In Ascension

by Martin MacInnes

Helena had the advantage of youth, of watching and learning from what happened to me, putting forward a personality that could protect itself. I didn’t have the luxury. I came first; I didn’t know; I could only be myself, feet swinging from chairs, mouth hanging open while I read. Helena was a realist, a fighter, a survivor.

It amused me, the way even the most dramatic events snuck up on you, their true significance only apparent in retrospect. There was no single moment of transition; everything happened by degrees, each step seeming logical and reasonable at the time. This was a lesson I was unable to learn, despite a lifetime’s demonstration. The present, regardless of what it entails, almost always comes with an in-built inertia, a resolute, robust banality. When I looked back, I felt an almost overpowering desire to relive certain moments with the recognition they deserved.

So many times I had identified errors – in my work and in my relationships – stemming from the original mistake of too many assumptions, of predicting rather than perceiving the world and seeing something that wasn’t really there. I noticed this more as I got older. Age was, among so many other things, the realisation that you couldn’t correct this, that the pursuit wasn’t meaningful, there was no perfect clean reality on the other side. You’re flawed, and the world you see corresponds to these flaws. Weaknesses define you, drive new and original strategies to cover them, and they make you who you are. You don’t exist without them. Correcting the errors – seeing perfectly and objectively – is neither desirable nor possible.