CALMNESS, JOY, STRENGTH, FREEDOM
I feel calm when...
I would like to say I feel calm when I am walking with birdsong, may blossom, the scent of flowers; when the air is still enough for me to hear the bees buzzing besides me and the drone of cars from the other side of the Clyde and I do, to some extent. But if I am full of thoughts, the birdsong does not stop them; those thoughts crowd into my head so that I do not notice the dog walking besides me or the lap of tiny waves on the shore.
I feel calmer nowadays because of Wendy. It is easy to get caught in an argument, an injustice; the knowledge that you really do know you are right. It is easy to get fractured in the knowledge that some people do not like you at all and wish that harm would befall you.
At these times those thoughts I mentioned can overwhelm my heart and I cannot see clearly. I cannot relax or sleep properly and I become anxious for the next email or the next conversation. I worry what I will say or do and carry on conversations of arguments I
imagine I will have, over and over, in the space my head gives me to allow fear to blossom.
At such times reason becomes a bit suspect; emotion can take over and because I have been for so long in my head, the original issue whirls into some new malignant form.
I knew it before, but Wendy has taught me that being right does not matter. If someone is being confrontational or trying to prove how clever they are or demonstrating their grasp of something in the middle of a meeting, to get a rise, to show their power. Well, so what? There is no need to rise to it; no need to launch into the challenge. Let them do their stuff and change the subject, deflect their invite to get angry or to reply in kind.
I often say that I hate the models, politics and ideals so many people build their lives on and of course that is a silly thing to say because we all have ideals and principles. I think the model that I would love to live by and which would keep me calm is to realise that there is rarely one right answer to anything; that giving a child a chance to speak and cuddle is much better than forcing your power on it when it is refusing to do what you have told it to do. That kindness, warmth, love and, if at all possible, humility seem to provide the calmness and strength with which to live and be with people.
I feel joy when...
This morning I felt joy. I had had a long week of socialising and talking and doing and finally yesterday evening I was alone with Wendy; bliss! I woke feeling smooth and it was late and, although I had been awake at 3.00 am and 5.00 am, I was rested. I could stretch my legs out to all the corners of the bed and not worry about when to get up. I had only tasks that I knew I would love to do in the day and that made me feel so good.
The main times I feel joy are when I am walking with Wendy; hand in hand and she is talking and behind us her two children are also walking side by side, deep in conversation. On sunny days with birdsong and fluffy clouds and the sun silver on the sea, with Dash the dog sniffing everything he can and weeing in every other bush; the children dawdling behind until they notice we are far ahead and run laughing to catch up with us. I can think of nothing more perfect. It is an image that will seem saccharine and cliched to some people, but clichés exist for a reason. Laughter, cuddles, smiles and silliness make my day.
I feel strong when...
Being strong fills me with fear. I know too many strong people who use their strength in negative ways and harm other people with misguided notions of success and masculinity.
My mother is strong. She is 84 and still fills her day with activity, there is not a moment when she is not doing something; weeding, tidying, cleaning, cooking, walking. Sometimes I get irritated that she says I am lazy if I lie on the couch to spend half an hour listening to the radio or have a lie in.
I think she has learnt about the necessity for her to carry on despite everything. She embodies an old fashioned value base that I quite admire but maybe do not live to myself: you just get on with it and make the best of it. You don’t grumble or fall into self pity. You see the best in people, in the day, the month. You see the best even when your heart is breaking and you sleep just a few hours a day and you joke about it too. I like that.
Some people have learnt that they have had to do that to survive and have found that it gives them strength to face new things and new people and gives them courage to carry on, because they know if they pause, the past would hang too heavy on them. I admire that strength but do not have it.
I tend to fall into the past and the heaviness of living; sometimes I just want to curl up in a corner and sleep, or displace it all by working too hard. I have been strong on occasion; in situations of grief and danger or at times when the house needs tidied, the cooking done and the shopping got in when none of us have the energy to think beyond our fractured lives but it is a rare time that I need to do that.
Wendy is strong also and in a lovely way. She does it with laughter and silliness. She makes fun of tragedy. She was making her Dad laugh right up until the last few days before he died. She was making us giggle and fill the room with warmth and love when we were gathered around him in the last few hours of his life.
She was speaking happily to her children when they were in France with their Dad, when seconds before she was in floods of tears because she had just heard bad news. She does it by knowing what is important and how to fill the children with love, security and safety even when the news they hear everyday on the telly makes them worry that the world is in mortal danger.
I feel free when...
I do not quite know what we mean when we say we feel free. We are not free.
We adjust our expression, our words and conduct to the people we are with; the things we are doing, the places we are in. We are surrounded by rules. We may not be able to express them but they order and dictate our lives. If we break them then we lose our friends or our jobs. We lose our lovers and our children and our families and our houses and our standing in our communities. They vary from how we dress to what we say and what we do and how we look or sound when we say what we do. If we get it wrong, we end up in a mess from which we might not recover.
I was sent away at a very early age where we learnt very early on not to express any emotion that would make you vulnerable. It helped me survive but did not equip me for life. I very rarely truly feel. I tend to live behind a wall and a mask, where I manage to do what is expected but it is as if I do it through a mist.
However I remember times when I have laughed out loud and where I have really been a part of the world; where the colours around me were bright and meaningful, where I talked spontaneously without any reserve. I think for me that is freedom.
The closest I can remember to that recently was for a brief second yesterday when I was with my ex sisters in laws families when I let out a laugh I really meant and which everyone heard.
One of the best but different was a few months ago when I was lying in bed with Wendy and she was making her hands do silly dances in the air above us. I giggled so much, felt so happy, was completely incapable to returning the favour but that half hour lying together snuggled up, laughing. Yes! To me that is my version of freedom.
(Photo: sycamore leaf Ardmore - septemeber 2021)
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