My legs and lower back ache a little from my jogging yesterday evening, nevertheless I am feeling a hell of a lot better than I did yesterday morning. I do smell though, I guess the jogging didn’t help and the stench is probably as much in my clothes as my body. However regardless of the pain and the smell my race towards the sunset last night was well worth it. What an experience, and god it felt good riding up there through the night sky. Ha – I just love having experiences like that, ones I would have never imagined, never anticipated and may never have again.

 

I slipped into my routines easily and lazily again this morning and by 9 I have already meditated, done an hour of grammar study and am working on my dharma course. Most of my effort for the rest of the day is towards completing my CELTA task, although it seems to stretch on forever.

 

My routines were interrupted today by a knock on the front door. Quite a fright really and I anxiously went to answer it concerned that it could be another of Jim’s friends and that by opening the door I would be letting go of my solitude and freedom. It wasn’t a friend but a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses, or maybe not, I’m not sure. It was the ones with the Watch Tower (which now, in writing this reminds me of one of my favourite Dylan songs). Two women, older and younger, the younger some sort of sorcerer’s apprentice for she said not a word, just stood slightly back making her presence felt through her impenetrable silence. I afterwards imagined her coming back at twilight, by herself, curious and searching, seeking more of my eastern philosophies. There is the kernel of a poignant wee vignette there, one that I didn’t take time to pursue.

 

They were polite and after a first cursory glance said and did nothing to make me feel self-conscious standing at the door in my long-johns and undershirt. Even I forgot about it as Diana and I talked for some time. She seemed genuinely interested in my way of thinking and I hers, especially the part about the actual resurrection of the dead (no way!). She did clarify that those who were chosen to be resurrected would get a new body, which is a good thing really especially if you had died of some debilitating disease that had wasted you away.

 

One of the things she said that got me thinking was that none of us able to say when we want to die, not when we will die, but when we want to die. If we were told to pick a time, we couldn’t. I have thought something similar and that is that I often feel as if I am ready to die, perhaps not that I want to die, but that I am ready. What Diana said made me think that if I could choose my time to die, and could do so in a peaceful way, would I choose sometime soon? When I mentioned this she responded with “isn’t there so much more you want to do and see, so much more to experience”. Yes of course there is, and yet while those things are all new and different (like riding through the night on top of a truck) in essence they are all the same. I feel as if I know that essence, I have it inside me and no amount of new experiences can change or alter or add to that. And I know also that the number of experiences to be had is infinite. Wherever we are, whatever we have already done there is always going to be more to experience, more things to do and see and feel. Always more, that’s just the way it is. So that doesn’t seem like a good reason not to be ready, because we will never be ready. So maybe I’m happy with the essence I have and I no longer feel any great need to keep chasing after more, I don’t know.

 

We parted friends, and in terms of what I am doing here, especially writing my dharma course, it was a perfect interruption. Later in the afternoon one of the tasks for the CELTA coursework was to comment on three listening experiences I had had today. Uh-oh. I was grateful for Diana’s visit as at least I’d had one listening experience today. I had heard no other voices than hers today, so to make up the three I decided to turn on the radio (to listen to the DJ) and play an album on the old turntable (I chose Van Morrison’s  ‘Poetic Champions Compose’). I never got to play the album, perhaps tomorrow, but I did turn the radio on. It took some time to warm up (it’s an old one) and in my impatience I twiddled the tuner, finally settling on a random station. I sat and refocused on some grammar study letting the radio play in the background. Within minutes I was listening intently as the DJ was talking about resurrection. So I listened and realized I had chosen a Christian station, odd in itself, in that the first and only conversation I had had in 4 days, only an hour or so ago was with a Christian and overtly about Christianity. Odder still that I was listening again to ideas about resurrection? Synchronistic for sure. So I stopped listening and just sat with it, dwelt in the significance of this ‘coincidence’. I soon dawned on me it was Easter and from there it was only a moment away to my father, who died on Easter Friday some 25 years ago. As I sat with my feelings and thoughts, it felt as if I had somehow neglected him lately, I hadn’t been thinking about him much over the last few years. Now when I did, I found him with mum, arm in arm, happy. They were together again in my mind, in my spirit’s eye. I have not seen them like this for a very long time. It realized it wasn’t that I had neglected him, or her, they just wanted to let me know.

 

 

I made another spontaneous decision late this evening, I washed my clothes in the bathtub and then after I had hung them on the line I washed myself under Jim’s outdoor solar shower. I felt good showering outside, very invigorating!.

 

There was one other thing that I heard on the radio, just a very brief snippet that once again reminded me of where I am. It was a mention of daylight saving, coming to an end perhaps, the need to turn the clocks back or forward tonight. I didn’t hear enough to know what was going on, just enough to know that maybe something was. It didn’t take long for me to let it go, as like mum, it made no difference to me. My schedules and routines had no reference to anything outside of themselves.

 

…day three

….day five

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 

I am feeling a little off-colour this morning. A quaint term but one that seems the most accurate. I’m not sick as such yet my stomach complains continually and I am feeling queasy and cold. The feeling of coldness is a sign I recognize – something is going on and I need to pay attention to my physical well-being. I have hardly eaten at all today as I am unsure whether in doing so I will worsen my sense of un-ease.

 

Cari texted me last last night with a simple message – “I’ve been made redundant J xx” and I have heard nothing since. I worry about how she is and then work at letting such thoughts go and touch that place of trust inside me. Once there I am happy she will be leaving her job as it often causes her sadness and the behaviour of others there will sometimes cause her to question her own worth. This is perhaps the most difficult thing for me to witness as she is such an amazingly caring, loving, sincere and genuine person. So for myself I am glad the universe has freed her from that environment. I worry though (unnecessarily it turns out) especially as I have not heard from her, how she is coping with the fears that can often come with the news of such dramatic change.

 

My stomach won’t stop gurgling and every second exhalation is accompanied by an expulsion of air from my gut. Not good. I sit wrapped in a duvet with multiple layers of clothing on, as if in the midst of a good old London winter. In spite of all this I have meditated and done some grammar study this morning. However my motivation to work has diminished along with my taken-for-granted good health. I have started boiling water before I drink it – perhaps there is something dead in the water tank?

 

I rested until early afternoon by which time both myself and the day were looking and feeling a whole lot brighter. I managed to get some work done and by mid-afternoon I had peeled the layers of clothing from my cowering body and lain naked in the sun. Perhaps this was the best tonic as I soon felt a whole lot better. As I rested and pondered my self-enforced exile I recalled my first Vipassana retreat (over the millennium New Year) and remembered standing on the hill as the century slipped away, looking over to the lights of Auckland. I remember wondering what was happening. Whether there had been any major catastrophes (such as the Y2K disaster the technological doomsayers had been predicting) or whether indeed anything of significance had happened in my absence. As I stood there gazing across at the distant lights I realized it didn’t matter to me what was happening. I realized that I could live without it, that I didn’t need to know the news or the latest current events. I was feeling the same sitting in Jim’s front yard. There could have been a political coup in the country for all it mattered to me.

 

Somehow as the mind does my thoughts flick over to a memory of sitting beside my aged mother in North Shore Hospital as some teenager in a doctor’s outfit asked her questions to gauge her level of dementia (at least I think that’s what he’s doing). He leans in towards mum who is trying her best to be accommodating but doesn’t really know what is going on and asks ‘do you know who the prime minister is?’ Mum stays mum, looks him the eye as if to politely say ‘what rubbish are you talking?’ and turns to look at me for assistance. I’m not meant to help obviously, so I decide to keep mum as well. No answer to that question then, onto the next one, ‘do you know what day it is today?’ Again mum looks at me, I feel a bit mean not helping out, and more so because I can tell mum is becoming even more confused by these questions and also upset at her inability to answer them.

 

 

 

‘She doesn’t need to know these things” I say to the doctor, and it’s true, she doesn’t. It no longer has any importance or meaning to her who the prime minister is, nor does it matter what day it is. She does not need to distinguish Monday from Sunday, or Friday. These questions are no longer valid measurements of anything, ask her something that it is important that she knows I want to say to the doctor. Ask her if she feels loved? Ask her if she feels she is being well looked after? Ask her if she is afraid, or in need of anything?

 

By 6.00 my unease has passed and I am feeling well enough to make a completely spontaneous decision to head towards the coast. I have seen on Jim’s map that there is a sand island about 4 miles away (oddly enough called Sand Island) that looks like it would be particularly beautiful as the sun disappears behind it (I am that close to the West Coast). If I am reading the map right it looks as if I could walk across to it when the tide is out, which it is at 7.33. I have 1 ½ hours to travel four miles, sounds about right. So without any further ado, off I go, down the road.

 

And it is literally down the road, and this has to be one of the biggest most disappointing differences between here and the UK for me. I love walking and if I was in the UK right now this 4 mile walk would not be down the road. It wouldn’t be a walk, it’d be a ramble. I’d be walking along what is affectionately known and very clearly signposted as ‘public footpaths’, walking tracks that cross the land, public land, farmer’s land, all the land and intersects here and there with roads only to shortly leap off again on the other side. Getting from here to the coast would be an adventure in itself, a rambling journey of solitude, exploration, contemplation and adventure. Here I follow the way of the motor vehicle, gravel crunching under my feet, dust around me as a car passes and no chance whatsoever of getting lost.

 

It was an adventure anyway, of course it was. I came across an old deaf dog on my travels, at an intersection he came and said hello to me before trotting off in front of me and disappearing around the corner up ahead. How did I know he was deaf? His owner who came around the intersection about 5 minutes later told me. He was looking for him and of course could not call or whistle him back.  I pointed down the road ahead, he cursed and trotted off after him. About 45 minutes later they came out of the setting sun heading back towards me. Old deaf dogs can still move pretty quickly when they want to.

 

As I got nearer to the turn-off to Sand Island the sun was getting real low in my eyes and I knew it was going to be touch and go as to whether I made it in time. I ran the last ½ mile from the turn-off, trying to gauge as I turned each corner where the sun was. I willed myself onward, willed the next corner to be the last. And finally it was and gasping for breath I was there, looking at Sand Island. Well I did make it, for it was a beautiful spot, lit by a sun that had not long disappeared. I stood there sweating and puffing and just soaked it in.

 

 

 

I didn’t stay long, long enough to rest a while, take a picture or two and feel the beauty and tranquility of the place. I knew I had a walk back in the dark that was probably going to take me longer than the 1 ¾ hours it had taken me to get here. That was ok. I was worth it. I was pleased I had come even if I had missed the actual sunset by a few minutes. I started back as the darkness quickly closed in around me. No street lights here at all. I had walked for no longer the 5 minutes, had not even cleared the track leading from the coast when I heard a vehicle coming up the slowly behind me. Fishers in a 4×4, I stepped out of the way of their headlights to let them pass. They didn’t, they stopped, and asked if I wanted a lift, only they had no room inside but I was more than welcome to ride on the spare wheel pinned to the back. And that’s what I did. I rode the 4 miles or so back to the bach sitting on top of that wheel. My fingers wedged into the gap between door and roof, my body way above the top of the truck I traveled free as a bird through the warm dark blue night sky, the stars above me and warm wind on my face. It was glorious. They didn’t go too fast and stopped once to check I was alright. I was more than all right. What an amazing treat it was, what a totally unexpected pleasure, riding up there gazing out into the moonlit darkness, the road unfurling in the headlights in front of me.

 

They dropped me off outside the gate. I couldn’t thank them enough, not just for giving me a lift and shortening my journey home by a good hour and a half, but for giving me something I would never have dreamt of having and will always cherish. Thanks guys.

 

…… day two

…… day four

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 

Today I went to bed. Pulled the covers up over my head and let myself slide into the dark. After a phone call to my son I felt too distant, too far away. So I went to bed. Safest place, as I have learnt from years of practice. I went into my cave, and rested. Quietly and calmly abided in my self, in my cave.

 

Perhaps there was no reason, or perhaps there were lots of reasons, it didn’t really matter. While in my cave, in the dark, the quiet, I slipped through a gap, and was very still for a long time, almost unconscious.

 

I dreamt

I flew

my eyes

wouldn’t open

when they did

I was awake

in Africa

like John-Boy

who I drunk

coffee

with in Epsom

 

Delicious

WARM or COLD

NEW or OLD

there is a

word

for it

 

satori, psychotic episode, enlightenment,whatever -

                                                                                      – the name doesn’t matter. For whatever reason(s) I was through the gap and once there I found myself, and when I came back, when I awakened I had a little part of me with me. A little ‘i’, there in my consciousness, in the back room, safely asleep, tucked up cosy with a soft night light on it’s face. And I gently woke that part up, ever so gently. Just came into the room and saw it so quiet, so still, eyes closed, face relaxed in a smile. So sound asleep. I just stood there and watched and waited. Waited patiently soaking up the love I felt. Waited and gloried in the moment knowing that it would change, it would open it’s eyes.  I waited until that little sleeping part of me felt me there and opened it’s eyes.

 

And in my eyes that newly awake glorious part of me saw something. It caught a glimpse of things. Things that that wee sweet wonderful part of me was unable to comprehend. Yet it recognised in those things something that it was. We had something in common. It saw itself in me, and me in it.

 

And what it saw, it showed me.

 

It showed me this:

 

 

And there i was in the audience. For a fleeting moment, before the song even started, there i was in the smile of a little girl. In the wide adoring eyes of a little boy. There was my joy, my laughter, my innocence.

 

And when I saw Peter, Paul and Mary I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps this was not me. Peter and Paul and Mary looked too old. There was something wrong. Rationally I knew this was not me, yet there i was.

 

I didn’t panic, which I have done on other ocassions. I didn’t simply dismiss this whole episode as a wacky dream or fantasy, as I was once wont to do. I didn’t judge at all. There in the gap, in the cave I was able to simply wait. Wait and watch as that little beautiful part of me fell back to sleep. And I knew how still and calm it was. I knew how it dreamt, so softly. And in it’s dream it showed me this:

 

 

And there i was again. So much more quietly know, so much more softly. i was just a puff of smoke myself, faint, drifting off. And I saw myself in my mother’s eyes. There she was in the audience.  With that faraway look on her eyes as she ever so timorously sang along. She was there. 1966.

 

I was 9. She was 49. She was a wild woman of the 1940’s. A witch of the south, who had travelled to the other side of the world, to a faraway place, where she had taken off her witch’s cowl, her orange and purple wild woman clothes and had lain naked in the sun. From this faraway land in the sun she heard this song and it awakened something within her.

 

She would sing this song as she baked.  She would sing it as she painted the walls around her orange, as she painted the car. She would sing it to me as we towed the caravan behind that orange car away towards the sea.  She would sing it to me as I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I saw into my eyes, and I saw this:

 

 

 

I was a little older now.  No longer just a mummy’s boy, I was still my mother’s son. A mother and son with a faraway look in their eyes. A double act full of double meanings. A mother who holds my hand as we look into my father’s dying eyes, as we look into the sleepy eyes of my sons. And before we all fall asleep we make myschief and sail off, through night and day, in and out of weeks, and over years and years.

 

I am watching my sons now, as they slept. I am only a child myself.  This is the magic my sons. And now you are all grown up do not forget the wild things, do not forget the magic dragon. I watch them as they sleep and I feel the love. I wait for I know it is only a moment and we will awake.

 

And once awake we all will visit the cave, we will tame the wild things and release the dragon. We all will once again play with the magic dragon.

 

 

 x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 

 

One of the things that happened while I was away from here was that my nana (Frieda) celebrated her 98th birthday. Way to go nana!!! Cari and I travelled down to Taunton (Somerset) and stayed with my wonderful cousin Sian at hers – thank you so much Sian, you were the hostess with the mostess once again. It is ALWAYS so wonderful to spend time with you – you are so accommodating and generous and vibrant, and I always feel loved – even loved enough to have a bit of gloom settle in for a moment!! Thanks cuz, for once again making my time in Taunton, my time with my family, a wonderful time. 

 

 

 

I know, she looks a bit worried, but pay no mind, she does worry a little at times, it doesn’t really mean anything. Perhaps she is thinking of teaching that class of four year olds … And Cari, Sian and I watched ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. The first and last time I watched this movie was with my mum and Cari on New Years Eve 2007, mum’s last. The movie ended exactly on midnight. We didn’t plan it that way, that’s just the way it was. As the movie ended (with a new years eve scene) we could hear the fireworks exploding outside. If you ever get the chance, watch this movie – it is a reminder to us all – a reminder of who we are and what we are and what we mean, to ourselves, to each other and to the universe.

 

Now is a great time to watch it, what with Christmas just around the corner.

 

 

We went out to dinner with nana on the Sunday – she was here ever twinking self. Her eyes full of the magic of life, sparkling, smiling - a joy to watch, a joy to behold. Thanks again nana – this is something I never ever dreamed I would have. I love you to bits xx

 

 

 

 

A fantastic time was had by all. The food was great, the company was special. I met my cousin Vicki (that’s her in the middle next to Sian) for the first time (well the first time I can remember anyway).  A great weekend – a very special birthday.

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 

 

 

 

FRIEDA

 

What a gift! What a wonderful unexpected gift.  Sian had told me of you -of this sprightly, lively step-nana, who at 97 was still fit and fiesty.  I found it hard to believe – particularly as I cared for my increasingly ailing, demented and bed-ridden mother, aged 88.  Sian’s voice was always so full of admiration and respect when she spoke of you – I so wanted to meet you, yet perhaps I would be too late.

 

And then she took me to you – it was like a homecoming, one that should have felt strange, yet felt so overwhelmingly right and natural.  You didn’t even blink – it was as if you knew me, it was as if you had been waiting for me, and me for you.  I was, for the very first time, a grandchild.  Thank you so much for that.

 

Finally the ‘aunty’ tag that had always been a prefix to your name was made redundant, and I understand it now as an attempt by mum to distance me from you.  She had difficulty with you Frieda, and now having met you, as an adult, I can understand why.  You and her – very very similar in your determination, your resilence, your independence.

 

All these years – 48 years.  Through all these years you were there – in the grey English background, as distant and divorced from me as grandad – yet I always felt strange calling you ‘aunty Frieda’.   You were not an aunty – that I knew was a misnomer – yet we never spoke of what you really were, what you really are.  My grandmother.  It was my mother’s stuff, not mine.  I was always ready to embrace you as my nana, and I do now, regardless of this lifetime of absence.  Neither of us is to blame, both of us are responsible.

 

So nana, we were kept from eachother, I think,  by Grace and Glanny’s choices.  Particularly their choice to fail to befriend each other.  Isn’t it the greatest sadness, the highest irony, and ultimately if we can recognise it, the most fantastic opportunity, to be gifted a family member; a father, brother, daughter, son, sister, with whom we struggle to befriend, we whom we struggle to connect.

 

I don’t think I fully realised til now how much courage it took, and how much pain it must have involved, when mum severed her connections to this place and the people who inhabit it – her family.  And here I am sitting in the heart of Somerset, in the heart of the Glanville beat, and I think…

 

you are so like her

chancers both

a glint in your eyes

quintessential superwomen

 

 

thanks nana – I love you

thank you for waiting for me

may you always share in my dharma

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x