We took the train to Shrewsbury the next day, Christmas Eve, and it was my father who picked us up from the station and drove us over to Warden Parm. The sky was silver-grey. A pale late-afternoon sun washed the meadows and hedgerows in winter light. ln London there had been’ dustings of snow. Here it lay thick and deep: unbroken swathes of smooth, white velvet. I had not travelled these roads for ten years or more. They seemed utterly familiar; and at the same time, utterly strange and otherworldly. I could not reconcile these two feelings. I can remember this sensation – this thought – very clearly. The realization that sometimes, it is possible – even necessary – to entertain contradictory ideas; to accept the truth of two things that flatly contradict each other. I was only just beginning to understand this: only just beginning to acknowledge that this is one of the fundamental conditions of our existence. How old was I? I was thirty-three. So, yes: you could say that I was just starting to grow up.
Extrait de « The Rain Before It falls » Jonathan Coe
Il m’a fallu bien plus longtemps pour comprendre, et surtout accepter cela !
Comprenons nous bien ! 