Sue Vincent's Blog: Echoes of Life, page 1056
March 16, 2013
In touch
My son gleefully squeezed harder at the knotted muscle in my shoulder, with a ‘Now I’ve got you’ as I groan in agony. We have established and agreed that he has a sadistic tendency where I am concerned. It may have something to do with my knack of getting just the right spot on the painful muscles as we got his body working again. Day after painful day, for months on end. So now it is payback… and he’s enjoying it. He still manages to lay the blame squarely on my aching shoulders, muttering something that sounds vaguely like ‘Hereditary’.
Of course, he is a little more squeamish than I. His face screws up in horror as my wrist bones crunch back into place as he applies traction. It is, however, nice to regain freedom of movement occasionally. So, being what you might call a true sadist, I make him do it from time to time. I, on the other hand, had no compunction when it came to stretching his hamstrings using my entire bodyweight, such as it is.
There is a lot to be said for the healing touch of hands. In the hospice I worked with, the staff was trained in Reiki and a room set aside for alternative therapies. The Matron, a wonderful woman, was kind enough to offer me some therapy when I was going through a particularly rough patch some years ago.
Not only was it both unusual and lovely for someone to take time and care for me at that point, it was a beautiful experience in its own right. Oddly, though I had learned Reiki myself, it was the first time I had really been on the receiving end. The room was quiet, the garden visible through the window, the light soft. I Whether it was what she was doing, the ambience of a place where so much care was given, or simply the possibility of release in the intimacy of such a moment of care, but I remember sitting there with tears streaming down my cheeks.
I had learned the value of touch while caring for my late partner through severe arthritis and cancer. There was a period where we were warned that massage was not a good idea for cancer patients as it might encourage it to spread through the stimulation of the lymphatic system…but there came a point I was told it was okay. Which brought its own grief in the knowing.
Our physical relationship had suffered very badly. It is a common thing in chronic illness, but seldom spoken of, so I will speak of it here. It was one of the greatest griefs of his illness that loving each other as we did he was so weary and in so much pain most of the time. Afraid of raising emotions and a desire he could not meet for either of us, he withdrew from me physically for a very long time. We no longer even cuddled or held hands, there was no contact other than at a therapeutic level… or when I reached out my hand every morning before opening my eyes to see if he was still with me, still warm, still breathing.
Then one day, on his way to the kitchen, he squeezed my shoulder in passing. So precious was that simple touch that I burst into tears. That opened the floodgates for us both and the intimacy of touch and tenderness was restored. For the little while we had left together.
Touch was the last thing we had too. I was yards away from him when he died at home. I closed his eyes and washed his face, composed into lines of peace. I spoke to him as I made him ready for the medics that had to come. When he finally lay in our bed I kept vigil with him for a little while, a last while, performing those final services of care as the warmth of life left his body. Then I kissed him goodbye.
The value of those final moments to lay him to rest cannot be described. My younger son, then 12, had crept in to sit with him, speaking to him softly and stroking his face. Saying goodbye and seeing the life that had left with no fear of death, only love.
I remember even further back, assisting at the birth of my little brother. I was ten years old and my mother had chosen to give birth at home. No doubt many today may frown on the idea of a child watching her own mother in labour. To me it was simply the most beautiful thing to hold that scrap of humanity, still wet, as he took his first breath while I watched in wonder and the tiny hand grasped my finger. That touch too was full of love. Touch, after all, is the simplest and most beautiful communication.
I was chatting with a friend about some of this last night. More specifically we were talking about how sanitised dying has become in our cultures and the way we have become divorced from the natural process of passing out of life. And into it for that matter. We are encouraged to be born and to die in hospitals, rather than at home, and no matter how wonderful the staff there is a constraint and a lack of intimacy.
I have told elsewhere of the death of one of my great grandmothers, when I was a very little girl. I do not remember her funeral at all… but I remember the solemn gathering around the great bed and the goodbyes. There was no fear. Death was acknowledged and life marked with respect. Grieving began gently and had time to unfold, instead of being, as is all too often the case these days, rushed through a rapid time slot of a funeral and leaving those left behind with a sense of disbelief as well as loss.
These natural transitions become shrouded in mystery and often fear, when they are kept behind closed doors in a sterile environment. Yet in the intimacy of these first and last moments touch is so important, welcoming and saying goodbye. It is a healing in its own right.
I think we shy away from touch a lot generally. Particularly in England with its stiff upper lip. Outside of a close relationship we do not like to invade another’s personal space uninvited… and we seldom have the courage to invite when we feel a need to be held. I can only speak for myself here, of course… because it is so seldom spoken of. But there are times when all I want is a shoulder on which to lay my head or the touch of a hand, the warmth of another human being who is aware, and who cares enough to reach out to a friend.
We speak about staying in touch. About how we feel. So many of the words we use to describe our emotions are the same ones we use about the sense of touch. I do not think that is a coincidence. It is the simplest, most basic human need in many ways, from the very moment we enter this world to that final closing of the eyes and the kiss in loving blessing as we enter a new phase of existence. I have to wonder how often we miss the unspoken signs and fail to offer the simple magic and tenderness of touch.
Of course, he is a little more squeamish than I. His face screws up in horror as my wrist bones crunch back into place as he applies traction. It is, however, nice to regain freedom of movement occasionally. So, being what you might call a true sadist, I make him do it from time to time. I, on the other hand, had no compunction when it came to stretching his hamstrings using my entire bodyweight, such as it is.
There is a lot to be said for the healing touch of hands. In the hospice I worked with, the staff was trained in Reiki and a room set aside for alternative therapies. The Matron, a wonderful woman, was kind enough to offer me some therapy when I was going through a particularly rough patch some years ago.
Not only was it both unusual and lovely for someone to take time and care for me at that point, it was a beautiful experience in its own right. Oddly, though I had learned Reiki myself, it was the first time I had really been on the receiving end. The room was quiet, the garden visible through the window, the light soft. I Whether it was what she was doing, the ambience of a place where so much care was given, or simply the possibility of release in the intimacy of such a moment of care, but I remember sitting there with tears streaming down my cheeks.
I had learned the value of touch while caring for my late partner through severe arthritis and cancer. There was a period where we were warned that massage was not a good idea for cancer patients as it might encourage it to spread through the stimulation of the lymphatic system…but there came a point I was told it was okay. Which brought its own grief in the knowing.
Our physical relationship had suffered very badly. It is a common thing in chronic illness, but seldom spoken of, so I will speak of it here. It was one of the greatest griefs of his illness that loving each other as we did he was so weary and in so much pain most of the time. Afraid of raising emotions and a desire he could not meet for either of us, he withdrew from me physically for a very long time. We no longer even cuddled or held hands, there was no contact other than at a therapeutic level… or when I reached out my hand every morning before opening my eyes to see if he was still with me, still warm, still breathing.
Then one day, on his way to the kitchen, he squeezed my shoulder in passing. So precious was that simple touch that I burst into tears. That opened the floodgates for us both and the intimacy of touch and tenderness was restored. For the little while we had left together.
Touch was the last thing we had too. I was yards away from him when he died at home. I closed his eyes and washed his face, composed into lines of peace. I spoke to him as I made him ready for the medics that had to come. When he finally lay in our bed I kept vigil with him for a little while, a last while, performing those final services of care as the warmth of life left his body. Then I kissed him goodbye.
The value of those final moments to lay him to rest cannot be described. My younger son, then 12, had crept in to sit with him, speaking to him softly and stroking his face. Saying goodbye and seeing the life that had left with no fear of death, only love.
I remember even further back, assisting at the birth of my little brother. I was ten years old and my mother had chosen to give birth at home. No doubt many today may frown on the idea of a child watching her own mother in labour. To me it was simply the most beautiful thing to hold that scrap of humanity, still wet, as he took his first breath while I watched in wonder and the tiny hand grasped my finger. That touch too was full of love. Touch, after all, is the simplest and most beautiful communication.
I was chatting with a friend about some of this last night. More specifically we were talking about how sanitised dying has become in our cultures and the way we have become divorced from the natural process of passing out of life. And into it for that matter. We are encouraged to be born and to die in hospitals, rather than at home, and no matter how wonderful the staff there is a constraint and a lack of intimacy.
I have told elsewhere of the death of one of my great grandmothers, when I was a very little girl. I do not remember her funeral at all… but I remember the solemn gathering around the great bed and the goodbyes. There was no fear. Death was acknowledged and life marked with respect. Grieving began gently and had time to unfold, instead of being, as is all too often the case these days, rushed through a rapid time slot of a funeral and leaving those left behind with a sense of disbelief as well as loss.
These natural transitions become shrouded in mystery and often fear, when they are kept behind closed doors in a sterile environment. Yet in the intimacy of these first and last moments touch is so important, welcoming and saying goodbye. It is a healing in its own right.
I think we shy away from touch a lot generally. Particularly in England with its stiff upper lip. Outside of a close relationship we do not like to invade another’s personal space uninvited… and we seldom have the courage to invite when we feel a need to be held. I can only speak for myself here, of course… because it is so seldom spoken of. But there are times when all I want is a shoulder on which to lay my head or the touch of a hand, the warmth of another human being who is aware, and who cares enough to reach out to a friend.
We speak about staying in touch. About how we feel. So many of the words we use to describe our emotions are the same ones we use about the sense of touch. I do not think that is a coincidence. It is the simplest, most basic human need in many ways, from the very moment we enter this world to that final closing of the eyes and the kiss in loving blessing as we enter a new phase of existence. I have to wonder how often we miss the unspoken signs and fail to offer the simple magic and tenderness of touch.
March 14, 2013
Without words
Good morning. It is sunny today, with the sky a clear cerulean blue. My grandmother always said it was going to be a fine day if there was enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pair of trousers. Today I could probably kit out the entire navy. If the makers of paint could capture this colour in all its transparency, they’d make a fortune. Not that they don’t already, given the price of artists colours.
There is a heavy frost this morning though and the cold has me by the throat, both literally and metaphorically. The dog has the door standing wide open, the heating has gone on strike again and my son’s prayers have been answered. I will not be singing today. My throat is as swollen as if I’d talked all through the night. I vaguely remember that scenario.
I am lucky at present. I see my son every day and the depth of the conversation we share can be astonishing for stone cold sober and mid-morning. We can cover ground from the most ridiculous to the deepest philosophical debate, passing via music and neurology, pizza and sturgeon to the nature of God and the soul. But other than Nick the majority of my days are spent in silence, apart from a very dear friend on the phone from afar and my conversations with the dog.
There are few things I enjoy more than settling down to long, varied and frequently random discussions over a bottle of good wine with a friend. Living in France was a perfect introduction to that, because there is always cheese. If there is cheese left, it is almost obligatory to open a second bottle to accompany it, and if there is bread left, one needs more cheese... it would be wasteful not to… and so it goes on, sometimes all night. Conversations can go very deep at these times.
We don’t talk enough. Or not about things that really matter. We chatter about the simple things, mundane problems, the latest news but we seldom seem to have time to sit and simply listen to each other these days. Or even to listen to the world around us. One of the downsides of electronic conversation is that it is often so short and factual. We cover the necessities and rarely allow heart to speak to heart, sharing the inner depths of who we are and what matters, really matters, to us as a person.
Listening, I think, is one of the greatest gifts we can give. To listen, with ears and heart and mind while someone shares themself with you is a beautiful thing. And you can hear as much in the silence between the words as you can in the words themselves.
Mind you, I have no objections to silence either. It is, after raising a family, a luxury. I have always loved silence and it was a rarity in a household full of growing children. It is an animated silence, my mind seldom quiet, pursuing trains of thought down convoluted alleyways, imagination always online and seeking ways of expression. There is a richness in this type of silent working that can be drowned in the normal noise of everyday life. One can see the value of the contemplative life. Though, as a friend has said on many occasions, I was not cut out to be a nun. I would be constantly doing penance…
There are also, though, moments where the internal dialogue stills into quiet. The dog is usually asleep at these times, the distant road noise hushed and the only sound in the village the song of birds. At those times the surface mind is silent and something deeper still can speak in the heart. There are no words, just a knowing, yet it is communication. There is something within that reaches inwards and upwards, deeper and wider than the conscious chatter of mind, and it is answered by something deeper still that seems to be waiting with arms open wide. It comes out to meet us like a friend and lover that has been waiting for our presence and listens in the silence of those moments only to the murmuring of the soul.
There is a heavy frost this morning though and the cold has me by the throat, both literally and metaphorically. The dog has the door standing wide open, the heating has gone on strike again and my son’s prayers have been answered. I will not be singing today. My throat is as swollen as if I’d talked all through the night. I vaguely remember that scenario.
I am lucky at present. I see my son every day and the depth of the conversation we share can be astonishing for stone cold sober and mid-morning. We can cover ground from the most ridiculous to the deepest philosophical debate, passing via music and neurology, pizza and sturgeon to the nature of God and the soul. But other than Nick the majority of my days are spent in silence, apart from a very dear friend on the phone from afar and my conversations with the dog.
There are few things I enjoy more than settling down to long, varied and frequently random discussions over a bottle of good wine with a friend. Living in France was a perfect introduction to that, because there is always cheese. If there is cheese left, it is almost obligatory to open a second bottle to accompany it, and if there is bread left, one needs more cheese... it would be wasteful not to… and so it goes on, sometimes all night. Conversations can go very deep at these times.
We don’t talk enough. Or not about things that really matter. We chatter about the simple things, mundane problems, the latest news but we seldom seem to have time to sit and simply listen to each other these days. Or even to listen to the world around us. One of the downsides of electronic conversation is that it is often so short and factual. We cover the necessities and rarely allow heart to speak to heart, sharing the inner depths of who we are and what matters, really matters, to us as a person.
Listening, I think, is one of the greatest gifts we can give. To listen, with ears and heart and mind while someone shares themself with you is a beautiful thing. And you can hear as much in the silence between the words as you can in the words themselves.
Mind you, I have no objections to silence either. It is, after raising a family, a luxury. I have always loved silence and it was a rarity in a household full of growing children. It is an animated silence, my mind seldom quiet, pursuing trains of thought down convoluted alleyways, imagination always online and seeking ways of expression. There is a richness in this type of silent working that can be drowned in the normal noise of everyday life. One can see the value of the contemplative life. Though, as a friend has said on many occasions, I was not cut out to be a nun. I would be constantly doing penance…
There are also, though, moments where the internal dialogue stills into quiet. The dog is usually asleep at these times, the distant road noise hushed and the only sound in the village the song of birds. At those times the surface mind is silent and something deeper still can speak in the heart. There are no words, just a knowing, yet it is communication. There is something within that reaches inwards and upwards, deeper and wider than the conscious chatter of mind, and it is answered by something deeper still that seems to be waiting with arms open wide. It comes out to meet us like a friend and lover that has been waiting for our presence and listens in the silence of those moments only to the murmuring of the soul.
March 12, 2013
Urban oasis
Although I have lived in many places over the years, it is in and around Leeds that I spent most of my childhood. I was born, in fact, In Hyde Terrace Maternity Home and most of the immediate family lived in either Bramley or Rodley, adjacent suburbs of the heavily industrialised city. Mill chimneys punctuated the skyline long before the first skyscraper went up and a pall of smoke often hung in the air, cleaving to the honey coloured stone and painting it black.
Even then, Leeds was a vibrant place with its wonderful Victorian market, theatres and the bright young minds at the university. There was a real buzz about the place as the music and fashions of the swinging sixties hit the streets and it was a fabulous time to be growing up.
Yet I have always loved the open places, the high moors that I wandered with my grandfather, as I have told elsewhere, before I could walk them alone. Living in such a busy, bustling place I often felt the need for peace, even as a child. The world was, it seems, a safer place for children then in some ways and no one thought twice about letting a young girl wander off to the woods alone.
For we were lucky, the Fall Wood was only a mile or so from home. A growing jewel nestled amid the ‘dark satanic mills’. In spring it was a wonderland of bluebells, the perfume magical and the colour stretching off into the distance. In summer it was carpeted with ‘fairy grass’, feathery seed heads like a mist, inviting you to lay down and watch the sunlight through the canopy. I learned of oak apples and mushrooms, the names of trees and plants, walking with my grandfather and the dogs. I learned of boggarts and barguests, gnomes and sylphs and the long, slow life of earth.
I learned too the family history and the legends of a place that was often my goal on these solitary walks. At the bottom of the wood was the canal. Cross the bridge and down a little further and there was a works bridge to Kirkstall Forge that crossed the river Aire bringing you to the Abbey.
Only a couple of miles from the city centre, this beautiful Cistercian Abbey remains in ruined beauty, an unlikely oasis in an industrial landscape. If you have read Lord Lytton’s “A Strange Story” you may recognise it. I have no idea if he set the book there, but the landscape fits perfectly, with the Abbots house now a museum and the graceful ruins beside the river.
A year or two ago I was lucky enough to be in Leeds one spring dawn and having a little time to spare I went back to the Abbey. It was a glorious morning, flowers were in bloom and the place was almost deserted. Of course the Abbey itself is locked ... it never used to be, but vandalism and conservation dictate otherwise these days. So the camera had to be poked through bars in many places to collect the memories.
Untold memories flooded back. The legend of the monk who loved the innkeeper’s daughter, the tunnel under the Aire to the Bridge Inn and the ‘proof’ that the tale was true in the beautiful lover’s knot carved on one of the pillars on the left of the nave. Or the legend of the treasure tells how a workman had been threshing all morning and thought to straighten his back. Walking round the Abbey he saw a great hole. Thinking it might be the legendary treasure.. and he being a Yorkshireman and nothing loathe where ‘brass’ was concerned, crept into the hole and down a tunnel, emerging into a great ‘houseplace’. A fire blazed in the hearth and in the corner a ‘gurt, black ‘oss’ was tethered. Behind the horse was a black, oaken chest, and on ‘top o't kist a gurt black cock’. The cockerel crowed. “Tha’s bahn t’be brass in’t’kist’ the labourer said to himself, and went towards the black horse. The creature reared and neighed, louder and louder, the cockerel crowed and flapped its wings, so hard it knocked the labourer senseless. He awoke in the Abbey grounds and search though he might, he never found the ‘gurt black hoile’ again.
It may be that he had been led astray by the ghosts of the monks, seen by many a night shift worker in the old Abbey Forge, even up to the present day. I know, for many of my family worked there. It was not spoken of and when asked the menfolk would clam up and refuse to speak. Legends of ghosts abound at the Abbey, even of one who was buried alive in the walls of the Chapter House….Oh it was grand growing up in a family so rich in folklore and history.
So to find myself back in this little urban oasis of peace and beauty one spring dawn was wonderful and richer in memory than I can express. It is something I miss here, where the countryside is farmed and manicured, where the hills are beautiful but tame and the woodlands managed. There is beauty all around but it lacks the richness of love and memory for me.
Yet that place of peace is something we all need, possibly something we all hold in the secret places of the heart and mind, a place where we can retreat and seek solace and draw strength from our roots, wherever we are. In some ways it is very like the ancient people, honouring the land and the ancestors together. There is a continuity, an awareness of time as a great, protecting father who wraps us in his cloak while the earth holds us to her breast like children.
Or maybe I’m just being fanciful as the old legends come back to haunt my evening.
Even then, Leeds was a vibrant place with its wonderful Victorian market, theatres and the bright young minds at the university. There was a real buzz about the place as the music and fashions of the swinging sixties hit the streets and it was a fabulous time to be growing up.
Yet I have always loved the open places, the high moors that I wandered with my grandfather, as I have told elsewhere, before I could walk them alone. Living in such a busy, bustling place I often felt the need for peace, even as a child. The world was, it seems, a safer place for children then in some ways and no one thought twice about letting a young girl wander off to the woods alone.
For we were lucky, the Fall Wood was only a mile or so from home. A growing jewel nestled amid the ‘dark satanic mills’. In spring it was a wonderland of bluebells, the perfume magical and the colour stretching off into the distance. In summer it was carpeted with ‘fairy grass’, feathery seed heads like a mist, inviting you to lay down and watch the sunlight through the canopy. I learned of oak apples and mushrooms, the names of trees and plants, walking with my grandfather and the dogs. I learned of boggarts and barguests, gnomes and sylphs and the long, slow life of earth.
I learned too the family history and the legends of a place that was often my goal on these solitary walks. At the bottom of the wood was the canal. Cross the bridge and down a little further and there was a works bridge to Kirkstall Forge that crossed the river Aire bringing you to the Abbey.
Only a couple of miles from the city centre, this beautiful Cistercian Abbey remains in ruined beauty, an unlikely oasis in an industrial landscape. If you have read Lord Lytton’s “A Strange Story” you may recognise it. I have no idea if he set the book there, but the landscape fits perfectly, with the Abbots house now a museum and the graceful ruins beside the river.
A year or two ago I was lucky enough to be in Leeds one spring dawn and having a little time to spare I went back to the Abbey. It was a glorious morning, flowers were in bloom and the place was almost deserted. Of course the Abbey itself is locked ... it never used to be, but vandalism and conservation dictate otherwise these days. So the camera had to be poked through bars in many places to collect the memories.
Untold memories flooded back. The legend of the monk who loved the innkeeper’s daughter, the tunnel under the Aire to the Bridge Inn and the ‘proof’ that the tale was true in the beautiful lover’s knot carved on one of the pillars on the left of the nave. Or the legend of the treasure tells how a workman had been threshing all morning and thought to straighten his back. Walking round the Abbey he saw a great hole. Thinking it might be the legendary treasure.. and he being a Yorkshireman and nothing loathe where ‘brass’ was concerned, crept into the hole and down a tunnel, emerging into a great ‘houseplace’. A fire blazed in the hearth and in the corner a ‘gurt, black ‘oss’ was tethered. Behind the horse was a black, oaken chest, and on ‘top o't kist a gurt black cock’. The cockerel crowed. “Tha’s bahn t’be brass in’t’kist’ the labourer said to himself, and went towards the black horse. The creature reared and neighed, louder and louder, the cockerel crowed and flapped its wings, so hard it knocked the labourer senseless. He awoke in the Abbey grounds and search though he might, he never found the ‘gurt black hoile’ again.
It may be that he had been led astray by the ghosts of the monks, seen by many a night shift worker in the old Abbey Forge, even up to the present day. I know, for many of my family worked there. It was not spoken of and when asked the menfolk would clam up and refuse to speak. Legends of ghosts abound at the Abbey, even of one who was buried alive in the walls of the Chapter House….Oh it was grand growing up in a family so rich in folklore and history.
So to find myself back in this little urban oasis of peace and beauty one spring dawn was wonderful and richer in memory than I can express. It is something I miss here, where the countryside is farmed and manicured, where the hills are beautiful but tame and the woodlands managed. There is beauty all around but it lacks the richness of love and memory for me.
Yet that place of peace is something we all need, possibly something we all hold in the secret places of the heart and mind, a place where we can retreat and seek solace and draw strength from our roots, wherever we are. In some ways it is very like the ancient people, honouring the land and the ancestors together. There is a continuity, an awareness of time as a great, protecting father who wraps us in his cloak while the earth holds us to her breast like children.
Or maybe I’m just being fanciful as the old legends come back to haunt my evening.
March 11, 2013
A world at our fingertips
I woke from another night of deep dreams about a friend I have never met. It is odd how people can get under your skin like that and set up home in your heart. The coming of the internet changed many things, not least opening the world for our exploration, allowing us to stumble upon lives that capture ours in friendship and empathy.
I am blessed with a circle of friends with whom I can, and do, talk about absolutely everything from mice to men, from the deepest spiritual questions to the best fertiliser for roses. Many of them I have never met, the others so distant geographically that we seldom meet, and almost all of these friendships owe their depth to the written word. There is a freedom of expression available to the pen or keyboard that many of us cannot embrace in the flesh. With the written word we can say things we might be too embarrassed to voice, too shy to utter. Things that may defy the social conventions with which we have been conditioned and which we could never have said eye to eye. And sometimes, simply transcends the barriers of time and distance that separate us.
This, of course, is a double edged blade in many respects. It would be very easy to become cut off from reality and live in a virtual world, and I know many who have gone that way. It is also all too easy to be hurtful at a distance and taken to extremes the effects of cyber bullying can be devastating to their victims. The pen, even when it is a keyboard, can wield much power over the emotions.
But of course, the written word is not simply a static expression of thought. It can bring beauty or deception, information or inspiration… but it is dead and may as well not exist until it is given life by the reader. Words themselves mean little without the intellectual or emotional response they elicit, that stirring of heart and mind, questioning or dismissive, engaging or rejecting. It is always a two way process and the reader is deeply entwined in the creation of the effect. Without the imagination of the reader, no fantasy world could exist, no idea take root and no inspiration could flower.
It is the same with friendships built over the internet. It takes a genuine emotional response to nurture the growing seeds. Among the hundreds of people we encounter online a few strike a chord and a friendship can grow. I have seen the heartbreak when these are built around a false persona. I even saw a marriage rushed into with all the attendant heartache when reality hit home beyond the romance. But I have also seen deep and lasting friendships built and fleeting encounters given chance to grow that could never have happened without our access to the highways of the internet.
A brief encounter with a woman in unusual circumstances years ago, maintained largely via chat facilities, sparked one of the closest friendships I have ever known and the levels at which minds and hearts touch are extraordinary.
Not all of us travel and stumble across those kindred spirits to whom we warm immediately and who become part of our hearts and lives. Yet occasionally there is a spark immediately recognised and something special occurs. Whether in reality or online. I don’t think it has a lot to do with their words , but has more to do with a response and recognition of the person behind them.
One of my closest friendships was built on such a response. Two people, who could have been anyone, anywhere, began to answer each other’s posts on a forum. The minds got to know each other, the emotions were engaged with delight, the exchange of ideas went deep. It must have been years before we even saw a photo of each other. Yet so close did we become that he flew nearly five thousand miles to meet me. And that too was a joy.
It is almost as if the internet encourages in us the use of a sixth sense. We are dealing with possibly deceptive personas and the onus is on us to distinguish the false from the real, both with regard to those we meet and to ourselves. It is easy to project the personality we wish we had and deceive ourselves here too, and this, I think, is where many of the heartaches arise. If we can simply be who we are, and listen to that inner sense of truth, we encounter wonderful things and people every day.
There is one area though where electronic communications cannot help. The support from friends a thousand miles away geographically can be invaluable and sustaining when life hurts. I know this to be true having been incredibly blessed with it. But a phone call beats an email hands down. A handwritten letter can be cherished and carried next to the heart. A virtual shoulder is not the same as a real one, a cyber-hug lacks the warmth of arms holding you with love, and nothing can beat that eye to eye contact of a shared smile, whether in sympathy, mischief, friendship or love.
The internet is a wonderful thing, erasing isolation, encouraging communication and the dissemination of ideas, bridging the sometimes inevitable distance of separation, and allowing minds and hearts to speak to each other. But it can never be a substitute for the warmth of a human presence and a moment shared with a friend.
I am blessed with a circle of friends with whom I can, and do, talk about absolutely everything from mice to men, from the deepest spiritual questions to the best fertiliser for roses. Many of them I have never met, the others so distant geographically that we seldom meet, and almost all of these friendships owe their depth to the written word. There is a freedom of expression available to the pen or keyboard that many of us cannot embrace in the flesh. With the written word we can say things we might be too embarrassed to voice, too shy to utter. Things that may defy the social conventions with which we have been conditioned and which we could never have said eye to eye. And sometimes, simply transcends the barriers of time and distance that separate us.
This, of course, is a double edged blade in many respects. It would be very easy to become cut off from reality and live in a virtual world, and I know many who have gone that way. It is also all too easy to be hurtful at a distance and taken to extremes the effects of cyber bullying can be devastating to their victims. The pen, even when it is a keyboard, can wield much power over the emotions.
But of course, the written word is not simply a static expression of thought. It can bring beauty or deception, information or inspiration… but it is dead and may as well not exist until it is given life by the reader. Words themselves mean little without the intellectual or emotional response they elicit, that stirring of heart and mind, questioning or dismissive, engaging or rejecting. It is always a two way process and the reader is deeply entwined in the creation of the effect. Without the imagination of the reader, no fantasy world could exist, no idea take root and no inspiration could flower.
It is the same with friendships built over the internet. It takes a genuine emotional response to nurture the growing seeds. Among the hundreds of people we encounter online a few strike a chord and a friendship can grow. I have seen the heartbreak when these are built around a false persona. I even saw a marriage rushed into with all the attendant heartache when reality hit home beyond the romance. But I have also seen deep and lasting friendships built and fleeting encounters given chance to grow that could never have happened without our access to the highways of the internet.
A brief encounter with a woman in unusual circumstances years ago, maintained largely via chat facilities, sparked one of the closest friendships I have ever known and the levels at which minds and hearts touch are extraordinary.
Not all of us travel and stumble across those kindred spirits to whom we warm immediately and who become part of our hearts and lives. Yet occasionally there is a spark immediately recognised and something special occurs. Whether in reality or online. I don’t think it has a lot to do with their words , but has more to do with a response and recognition of the person behind them.
One of my closest friendships was built on such a response. Two people, who could have been anyone, anywhere, began to answer each other’s posts on a forum. The minds got to know each other, the emotions were engaged with delight, the exchange of ideas went deep. It must have been years before we even saw a photo of each other. Yet so close did we become that he flew nearly five thousand miles to meet me. And that too was a joy.
It is almost as if the internet encourages in us the use of a sixth sense. We are dealing with possibly deceptive personas and the onus is on us to distinguish the false from the real, both with regard to those we meet and to ourselves. It is easy to project the personality we wish we had and deceive ourselves here too, and this, I think, is where many of the heartaches arise. If we can simply be who we are, and listen to that inner sense of truth, we encounter wonderful things and people every day.
There is one area though where electronic communications cannot help. The support from friends a thousand miles away geographically can be invaluable and sustaining when life hurts. I know this to be true having been incredibly blessed with it. But a phone call beats an email hands down. A handwritten letter can be cherished and carried next to the heart. A virtual shoulder is not the same as a real one, a cyber-hug lacks the warmth of arms holding you with love, and nothing can beat that eye to eye contact of a shared smile, whether in sympathy, mischief, friendship or love.
The internet is a wonderful thing, erasing isolation, encouraging communication and the dissemination of ideas, bridging the sometimes inevitable distance of separation, and allowing minds and hearts to speak to each other. But it can never be a substitute for the warmth of a human presence and a moment shared with a friend.
March 10, 2013
Climbing trees
My son, we have established, thinks I am regressing. So when a friend posted a bit of daftness on Facebook last night… a ‘what’s your mental age’ quiz, my initial response was, “about 3 according to Nick.” Then, of course, I clicked and joined the fun.
According to this bit of silliness, I had a mental age of 29. Which undercut most of my friends considerably and I wandered off chuckling at the ensuing exchange of comments to answer the phone. It was my son.
It goes without saying that I had to tell him he was perfectly right. I was regressing. I awaited the inevitable riposte. He is, he says with deathly seriousness ( and an odd, laughing quiver in his voice) quite worried about this situation. As he gets older, and I get younger. After all, he said, I have been his role model for years and years and he has (only metaphorically he stressed) looked up to me. The mental and emotional upheaval of having to look down on me in ways other than the physical could be severe and traumatic. Though, he said, there are already moments when he is aghast at odd things I say or do…
Personally, to borrow a much abused word from his generation, I think that’s awesome.
I have no problem with growing older. Life can write its story on my face and body, mapping experience and adventure as it will. I would not choose to return to the angst of the teenager, the insecurity and fragility of the younger me. I rather like the assurance and serenity that has come with ageing, as I have learned to be comfortable in my own skin. Even the bits that are not quite where they used to be.
I could, I admit, live without the aches and pains, but then, they make me appreciate the good days more, and also make me slow the pace of life to a speed where I can take time to savour it. Sometimes. Well, occasionally.
If you had asked me thirty years or so ago I would have probably imagined myself by now very much like Auntie Gwen… a ramrod backed, well upholstered Yorkshirewoman, wielding severity like a sergeant-major, probably with a rolling pin.
Yet instead I have, it seems, developed a penchant for mischief. Not that I lacked it before… just that I would have simply wanted to do things and lacked the courage or feared disapprobation. Now, I don’t give a bugger. Winter waterfalls, laughter and snow… rollerblades the other day… and tonight we climbed trees, the dog and I. Well, I did and she watched with her head on one side and a long-suffering expression. I’ve wanted to climb a tree all week for some obscure reason.
I have mentioned before the process of life being stripped back over the past year. With the corresponding growth of the work with the School. I don’t think that is a coincidence somehow. Nor do I think it coincidence that as we work with the levels of Being, I am growing into mine. There is something in what we do that feeds the soul in a curious manner and opens all many doors within. Life has taken on the vivid hues of our robes.
There is a time for silence and a place for dignity. In ritual and meditation, other doors open, though the inner bubble of joy seldom subsides. But in the outer world I shall simply go with the flow and grow old disgracefully.
According to this bit of silliness, I had a mental age of 29. Which undercut most of my friends considerably and I wandered off chuckling at the ensuing exchange of comments to answer the phone. It was my son.
It goes without saying that I had to tell him he was perfectly right. I was regressing. I awaited the inevitable riposte. He is, he says with deathly seriousness ( and an odd, laughing quiver in his voice) quite worried about this situation. As he gets older, and I get younger. After all, he said, I have been his role model for years and years and he has (only metaphorically he stressed) looked up to me. The mental and emotional upheaval of having to look down on me in ways other than the physical could be severe and traumatic. Though, he said, there are already moments when he is aghast at odd things I say or do…
Personally, to borrow a much abused word from his generation, I think that’s awesome.
I have no problem with growing older. Life can write its story on my face and body, mapping experience and adventure as it will. I would not choose to return to the angst of the teenager, the insecurity and fragility of the younger me. I rather like the assurance and serenity that has come with ageing, as I have learned to be comfortable in my own skin. Even the bits that are not quite where they used to be.
I could, I admit, live without the aches and pains, but then, they make me appreciate the good days more, and also make me slow the pace of life to a speed where I can take time to savour it. Sometimes. Well, occasionally.
If you had asked me thirty years or so ago I would have probably imagined myself by now very much like Auntie Gwen… a ramrod backed, well upholstered Yorkshirewoman, wielding severity like a sergeant-major, probably with a rolling pin.
Yet instead I have, it seems, developed a penchant for mischief. Not that I lacked it before… just that I would have simply wanted to do things and lacked the courage or feared disapprobation. Now, I don’t give a bugger. Winter waterfalls, laughter and snow… rollerblades the other day… and tonight we climbed trees, the dog and I. Well, I did and she watched with her head on one side and a long-suffering expression. I’ve wanted to climb a tree all week for some obscure reason.
I have mentioned before the process of life being stripped back over the past year. With the corresponding growth of the work with the School. I don’t think that is a coincidence somehow. Nor do I think it coincidence that as we work with the levels of Being, I am growing into mine. There is something in what we do that feeds the soul in a curious manner and opens all many doors within. Life has taken on the vivid hues of our robes.
There is a time for silence and a place for dignity. In ritual and meditation, other doors open, though the inner bubble of joy seldom subsides. But in the outer world I shall simply go with the flow and grow old disgracefully.
March 9, 2013
Mirror, mirror
Have you ever taken one of the innumerable personality tests that are out there these days? I’ve taken a fair number of them recently as part of some research for the School. Results vary so much from provider to provider and day to day. I come out differently almost every time. The person who knows me better than I know myself places me in one area, a dear friend who is well versed in these things places me in another. I would have categorised myself differently again, but their observations have forced me to have a good look and re-examine a few things. ‘Know thyself’ takes on a whole new layer of meaning when you actually start looking.
Over the years, like many of us, I have been obliged to submit to the psychometric testing now required for many jobs. The results can be illuminating in ways perhaps not immediately obvious.
I remember going to the first one for a job at a time when my self-confidence was minimal and my self-belief even less. I never did have much of either, having been raised in the shadow of one more intelligent, more beautiful, talented, funny, fascinating etc. Don’t misunderstand, I agreed with that… she was all that and more in my eyes too. Everyone said how alike we were, but of course, she had the edge…and it was a family who took such pride in her, paying me almost the ultimate compliment of comparing me to her that inadvertently began to undermine my confidence as I grew.
An unusual adolescence followed by a disastrous marriage and a drunk driver rearranging my face didn’t help much. So the young woman who began to grow into life always felt second rate. Almost, but never quite, good enough for anything or anyone. No matter how conscientious I was, how hard I worked, or how much I tried, I never expected to amount to much. I saw myself as second best. A shy, retiring mouse of a woman who felt she deserved little better. And because I saw myself that way, others did too.
Years passed, the blinkers wobbled a bit and I saw the mistakes that had been made raising me as I learned to instil confidence into my own sons. I didn’t care what they did with their lives as long as they were happy, healthy, whole human beings. I wanted them to believe in themselves and know that I did too.
Raising them while dealing with my partner’s cancer I gained a lot more confidence. It was odd really, as I had always known that every one of us is valuable, unique and necessary to the world. Always believed that we carry within us a spark of the Divine Life… and what can be greater than that? Yet somehow that knowledge didn’t filter through into my life.
When my partner was dying we discussed what I would do when he had gone, knowing I would have to earn a decent living to keep the boys. I had dropped out of maths at school, and that was one qualification I lacked and would need. Others I had. I signed up for night school, in the hope of getting something that said I wasn’t an idiot where maths was concerned. I had, you see, accepted everyone’s assessment that I was no good at that either.
In three months I completed a two year course and came out with a Distinction. No one was more surprised than I and my self-assessment began to change. Maybe I wasn’t as worthless as I thought. It made me wonder what else I could do if I tried. I learned to drive too. Looking back on my I began to see that the mouse had not lacked courage to roar and had faced some pretty awful stuff and dealt with it. I had taken risks and leaps of faith, lived a Bohemian life for a while, done many things a little house-mouse would not normally do… yet I still had no faith in myself? So maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t who I had thought I was. Maybe I could do stuff.
So I arrived, terrified, for a day of psychometric testing in London for a high profile job I felt completely unqualified for. There was a room full of very professional looking people exuding confidence. And me. Feeling like a fish out of water and thinking I shouldn’t have come.
This was a full eight hour day of intensive testing across the spectrum . Half were dismissed mid-morning, more at lunchtime. Only a few of us remained. I was called in for the results… I didn’t get the job… but I got something better in my eyes. I had tied top but the other person had relevant experience. I had tested at doctoral level, I who had left school at 16. They went through the tests one by one and my journey home was taken in shock.
I do not think any test can tell you all about a person, but this one certainly opened my eyes. I was obliged to re-examine who I thought I was and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Much of it was habit, a kind of laziness of the soul that had stuck in the comfortable rut of familiar mediocrity because it was known and safe.
It made me think about other areas of self-belief and confidence and question my courage and character in a whole new way. It made me question the self-image we hold, how much of it we simply accept as we are fed it by others, who may see us better than we do ourselves, but who sometimes see only what suits them or what they themselves need to see. How much of it is the fear of being ourselves and being rejected, standing out from the crowd and losing the safe anonymity of our accustomed normality.
We are all such odd mixes of good and less good, strength and weakness. We are not pale copies of anyone else, we are who we are. We do not need to be a mirror reflecting the world back at itself because that is what the world expects to see. We can be our own mirror. We are unique, all of us. Instead of asking ‘who me?’ when an opportunity arises, maybe we should just be saying, ‘why not’.
Over the years, like many of us, I have been obliged to submit to the psychometric testing now required for many jobs. The results can be illuminating in ways perhaps not immediately obvious.
I remember going to the first one for a job at a time when my self-confidence was minimal and my self-belief even less. I never did have much of either, having been raised in the shadow of one more intelligent, more beautiful, talented, funny, fascinating etc. Don’t misunderstand, I agreed with that… she was all that and more in my eyes too. Everyone said how alike we were, but of course, she had the edge…and it was a family who took such pride in her, paying me almost the ultimate compliment of comparing me to her that inadvertently began to undermine my confidence as I grew.
An unusual adolescence followed by a disastrous marriage and a drunk driver rearranging my face didn’t help much. So the young woman who began to grow into life always felt second rate. Almost, but never quite, good enough for anything or anyone. No matter how conscientious I was, how hard I worked, or how much I tried, I never expected to amount to much. I saw myself as second best. A shy, retiring mouse of a woman who felt she deserved little better. And because I saw myself that way, others did too.
Years passed, the blinkers wobbled a bit and I saw the mistakes that had been made raising me as I learned to instil confidence into my own sons. I didn’t care what they did with their lives as long as they were happy, healthy, whole human beings. I wanted them to believe in themselves and know that I did too.
Raising them while dealing with my partner’s cancer I gained a lot more confidence. It was odd really, as I had always known that every one of us is valuable, unique and necessary to the world. Always believed that we carry within us a spark of the Divine Life… and what can be greater than that? Yet somehow that knowledge didn’t filter through into my life.
When my partner was dying we discussed what I would do when he had gone, knowing I would have to earn a decent living to keep the boys. I had dropped out of maths at school, and that was one qualification I lacked and would need. Others I had. I signed up for night school, in the hope of getting something that said I wasn’t an idiot where maths was concerned. I had, you see, accepted everyone’s assessment that I was no good at that either.
In three months I completed a two year course and came out with a Distinction. No one was more surprised than I and my self-assessment began to change. Maybe I wasn’t as worthless as I thought. It made me wonder what else I could do if I tried. I learned to drive too. Looking back on my I began to see that the mouse had not lacked courage to roar and had faced some pretty awful stuff and dealt with it. I had taken risks and leaps of faith, lived a Bohemian life for a while, done many things a little house-mouse would not normally do… yet I still had no faith in myself? So maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t who I had thought I was. Maybe I could do stuff.
So I arrived, terrified, for a day of psychometric testing in London for a high profile job I felt completely unqualified for. There was a room full of very professional looking people exuding confidence. And me. Feeling like a fish out of water and thinking I shouldn’t have come.
This was a full eight hour day of intensive testing across the spectrum . Half were dismissed mid-morning, more at lunchtime. Only a few of us remained. I was called in for the results… I didn’t get the job… but I got something better in my eyes. I had tied top but the other person had relevant experience. I had tested at doctoral level, I who had left school at 16. They went through the tests one by one and my journey home was taken in shock.
I do not think any test can tell you all about a person, but this one certainly opened my eyes. I was obliged to re-examine who I thought I was and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Much of it was habit, a kind of laziness of the soul that had stuck in the comfortable rut of familiar mediocrity because it was known and safe.
It made me think about other areas of self-belief and confidence and question my courage and character in a whole new way. It made me question the self-image we hold, how much of it we simply accept as we are fed it by others, who may see us better than we do ourselves, but who sometimes see only what suits them or what they themselves need to see. How much of it is the fear of being ourselves and being rejected, standing out from the crowd and losing the safe anonymity of our accustomed normality.
We are all such odd mixes of good and less good, strength and weakness. We are not pale copies of anyone else, we are who we are. We do not need to be a mirror reflecting the world back at itself because that is what the world expects to see. We can be our own mirror. We are unique, all of us. Instead of asking ‘who me?’ when an opportunity arises, maybe we should just be saying, ‘why not’.
March 7, 2013
Love and the hobbit
The bruised and abused hip that took the worst of a fall last week is telling me, quite pointedly, to turn the other cheek… or at least shift the weight there if I’m going to sit here much longer. Not that the other one is any better… that one has problems all of its own. The hands are playing up again… catching much of the fall on one wrist wasn’t the best of ideas either. There is an expression in English idiom, rather coarse and snow related, that describes the state of my eyes this morning, and let us not even mention the shoulder muscles knotted tighter than one of Garth Knight’s rope sculptures.And really, a small dog, who is small in relative terms only (relative, say, to a golden retriever or small horse) who stands on my knee and plonks her backside on my shoulder as I try to type, is no substitute for a massage.
Still, I have a day off today.
I will not be sitting at my desk or easel, I am going out.
Stop it now. I can hear the sharp intake of shocked breathing even from here. In self-defence it is not dereliction of duty in favour of mere pleasure. There will be much humping of wheelchairs in and out of the car, not an easy task for a little ageing lady. Neither the MR2 nor I was built to carry a wheelchair. But given the choice of manhandling (or woman-handling, as the case may be) and wriggling the dismantled chair in behind the seats or changing the car for something more practical, the car came first.
I love my little old car. She is tiny, mischievous, a little worn and wrinkled round the edges, perhaps and has obviously seen better days in terms of performance and speed. She does tend to dance unexpectedly in the rain, is not the most practical of things at first glance, but she is a surprisingly good workhorse. She needs a little TLC, and would benefit from a thorough overhaul at her age, but keeps going regardless. She came to me because of love and she is kept on the road, held together with love and is coaxed to life daily with gentle words and yet more love. We have a lot more in common than just size, she and I. The mechanic at the garage laughed at me indulgently when I picked her up, the other day, catching me saying hello out loud and telling her how I’d missed her.
I can’t help it. She’s beautiful.
She symbolises all the things I cherish, from love to freedom. In her silver shell I can sing with the best, think and dream and she has seen every emotion from laughter and excitement to grief and pain. Her leather has caught my tears and her stereo played back the laughter and songs my heart cannot write. She has carried gardens and paintings, dreams and longing. She carries me like the wind across the landscape, following the call of my soul.
And she was my son’s unnecessary thank you gift. How can I not love her?
But today she will have to behave. She is a taxi. We have places to go with my son, at both ends of the day and a lot of work to do in between. Shopping and cooking for the ‘lads night’ at his home, paperwork and housekeeping and lots of talking and laughing, as usual.
He gave me another gift yesterday, he and his clever, talented Faith. Don’t tell either of them, but I sat here and cried over it when I got home. It is Mother’s Day here on Sunday, and Nick couldn’t wait to show me what Faith had done… she has captured him beautifully, apart from the elvish details she added, continuing the Hobbit saga you may have noticed around here. The relative height is accurate.
Yes, I’m really that small
Nick said he had to sit still while she drew. I was taken from an old photo when my hair was longer. But although Faith did the artwork, the message inside was handwritten by my son. With his right hand. The one that was paralysed. And it is beautiful.
My younger son is cooking for me on Sunday. Nothing grand, just a meal home-cooked and shared with love. It is the simplest things that touch me the deepest every time and I think it is the same for most of us. I was given an incredible gift recently, but it was the why that brought me to tears. The why matters far more than the what. The love and care behind a gift, the time taken out of a busy day to think and be there. A vista from a hilltop, a memory, a life opened and shared from the heart…a jar of coffee in the post, or a hand drawn card. To me these are more precious than gold. Because, no matter what name we give it, the one thing behind them all is love.
Still, I have a day off today.
I will not be sitting at my desk or easel, I am going out.
Stop it now. I can hear the sharp intake of shocked breathing even from here. In self-defence it is not dereliction of duty in favour of mere pleasure. There will be much humping of wheelchairs in and out of the car, not an easy task for a little ageing lady. Neither the MR2 nor I was built to carry a wheelchair. But given the choice of manhandling (or woman-handling, as the case may be) and wriggling the dismantled chair in behind the seats or changing the car for something more practical, the car came first.
I love my little old car. She is tiny, mischievous, a little worn and wrinkled round the edges, perhaps and has obviously seen better days in terms of performance and speed. She does tend to dance unexpectedly in the rain, is not the most practical of things at first glance, but she is a surprisingly good workhorse. She needs a little TLC, and would benefit from a thorough overhaul at her age, but keeps going regardless. She came to me because of love and she is kept on the road, held together with love and is coaxed to life daily with gentle words and yet more love. We have a lot more in common than just size, she and I. The mechanic at the garage laughed at me indulgently when I picked her up, the other day, catching me saying hello out loud and telling her how I’d missed her.
I can’t help it. She’s beautiful.
She symbolises all the things I cherish, from love to freedom. In her silver shell I can sing with the best, think and dream and she has seen every emotion from laughter and excitement to grief and pain. Her leather has caught my tears and her stereo played back the laughter and songs my heart cannot write. She has carried gardens and paintings, dreams and longing. She carries me like the wind across the landscape, following the call of my soul.
And she was my son’s unnecessary thank you gift. How can I not love her?
But today she will have to behave. She is a taxi. We have places to go with my son, at both ends of the day and a lot of work to do in between. Shopping and cooking for the ‘lads night’ at his home, paperwork and housekeeping and lots of talking and laughing, as usual.
He gave me another gift yesterday, he and his clever, talented Faith. Don’t tell either of them, but I sat here and cried over it when I got home. It is Mother’s Day here on Sunday, and Nick couldn’t wait to show me what Faith had done… she has captured him beautifully, apart from the elvish details she added, continuing the Hobbit saga you may have noticed around here. The relative height is accurate.
Yes, I’m really that small
Nick said he had to sit still while she drew. I was taken from an old photo when my hair was longer. But although Faith did the artwork, the message inside was handwritten by my son. With his right hand. The one that was paralysed. And it is beautiful.
My younger son is cooking for me on Sunday. Nothing grand, just a meal home-cooked and shared with love. It is the simplest things that touch me the deepest every time and I think it is the same for most of us. I was given an incredible gift recently, but it was the why that brought me to tears. The why matters far more than the what. The love and care behind a gift, the time taken out of a busy day to think and be there. A vista from a hilltop, a memory, a life opened and shared from the heart…a jar of coffee in the post, or a hand drawn card. To me these are more precious than gold. Because, no matter what name we give it, the one thing behind them all is love.
March 5, 2013
Blood Wedding
A very long time ago, while I was living in France, my boss and her sister in law, knowing I loved dance, took me to the cinema to see Bodas de Sangre… Blood Wedding. I have to admit I was curious… back then the only Flamenco I had ever seen was the ‘traditional’ Spanish dance, and not so much of that. I left the cinema in awe. It had me on the edge of my seat. At first I had thought that final scene was slowed down… then incredulously, realised it was not. It was danced that way. In slow motion. The sheer strength and control just unbelievable.
Then, a few months later, 7th March 1982 to be exact, the same company, led by Antonio Gades, came to dance it live at the Theatre de Paris. I booked two tickets and dragged my friend Louisa along with me. That was the night I learned about passion.
My diary reads, “ …the dancers seem to draw from you every forbidden emotion, every hidden passion that has been long buried and unadmitted in the depths of the secret heart and fling it back at you, magnified, intense, raw.. until you recognise yourself, the self that has been kept locked away from civilised society.
“Brutal in its honesty, intensely passionate, unbearably beautiful, wild and savage. I have never seen anything to compare with this ballet, and with all the wonderful emotions I have felt in theatres all my life, I have never experienced anything comparable to the tension, the breathless, painful hush, created by the final scene.
“The bridegroom and lover kill each other in a knife fight. But they dance in slow motion. Not just dance slowed down. It is a wicked, deadly savagery presented in horrific detail, excruciating both to dance and to behold, wringing every ounce of emotion from the audience.
“Never have I seen a house go so wild with enthusiasm. A minute of utter silence, then the theatre exploded with applause for more than ten minutes and countless curtain calls. There are not sufficient superlatives in this or any language to describe what I saw, felt and heard in that theatre.
“After five minutes of applauding and cheering with the rest I realised that the relief from such intensity of emotion had left me breathless and panting, tears pouring unashamedly down my cheeks. The sensations are indescribable.”
The second half of the programme allowed us to calm down a little, being classical flamenco. Even so, when we left the theatre, we felt in need of an oasis of peace, so we went to a café next door and ordered drinks. A few minutes later, to my unutterable delight, Gades himself, with Christina Hoyos, Juan Antonio and the rest of the cast walked in.
In spite of the physical exhaustion, there was an air about them, a pride and a fire in the way they held themselves. Yet they were happy to talk… between French, Spanish and English, we managed. It became evident that there was the usual dancer’s dedication … not a thing to be underestimated, dance demands so much. But something else too… It occurred to me even then, at the tender age of 23, that these people understood passion, and the only way to do that is to live it.
You cannot portray with conviction something you do not know intimately, with gut, heart and mind. These people were alive in a way I had seldom encountered. They were, though outwardly quiet and ‘normal’ to the casual glance, surrounded by an aura of vividness, a flame and an energy. It was as if the café burst into invisible life.
This was the first time I had met this level of flame up close and personal, so to speak. It was always dance that revealed passion to me. Classical ballet opened the doors for me as a small child and laid tinder in the hearth. Gades and his company set the fire ablaze.
Whether they fed the dance, or the dance fed them I could not have said. But that there was a relationship between the two is evident. From three decades onward I would say it was both.
There is a reaching deep within that is met and answered when you give yourself to it with commitment and passion. Talking with a friend the other day we were speaking of existence, of the way we walk through life from start to finish with a certain inevitability, and maybe dancing a little along the way. We spoke of Creation as a Dance, that dances with us, whether we choose to dance with It or not.. It simply Is.
A troupe of flamenco dancers held an entire theatre captive on the edge of their seats, in spellbound silence, night after night, with their passion. Can you imagine if we brought that passion to the great dance of life what we could achieve?
Then, a few months later, 7th March 1982 to be exact, the same company, led by Antonio Gades, came to dance it live at the Theatre de Paris. I booked two tickets and dragged my friend Louisa along with me. That was the night I learned about passion.
My diary reads, “ …the dancers seem to draw from you every forbidden emotion, every hidden passion that has been long buried and unadmitted in the depths of the secret heart and fling it back at you, magnified, intense, raw.. until you recognise yourself, the self that has been kept locked away from civilised society.
“Brutal in its honesty, intensely passionate, unbearably beautiful, wild and savage. I have never seen anything to compare with this ballet, and with all the wonderful emotions I have felt in theatres all my life, I have never experienced anything comparable to the tension, the breathless, painful hush, created by the final scene.
“The bridegroom and lover kill each other in a knife fight. But they dance in slow motion. Not just dance slowed down. It is a wicked, deadly savagery presented in horrific detail, excruciating both to dance and to behold, wringing every ounce of emotion from the audience.
“Never have I seen a house go so wild with enthusiasm. A minute of utter silence, then the theatre exploded with applause for more than ten minutes and countless curtain calls. There are not sufficient superlatives in this or any language to describe what I saw, felt and heard in that theatre.
“After five minutes of applauding and cheering with the rest I realised that the relief from such intensity of emotion had left me breathless and panting, tears pouring unashamedly down my cheeks. The sensations are indescribable.”
The second half of the programme allowed us to calm down a little, being classical flamenco. Even so, when we left the theatre, we felt in need of an oasis of peace, so we went to a café next door and ordered drinks. A few minutes later, to my unutterable delight, Gades himself, with Christina Hoyos, Juan Antonio and the rest of the cast walked in.
In spite of the physical exhaustion, there was an air about them, a pride and a fire in the way they held themselves. Yet they were happy to talk… between French, Spanish and English, we managed. It became evident that there was the usual dancer’s dedication … not a thing to be underestimated, dance demands so much. But something else too… It occurred to me even then, at the tender age of 23, that these people understood passion, and the only way to do that is to live it.
You cannot portray with conviction something you do not know intimately, with gut, heart and mind. These people were alive in a way I had seldom encountered. They were, though outwardly quiet and ‘normal’ to the casual glance, surrounded by an aura of vividness, a flame and an energy. It was as if the café burst into invisible life.
This was the first time I had met this level of flame up close and personal, so to speak. It was always dance that revealed passion to me. Classical ballet opened the doors for me as a small child and laid tinder in the hearth. Gades and his company set the fire ablaze.
Whether they fed the dance, or the dance fed them I could not have said. But that there was a relationship between the two is evident. From three decades onward I would say it was both.
There is a reaching deep within that is met and answered when you give yourself to it with commitment and passion. Talking with a friend the other day we were speaking of existence, of the way we walk through life from start to finish with a certain inevitability, and maybe dancing a little along the way. We spoke of Creation as a Dance, that dances with us, whether we choose to dance with It or not.. It simply Is.
A troupe of flamenco dancers held an entire theatre captive on the edge of their seats, in spellbound silence, night after night, with their passion. Can you imagine if we brought that passion to the great dance of life what we could achieve?
March 3, 2013
An unmade bed
I open one eye, check if it is anywhere near daylight and get up anyway in search of coffee. Maid service would be nice, but although she wears the regulation black and white uniform, Ani makes terrible coffee and I would not trust her with a tray. Or the coffee. And she can’t curtsey.
So I’m awake. I really wish I was one of those lovely people who can turn over and go back to sleep, but I’m not. As soon as the morning strokes my eyes with fingers of light, the mind starts heaving sleepy gears into action and before you know it a train of thought is merrily chugging along at full steam.
Of course, the body may not be so happy about it, lazily appreciating that perfectly-made-bed feeling. You know, the one that is warm, cosy and has never, ever felt so good. The one that makes straightening the covers as you leave them a philosophical question on why we bother to make the bed at all. After all, we have just left perfection, why would we seek to change it by removing all trace of its presence. We leave behind only a vague and fleeting memory and an elusive yearning to return and find that enveloping beauty, that place where the conscious mind lets go and flies into a realm of miracles and impossibilities, into dreams where imagination is the only limitation.
But of course, once you have subtracted yourself from the pile of covers, that perfection has been irretrievably altered. It has been changed, lacking your essential warmth and presence. It is no longer complete, though it is itself still whole without you in it, a testament to its own existence and purpose. Yet the essential ingredient is lacking to fulfil that purpose. It requires your presence, your surrender to its embrace, your agreement and submission to its invitation, before it is again truly whole.
One could speculate about why we have to leave it at all, but obviously, there is work to do, people to meet, love and laughter beyond its confines as well as, occasionally, within them. A bed is such an intimate place, on so many levels really. Who has not curled up in misery, tears streaming and heart aching within its comforting embrace? Or played there as a child plays, full of light and simple joy? Or dreamed those private dreams of the heart.
Our beds seem to know us, moulding to our shape over the years, welcoming us after absence. Even when the mattress is getting a little well worn and the springs get uncomfortable, digging into the tender bits. It doesn’t matter whether they are clothed in silks and rich colour, or simple and white, there is something about them that speaks of home.
We have established, of course, that my mind wanders some convoluted pathways occasionally, so it will come as no surprise that I began comparing my relationship with my bed to that between the Divine and the soul. I’m old fashioned, I call It God.
At birth I left Perfection, though It remains. It holds me through the dark times and shares the bright ones with me. I return to It, awake to Its embrace daily, knowing as I go through the journey of life, learning its ways, that It awaits my return, enriched with experience, encounters, love and tears. In Its warmth as my surfaces sink into that melding, I learn to see behind events and find deeper meaning and beauty, as I trust It to hold me and keep me safe, knowing that in the intimacy and comfort there is rest and peace. There is no separation when the heart knows that perfection awaits.
So I’m awake. I really wish I was one of those lovely people who can turn over and go back to sleep, but I’m not. As soon as the morning strokes my eyes with fingers of light, the mind starts heaving sleepy gears into action and before you know it a train of thought is merrily chugging along at full steam.
Of course, the body may not be so happy about it, lazily appreciating that perfectly-made-bed feeling. You know, the one that is warm, cosy and has never, ever felt so good. The one that makes straightening the covers as you leave them a philosophical question on why we bother to make the bed at all. After all, we have just left perfection, why would we seek to change it by removing all trace of its presence. We leave behind only a vague and fleeting memory and an elusive yearning to return and find that enveloping beauty, that place where the conscious mind lets go and flies into a realm of miracles and impossibilities, into dreams where imagination is the only limitation.
But of course, once you have subtracted yourself from the pile of covers, that perfection has been irretrievably altered. It has been changed, lacking your essential warmth and presence. It is no longer complete, though it is itself still whole without you in it, a testament to its own existence and purpose. Yet the essential ingredient is lacking to fulfil that purpose. It requires your presence, your surrender to its embrace, your agreement and submission to its invitation, before it is again truly whole.
One could speculate about why we have to leave it at all, but obviously, there is work to do, people to meet, love and laughter beyond its confines as well as, occasionally, within them. A bed is such an intimate place, on so many levels really. Who has not curled up in misery, tears streaming and heart aching within its comforting embrace? Or played there as a child plays, full of light and simple joy? Or dreamed those private dreams of the heart.
Our beds seem to know us, moulding to our shape over the years, welcoming us after absence. Even when the mattress is getting a little well worn and the springs get uncomfortable, digging into the tender bits. It doesn’t matter whether they are clothed in silks and rich colour, or simple and white, there is something about them that speaks of home.
We have established, of course, that my mind wanders some convoluted pathways occasionally, so it will come as no surprise that I began comparing my relationship with my bed to that between the Divine and the soul. I’m old fashioned, I call It God.
At birth I left Perfection, though It remains. It holds me through the dark times and shares the bright ones with me. I return to It, awake to Its embrace daily, knowing as I go through the journey of life, learning its ways, that It awaits my return, enriched with experience, encounters, love and tears. In Its warmth as my surfaces sink into that melding, I learn to see behind events and find deeper meaning and beauty, as I trust It to hold me and keep me safe, knowing that in the intimacy and comfort there is rest and peace. There is no separation when the heart knows that perfection awaits.
March 2, 2013
Looking through the eyes of love
My younger son just called round, all in his leathers, booted, gloved and helmeted. Dogs, like many people, are not usually very good with that kind of attire, but Ani heard the bike coming through the village and was waiting. She sees straight through the all-encompassing biker gear to her boy underneath. She looks on him with such love and joy. I grabbed a camera. Of course, she wasn’t still long enough to get a decent picture. But you get the idea. It struck me how far from the preconception of a biker my son is, with the warmth he emanates and his gentleness. And suddenly a song was running through my mind and it took me back to once upon a time and long, long ago.
When I was a teenager there was a Boyfriend. He had come into my world in all his glory a few years earlier, a friend of one of my closest friends. He was three or four years older than I, so barely noticed me then. He was drop dead gorgeous, as the saying goes, and rejoiced in the name of Tom Jones. I never found the Welsh singer of that name to my taste. He was of an older generation. But my Tom was almost the spitting image of David Cassidy, though rather more masculine and stronger featured. He even had the hair. It mattered not that I was, at that point, far more likely to be listening to Led Zeppelin, Bowie or Black Sabbath. Back then, Cassidy was cute.
Now, ladies of my particular vintage, admit it… many of us who were teenagers back in the 70’s thought so too. Forget the Partridge Family .. I never watched it. Not my style at all and nor was the music. But you couldn’t miss the guy. He was all over everything at that time.
Which was quite handy, really.
My mother, never having met Tom, took a dislike to him. So I plastered my bedroom walls with Cassidy’s face and dreamed of Tom. He was, without a doubt, the first time the emotions went deep enough to say I really fell in love. With hindsight, of course, things look a little different, and greater understanding tells a different tale, but he was the first to make my heart leap at the mere thought of him. Just being with him was enough.
But my mother said no. It was possibly something to do with a dance we had gone to, and from which I came home late. This was slightly unfair in my eyes. It was New Year’s Eve, even Cinderella had made it to midnight and there was never any question of me having to leave before the clock struck. I was just later than anticipated.
A lot later.
Sort of breakfast time.
There were no cell phones in those days and the last bus had long since left. Mum was understandably worried. The belt was used to such good effect I had weals on my back and had to wear a halter neck for days. It was the only time it was used it like that and I did have to agree that I deserved it first.
I didn’t really care. I had seen in my first ‘grown up’ New Year with my friends at the Mecca ballroom, wearing a fabulous red silky dress with huge circular sleeves, then watched the dawn from the rug in front of the fire with Tom.
Of course, it didn’t last. We were both very young. But it was beautiful.
Oddly enough, my mother approved of Jimmy, a flick-knife wielding skinhead. Another who defied the image and was, behind the facade, a true gentleman. He brought me flowers. The first I was ever given as a romantic gesture. And took me to Belle Vue zoo in Manchester, I remember. A long way for a date in those days!
But it got me thinking, after my son had left. We often take first impressions to heart and our expectations evolve accordingly. It takes both attention and a desire to know, to go deeper, beyond the fashion or the face, the manners or the words. Much of the time opportunity may be lacking, often we just never bother and stick with that first impression. It made me wonder how much we miss.
If we go back to Cassidy for a moment, he illustrates that in a rather tragic manner. So many thousands of young girls imagined themselves in love with an image of him that they and the media created. The emotion was so strong but based on a synthetic impression. It brought tragedy in its wake both for Cassidy himself and the young girls crushed in the stampede.
But there was a Gene Pitney song he released, ‘Looking through the Eyes of Love’. I always liked the lyrics. It is true, if you think about it. While it is easy to let being ‘in love’ blind us, we see differently when we really love. Others may see only the surface layers, yet we can see behind them. Others may see the good side or the flaws… when we Love, we see both, and often deeper still to the reasons behind them. We can see the hurts and the damage, the cracked feet of clay and we love right past all of that to the shining central core. We Love.
It does not matter if we see a weakness. We no longer judge. Love makes them beautiful in all their fragility and humanity. We even see their faces differently, and they become beautiful in our eyes, and something in that reflects itself in the mirror of the heart and changes for them… they feel that beauty for themselves and in themselves. Both inwardly and outwardly. And it seems to me that it grows as they grow into being Loved.
By loving someone simply, wholly, as they are, we give them freedom to be who they are and grow into themselves.
There is a lot of stuff out there about loving oneself at present. Maybe it is not so far wrong. To truly love means to love all, asking nothing in return. To love is, in itself, enough. Ghandi said, “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
We ask an awful lot of ourselves in the innermost corners of our minds and hearts. We blame ourselves, often agonisingly, for every fault and flaw and seldom admit the things that are good. Or we gloss over the bad and hide in the good, trying to pretend. To love ourselves means having the courage to look and see who we really are, faults, flaws, gifts and talents, and accept that whole. It doesn’t let us off the hook or mean we cannot try to grow. But perhaps we can learn to see ourselves as a work in progress. Unfinished, for now maybe, but part of the completed work we will become, the true inner beauty still lying hidden under the rough edges and unpolished lines, waiting to be revealed.
Maybe if we can do that, we too can see ourselves through the eyes of love and become, “a hero, a giant, a man who’s as tall as can be…”
When I was a teenager there was a Boyfriend. He had come into my world in all his glory a few years earlier, a friend of one of my closest friends. He was three or four years older than I, so barely noticed me then. He was drop dead gorgeous, as the saying goes, and rejoiced in the name of Tom Jones. I never found the Welsh singer of that name to my taste. He was of an older generation. But my Tom was almost the spitting image of David Cassidy, though rather more masculine and stronger featured. He even had the hair. It mattered not that I was, at that point, far more likely to be listening to Led Zeppelin, Bowie or Black Sabbath. Back then, Cassidy was cute.
Now, ladies of my particular vintage, admit it… many of us who were teenagers back in the 70’s thought so too. Forget the Partridge Family .. I never watched it. Not my style at all and nor was the music. But you couldn’t miss the guy. He was all over everything at that time.
Which was quite handy, really.
My mother, never having met Tom, took a dislike to him. So I plastered my bedroom walls with Cassidy’s face and dreamed of Tom. He was, without a doubt, the first time the emotions went deep enough to say I really fell in love. With hindsight, of course, things look a little different, and greater understanding tells a different tale, but he was the first to make my heart leap at the mere thought of him. Just being with him was enough.
But my mother said no. It was possibly something to do with a dance we had gone to, and from which I came home late. This was slightly unfair in my eyes. It was New Year’s Eve, even Cinderella had made it to midnight and there was never any question of me having to leave before the clock struck. I was just later than anticipated.
A lot later.
Sort of breakfast time.
There were no cell phones in those days and the last bus had long since left. Mum was understandably worried. The belt was used to such good effect I had weals on my back and had to wear a halter neck for days. It was the only time it was used it like that and I did have to agree that I deserved it first.
I didn’t really care. I had seen in my first ‘grown up’ New Year with my friends at the Mecca ballroom, wearing a fabulous red silky dress with huge circular sleeves, then watched the dawn from the rug in front of the fire with Tom.
Of course, it didn’t last. We were both very young. But it was beautiful.
Oddly enough, my mother approved of Jimmy, a flick-knife wielding skinhead. Another who defied the image and was, behind the facade, a true gentleman. He brought me flowers. The first I was ever given as a romantic gesture. And took me to Belle Vue zoo in Manchester, I remember. A long way for a date in those days!
But it got me thinking, after my son had left. We often take first impressions to heart and our expectations evolve accordingly. It takes both attention and a desire to know, to go deeper, beyond the fashion or the face, the manners or the words. Much of the time opportunity may be lacking, often we just never bother and stick with that first impression. It made me wonder how much we miss.
If we go back to Cassidy for a moment, he illustrates that in a rather tragic manner. So many thousands of young girls imagined themselves in love with an image of him that they and the media created. The emotion was so strong but based on a synthetic impression. It brought tragedy in its wake both for Cassidy himself and the young girls crushed in the stampede.
But there was a Gene Pitney song he released, ‘Looking through the Eyes of Love’. I always liked the lyrics. It is true, if you think about it. While it is easy to let being ‘in love’ blind us, we see differently when we really love. Others may see only the surface layers, yet we can see behind them. Others may see the good side or the flaws… when we Love, we see both, and often deeper still to the reasons behind them. We can see the hurts and the damage, the cracked feet of clay and we love right past all of that to the shining central core. We Love.
It does not matter if we see a weakness. We no longer judge. Love makes them beautiful in all their fragility and humanity. We even see their faces differently, and they become beautiful in our eyes, and something in that reflects itself in the mirror of the heart and changes for them… they feel that beauty for themselves and in themselves. Both inwardly and outwardly. And it seems to me that it grows as they grow into being Loved.
By loving someone simply, wholly, as they are, we give them freedom to be who they are and grow into themselves.
There is a lot of stuff out there about loving oneself at present. Maybe it is not so far wrong. To truly love means to love all, asking nothing in return. To love is, in itself, enough. Ghandi said, “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
We ask an awful lot of ourselves in the innermost corners of our minds and hearts. We blame ourselves, often agonisingly, for every fault and flaw and seldom admit the things that are good. Or we gloss over the bad and hide in the good, trying to pretend. To love ourselves means having the courage to look and see who we really are, faults, flaws, gifts and talents, and accept that whole. It doesn’t let us off the hook or mean we cannot try to grow. But perhaps we can learn to see ourselves as a work in progress. Unfinished, for now maybe, but part of the completed work we will become, the true inner beauty still lying hidden under the rough edges and unpolished lines, waiting to be revealed.
Maybe if we can do that, we too can see ourselves through the eyes of love and become, “a hero, a giant, a man who’s as tall as can be…”
