What Mole are Thee?
“Let us choose our companions along the way wisely and well, for we journey but once and need at our flanks moles who have it truly in their hearts to help us to that place we lost …”
– From the Prologue in Duncton Found by William Horwood
There are a handful of ‘true mole’ (known as true friends to humankind) that bring to our lives the definitions of faithfulness and loyalty. They are the kind that stand unwaveringly beside us no matter what and then some.
We find them or they come to us in the most ordinary of ways, sometimes for the most extraordinary of reasons. And even then, we do not know fully the reason why it is that one ‘true mole’ in particular.
It is enough sometimes to feel them at our flank and to find ourselves throwing a heart-felt prayer of thanks heavenward that they’ve come. So it is, that with the passing of time I have come to fully know and appreciate the precious gift mine are and have been to me. What about you?
My friend Jan has the life, heart and soul of ‘true mole.’ We’re an unlikely pair. And yet, we’re not. What I know for sure though, is, she’s the genuine article. She’s hewn from the kind of rock that doesn’t crumble easily. I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt her hand beneath my elbow, hauling me upright during difficult times. We have a marvellous dream Jan and me, to wander around the Greek Isles when one or other of us wins the Lotto.
We laugh so much about that because neither of us buy them nor even know how to read them. But that’s what ‘true mole’ do. Make plans with each other to celebrate ‘true moledom’ … and we will, like that, one day.
My friend Jase has all the hallmarks of becoming ‘true mole.’ He’s much younger than my friend Jan, but in the end, it has nothing to do with being young or old and it has everything to do with the ‘essence of the heart’. On another level, he’s ‘finding himself’ which is such a puzzle to me. How do we know when we are lost? And when do we decide to find what we’ve lost? When we realise something’s missing?
The backyard is like a ghost town again, maybe that’s what it’s like when something’s missing from our lives. There’s an unexplained desolation, emptiness, a hankering for something more. But what if that ‘something more’ is right under our noses? What then?
I’ve come to the conclusion that living the life I have now makes my life valuable today. Not yesterday or even tomorrow, but today. Being fully present today. How about you? Is your life always about what’s ahead in the pipeline? Nothing wrong with plans. Only, maybe, if it’s like that all the time. Leaves falling … still autumn … the stocktake continues.
In Horwood’s Duncton there is a greeting they have, “what mole are thee?” Indeed, and so … it is my question to you today. What mole are thee?
