When I was a child, we had a rule:
children stayed at home, when our mother had to go out for a bit.
She used to say "I'll be back soon, stay at home for a while".
And I obeyed.
Those days there were no visitors, no salesmen, no thieves.
We didn't have a telephone or a TV, and radio
programmes for children began late in the afternoon. My friends would
come by and ask me to come out and play. I would say
I had to stay at home. And that was the rule. Looking back at it now,
I think "What was the meaning of staying at home?"
It was like the time had stopped. I would listen to an old clock
on the wall... tick-tack.... and I would look at the long hand
move every minute. Sometimes I would go out to the garden
and just look at the ant hill and watch ants pass by in processions.
I did not know the meaning of time nor did I think about it.
Now I realise how precious those times were and remember them
with sentment...
