own families past that I don’t quite want to face at this time and I’m lucky enough to decide to turn a blind eye to it all because I live thousands of miles away from any of the places where these atrocities actually happened. I have spent my life in a city of culture where in theory we love one another. I have spent most of my life on the side of the city where other nations are celebrated the most, carnivals are held and houses are painted the colour of the rainbow. I live closer to Heathrow that I do to Notting Hill or maybe somewhere in between the two, but neither does that mater nor have a real impact because we are there on the in-between of things not happening to us nor around us. We are passengers on the bus, as others argue amongst themselves we watch from the sidelines and talk about it to loved ones later. We hear of things that have actually happened but are no longer seen. I’ve witnessed videos of Covid in China, heard stories from Libya and now as I write I’m warm next to a Christmas tree as a dog in front of me sleeps, no this isn’t a dream this is a reality. This actually happened. And all that I can show for it are some words on a page that may well be forgotten by you the reader as you wake up to your phone tomorrow with more stories on your news feed from the writers from today talking about tomorrow or the writers of tomorrow writing about those of the past, either way it all actually happened but no one seemed to care. We all seem to be that eleven year old screaming and shouting out in vein about the memories and images that conjure in the mind, we are all just sharing the stories of our time. Swearing to you all that this actually happened time after time. Just to have the truths locked away deep, deep down in the chambers of your mind.

This actually happened.

John Gilroy