Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 50

Waiting Faithfully

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Alfred Edward Emslie , ‘A Sonata of Beethoven’

���Everything is going to work out well for you, just be patient.���

Patience was one quality that she had indeed acquired during the previous five years. Even if nothing else ever happened, she had gained an appreciation of waiting, of the pleasure and fulfilment found within leisure and patiently hoping for the best.

She knew not to ask, ���Yes, but how long do I have to wait?��� a question which could not be answered honestly, because in each second, the answer was being made new. Each moment is a choice, a breath away from changing courses. She knew that she should wait hopefully. The best steering wheel she had yet found was her optimism, which could take her to take her places she had never before dreamed of.

This time last month, for example, she had been mired in doubt, but even so, life had come out beautifully. This time last year, she had no idea what lay ahead. If she had known, she might have simply given up the game and fled. But she didn���t. Her naivete protected her and her faith strengthened her resolve when others would have been whispering, ���I don���t know why she bothers, quite honestly���. Sometimes, it is best not to do what others tell you, but to follow your heart. Then the glory of your choices can come to bless you freely. In whatever guise the future reveals itself, you can say, ���I chose that!��� and rest happily.

Resting Work in Progress

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“La Lecture Interrompue” by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Having written up a second, third or thirtieth draft of any substantial writing project, I find that it benefits from resting a while. I may decide not to look at it for, say, four or six months, and meantime take up another project to work on. It is good to have several projects on the go at once, I find, because that keeps me fresh.

Letting a book rest has obvious advantages. The more we write, the better we get, and sometimes, with the passage of a short while, it is very clear where a passage can be improved, which we thought perfect when it was being consigned to its enforced rest. I am grateful for the opportunity to improve, which time offers. After all, where���s the hurry? Unless an editor is actually breathing down our necks, why not slow the pace down and focus more on thoughtful enjoyment? Sometimes, my focus on a daily word count is a bit counter-productive.

Working alone, I also value the shift in perspective that time offers. Ideas that now feel hopelessly na��ve, opinions that are exposed as a little under-proved, and examples that are perhaps just a bit too esoteric, are all easier to spot with a bit of distance. Plot weaknesses are also easier to home in on. It is amazing how often I can read through a piece without spotting that I���ve changed names half way through.

And we writers can be touchy. We don���t like other people to tell us what is ���wrong��� with our writing; so leaving a book to mature is one way of making sure that when someone doesn���t like our writing, it is for personal, rather than pedantic reasons.

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Lucky Friday 13th

Friday 13th feels incredibly lucky to me. Probably because I was born contrary, I love this day, and��enjoy confounding expectations of doom and gloom. Someone told me that there are more accidents today than usual, because people are worrying about the date; an example of how we affect our lives with our thoughts. So why not just be positive? It is the weekend after all, and nearly Easter.

 

I���m proud of my daughter, who has given up eating sugar for Lent and instead takes carrots and apples in her packed lunch. I too have given up sugar, and my joints feel less sore, though yesterday in the rain, I was finding it difficult to walk. That old dampness is not my friend.

Today the window is open and the sun is shining a peaceful, weak yellow that feels like a benediction, after the winter and the darkness. As British Summertime approaches, I am so excited to be here, now. Optimism flares when the rain stays away and the breeze blows gently. The birds are singing and all is right with the world.

Have a wonderful weekend.

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Fuel Poverty

Today I feel as if I am on holiday. A real holiday. For the first time since the 3rd of December, I do not have something niggling at the back of my mind, or a preoccupation: My sprained foot is healing up; our central heating is working well; the house is tidy again, with all the baskets and buckets now in the big empty cupboard where the water tanks used to be.

I am so grateful that everything is sorted, and that I no longer have to get up early or get dressed quickly because the bedroom is too cold for comfort. I���m so pleased that staying warm is not my constant pre-occupation, along with battling the five or six colds I have had since our old boiler died. One of these was like flu, another was exhausting���.now, all finished, just in time for me to enjoy the daffodils that I notice coming into bud in the flower beds.

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I wonder about the valuable lessons I have learned in the last three months, and am pondering what it means to live with fuel poverty. When we are cold, staying warm, and fed, becomes a total obsession, and really, nothing else matters as much as it did. Social engagements become less pressing, interaction with others shrinks, as the space in our heads is taken up with the over-riding need for comfort and warmth. I feel sorry that large numbers of families have to struggle continuously with the decision ��� to eat, or to heat? To stay in, or go out? What of their social lives? And those of their children?

Policy makers should really take another look at this, and at the inflated prices that people who are poor (and use metered supplies) pay for their fuel and light. It is unacceptable that society as a whole is missing out on the unique [image error]contributions that people could offer, if they were not so preoccupied with staying warm. We need full engagement from different sectors, and without the voice of the poor, our debates become theoretical and just a tad unrealistic, tainted with an unconscious hypocrisy. It is easy to criticise nameless others who don���t work, but in-work poverty is a major problem. And poor citizens pay premiums they can ill afford to access services that the rest of us take for granted. I know I used to take my heat for granted. I don���t any longer, and count that a major blessing.

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Still My Young Man

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Johannes Vermeer – Lady Maidservant Holding Letter

Seline has been playing with a new computer drawing tool she has discovered. Me, I don���t know what is wrong with crayons, colour pencils and felt tips. I also feel that artistic creations and pictures are better for being tactile and messy. I love the feeling of immersion that comes from having chalk on my sleeves and ink on my fingers. But there you go ��� I���m probably just a bit old-fashioned.

Then, I see what she has drawn: an approximation of Eddie that, yes, I recognise, I suppose, except that his head is not so round, nor his cheeks so wide, nor���his chin, so white? Surely not���? She assures me that, yes, his beard is white���and shows me ��� See? – the next time he comes into the room.

���Look Mum, tell me what you see.���

���Yes, I suppose so���. Eddie���s beard is mostly white, with a smattering of other colours.

But when I look at him I don���t see that. Apart from the shadow in his eyes that speaks so eloquently of his burdens at work, I still see him as he has always been. I still see him as my young man.

Yes, the years have made us both a bit paler, somehow. My hair is not quite what it was, and his cheeks���well��� But I still see him as he was ��� my young man.

Capability Scotland – Thank you

Dear Capability Scotland

I��am honoured��to be part of your launch for the ‘Great Scottish Book Off’. It was a��privilege to��represent you��on ‘Good Morning Scotland’; (at 02:36:14) and the appearance at Blackwells last night was such fun.��Thank you for organising everything so beautifully. It is��a total pleasure��to work with you, and I hope that my��small contribution��has helped to give your campaign��extra lift.

Thanks also to Blackwells for their generous support hosting last night’s event.

I just want to say…��I sincerely appreciate��everything you do��to promote positive, joyful��living. We all need Capability, to remind us that��we��all have something valuable to offer to the big picture. Our��part may��feel small, only one piece of the puzzle, but…you know how it feels when that one piece is missing.

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“Drops On Rose (260892746)” by Audrey from Central Pennsylvania, USA

Whether we are campaigners, volunteers, tea and scone makers or listeners, each one of us is uniquely important. We celebrate life’s richness, when we work together!

Thank you and bless you, always.

Rose – New Day

Capability Scotland – The Great Scottish Book Off

Tomorrow, on World Book Day, Capability Scotland are launching their newest fundraising event, ‘The Great Scottish Book Off’, which will run through the rest of March.

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Paul Delaroche – Portrait of Son, Joseph Carle

Family, friends, colleagues and neighbours are invited to get together and swap pre-read books. If there is a modest charge for admission, or a collection, the idea is to pass these funds to Capability, to further their work and projects in Scotland.

I am delighted that tomorrow morning, at 8.30, I am making a guest appearance on Radio Scotland, live from their Edinburgh Studio, to help publicise Capability’s campaign. I look forward to a friendly and candid interview. Thereafter, in the evening, at 18.30 – 19.30 I shall be giving a reading from ‘Trapped’ and answering questions. If��you can, please do come along to Blackwells, South Bridge, Edinburgh. It is going to be a great event.

My sincerest thanks to Capability for inviting me to be part of their event, and to Blackwells Bookstore, Edinburgh, for being so generous and accommodating.

Use What You’ve Got

Perseverance, persistence, endurance���.these are qualities I recognise, from growing up, from planting my roots, getting from there to here. The best musicians, the best conductors, don���t always start at the beginning again.

I used to play the piano rather badly, as I was too nervous to make a fluent sound. And as soon as I stumbled, I would tut, and start again from the beginning. My practice periods began to sound like a bad scratch on a record, played at the wrong speed���.. I know this bit���.lets run through it quickly���.OOPS! Drat! Here we go again.

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‘Gather Ye Rosebuds’ by John William Waterhouse (1909)

I am a slow learner. I have done this sort of thing lots of times, in many situations: Thrown out books and videos, taken stitching back to the start, scrapped stories and books and ideas and whole jobs���.and taken myself back to a Beginning; as if that had some magical, cleansing significance.

Success, in one of its aspects, has been about realising that life produces more satisfying outcomes if we have the courage to take the mess we have made and continue to work within it, to finally make something satisfying. Mess we have to guddle through might be a bit frightening, or nerve-racking, but that is part of learning to handle adversity and turn it to our advantage. We make mistakes, but we can live with them, and we can use them to make something better. Not always, but some of the time. The trick is balance, which is a learned skill. I���m learning.

Thanks for reading and commenting

 

To Fight or to Flee

I am intrigued by the options we allow ourselves.

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“Touch of spring (2426712303)” by Kenny Louie from Vancouver, Canada

Yesterday��in Meeting, after a tiring��and unsettling week, I was thinking lots of positive stuff, (I am strong, reliable, peaceful, careful, loved, kind….) to replenish my energy and calm it down. At the end of a long list and a silent space,��… something popped into my head. I have the courage to be myself.��That felt really good, and I might have ministered on it, but something else happened to change the course of the Meeting.

Now, browsing��recent blog posts, I��notice��‘Fight or flight’ from Thursday last week, which suggests that for us there are two basic options:��When faced with danger or threats, we can fight, or we can fly away. I rarely fight, being more of a flyer sort of person. I write a lot about the virtue of fleeing, which is better than coming a cropper.

It appears that I’ve been fearful for over forty years, with a kind of nameless unease that has no obvious origin and no answers. What am I being fearful about? Why be fearful about anything, really? Fearful of whom or what, exactly? It is not as if my fear is going to make any dreaded eventuality��easier to handle, better or more fun, is it?! Nor is the sky going to fall on my head or the world going to end.

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‘Portrait of a Young Woman’ by Johannes Vermeer

Instead of galvanising us to action,��most of��our fears��fill our movements with jerky panic and our brains with mushy inactivity that spins around disaster scenarios. But since we rarely meet truly life-threatening situations, most of our fear is surplus to requirements.

My fear of the last four decades has done nothing except give me the mental equivalent of toothache. It doesn’t make me feel good. So I decided Now might be a good time to try a��different approach. If I have another thirty or so years to be me, I would like to enjoy them: really enjoy them. I reasoned that now would be a good time to stop being fearful. And, amazingly, the fear has vanished.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Wildlife

This morning’s screen-saver that has popped up on Bing, is of a polar bear��asleep on barrier island in the Beaufort Sea in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He looks sweet, and almost like a dog, with his chin propped up on the side of his paw.

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“Mother cubs”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Polar bears are carnivores and have jaws strong enough to crush bone. Yet we insist on seeing them as cute and cuddly. They are flexible, adaptable and have astonishing reserves of endurance, sometimes��swimming for hundreds of kilometres��in search of food. They need huge areas in which to live and hunt and they risk starving from lack of food.

This bear was having a snooze in a Wildlife Refuge; a name which suggests three things, to me. Firstly, that all animals which we would classify as wild, can herd themselves neatly into corners that we devise for them. They know to stay beyond this line, and not to stray past that row of pylons over there….

Secondly, that we have a right to order the world, so that we can take, say, seventy per-cent of its resources, land mass, water, ground cover, and that we then generously allow wild animals a bit of room around the edges, some of which we even dignify with the name ‘wildlife corridors’. Which is na��ve at best. Where are the mountain gorillas supposed to live? In a cupboard? What about wild dogs, used to roaming over huge distances? Should they become endangered, do they deserve to be plucked from their wild for their own ‘protection’ and then fenced into a piece of land thirty meters square, so that they spend their lives��running round and round on the inside of the wire?

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African Wild Dogs (Lycaon Pictus Pictus) play fighting

Thirdly, at least the word ‘refuge’ does point to the human tendency to over-dominate the planet. Wild creatures need refuge from us, in the same way as a placid husband needs refuge from his taunting wife. I just hope that they can hang on in their refuges long enough for us to come to our senses. Oil exploration, shale��fracking and sonic subsea explosions��are pushing into wild and remote places where we don’t live, but where the wild animals we call cute have their living rooms.