January Lament

January! How quickly the new year turns! The blink of an eye and everything is changed, at least in the subtle moodiness of our subjectivity, if not in cold, objective terms. The gloom descends, with festivities put away for another year, and all the talk of tides and floods, unnatural weather and miserable predictions of six months of ice and snow. Six months of Arctic conditions - surely not! But the mere thought of it is enough to dampen our spirits, darken our thoughts and allow into the corners of our consciousness just a hint of belief. What if they're right?

And for us literary types, steeped in the doom and gloom of the past, how easy it is to fall into step with the poets of yesterday and share all their miserable misgivings about the year that lies ahead. Maybe in our middle years, in the midst of a dark wood, we have lost our way. Maybe a waste land of ice and snow, as well as moral degeneration, lies out there ahead of us with the falling towers, crumbling cities. Maybe...

So happy New Year, one and all! Join me in a moment's mournful meditation before we make ourselves a cheery cup of tea and get on with putting the Christmas decorations back in the box...

 

Eliot's Lament

 

January! At a stroke

December's magic falls away.

Sweet-smelling hay,

Warm swaddling bands

And a choir of glittering angels

Give way to bleak midwinter.

 

Thirty-one days of leanness,

Marked out one by one,

The New Year's calendar

Empty, unused, on the wall

Where Christmas stockings hung,

Bright with hope and longing,

Memory and desire.

 

January! Harbinger of ice and snow.

No longer Christmas.

No more the bright Advent candles

Illumine our way,

Our festive days.

No! Sprung from the Virgin's womb,

A hard and bitter winter

One dark day at a time.

 

A birth and yet a death:

Gold, frankincense and myrrh,

Coming late to the party,

Borne by tall, dark strangers,

Sweep us onward, unknowing,

Toward Easter's passion

And the dark night of the soul.

 

Thrust headlong

Into an uncertain future,

We stumble in the darkness

Pause on the threshold,

Yearning, struggling, onwards

For those first green shoots of spring.

 

Yet, April may yet be the cruellest month.

 

 

 

It's raining, it's pouring...

It's raining! Why am I surprised? They told us that there would be rain - lots of it. This is Wales! We are in prime position for all those warm, wet westerlies which traverse the Atlantic and land up right here on the Welsh coast. Living a few miles inland it would be even worse, as those moisture-laden winds rise to ascend our Welsh mountains and drop their load on the hills. So not as bad as it could be! But bad enough.

 

I knew in my head it would rain a lot. I'm not stupid. It wasn't that I didn't believe them. After all, I've never lived in Wales before - how would I know? It's just that I am coming to the conclusion that I don't have a very good knack for visualisation. The summer was gorgeous when it finally arrived (better late than never) - hot and sunny day after day. But if it isn't in front of my eyes I can't see it. In summer I can never imagine, however often it happens, that in winter I will ever feel cold enough to wear my fur coat or cumbersome boots. In winter the reverse happens and I look in horror at all those strappy tops, thin, sleeveless dresses and sandals and think I must have been crazy to buy them. The climate has changed for sure and it will never ever again be warm enough to wear them. Wrong!

 

We drove to Aberystwyth the other day to look for walking boots. Knowing (in our heads at least) that the weather here is not that great in winter (and maybe at other times too?), we determined to be well prepared for outdoor pursuits and get ourselves geared up with sturdy boots, waterproof trousers, etc.  After all, we love the outdoors and don't want to get stuck indoors all winter simply because we don't have the right equipment to stride out along muddy footpaths. We trudged round the shops. The financial aspect was off-putting. Getting prepared is prohibitively expensive. Questioning the staff of various outdoor shops proved even more off-putting. When did 'waterproof' really mean waterproof? For how long would it be waterproof? Under what conditions would this magic word apply? We slunk out of a number of shops, discouraged. For this reason and for the simple fact that neither of us have first hand experience of muddy footpaths in Wales we failed to buy anything. Surely the tracks we had walked along all summer would be OK really? Surely the heavy duty boots we saw other walkers equipped with were not strictly necessary - just a fad probably. Anyway, after paying all that money for brand new boots how could you bear to get them dirty? (We both admitted after the event to having had that thought!) We were only talking about footpaths. We weren't intending any mountain climbing, wading through streams or slithering down scree slopes. No, just a few simple strolls in the beautiful countryside.

 

Yesterday the rain stopped. We had other plans for the day but abandoned them immediately and grabbed the chance. We put on our trainers and went for a walk. November. Autumn leaves. Glorious colourful landscapes and leafy lanes. And mud. Paths that were level, gritty and well made up in summer turned out to be covered in layers of leaf mould, twigs brought down by the recent gales, puddles across the width of the paths and a layer of rich, thick mud! Now why didn't we visualise that beforehand? Maybe there is a part of my brain missing. Maybe my brain only lives in the present moment and cannot adapt itself to thoughts of the future. Maybe the meditation experts would applaud me - after all, these days, living in the moment is much advocated and I seem to be well adapted to the task. However, much as this technique for living is a godsend for relaxing the mind and calming the most frenetic temperament in weekly pilates classes, it doesn't seem to equip us well for the cut and thrust of everyday life. Taking the odd peek at the future and what it is likely to hold and imagining ourselves into the situation so that we can make plans and avoid disasters seems to be a good idea now and then.

 

Never mind, the round trip to Aberystwyth is a mere 80 miles from our village. Perhaps we should make another trip now we are more clued up to the realities round here! After all, in Wales it can be very wet...

Forward Planning

Today I am schizophrenic. It is almost too much. The present... the future... which shall I choose? I am bombarded by sensations. A pleasant cooing draws my attention. My new grandson is gurgling at me. He is learning to reproduce some of the sounds he has been hearing around him for so long. He 'chats' to me - at least I like to think so. I talk to him, just a sentence and then he coos in reply. I smile exaggeratedly and he giggles. His mother loves his giggles so much that she is tempted, against her better judgment, to continue the game until his giggles are overtaken by a hiccup, and then another one. Suddenly he is overcome by a succession of loud hiccuping, his little frame shuddering with the force of those unsolicited little eruptions in his tiny body. It is a shame to make him hiccup, but such fun to hear him giggle!

 

My grandson clutces at my finger. He has a tenacious grip. I gently rub bunny's ears against his soft skin and he responds, leaving go of my finger and reaching for bunny's ears, enjoyin the sensation of softness, much nicer than grandma's crinkly fingers.

 

He is a treasure - a very present treasure. But, all at once, I am fast forwarded, my attention slipping from baby's grasp, my thoughts wandering down country lanes, my ears catching the birdsong and my nose scenting the sea breezes. My new home! Suddenly it is present with me. Only ten days to go until we are catapaulted into the new life we have chosen. My inner eyes rove around my new home, planning colour schemes, placing furniture, mentally unpacking boxes of forgotten things from the store and stowing them neatly in cupboards.

 

Our pictures will be the fnishing touch - the icing on the cake - remining us of former dwelling places, documenting the passage of our lives. Now a third dimension enters - that of the past. We will choose carefully from the boxes, gently unwrapping and matching each one to its own surroundings, its colour scheme and mood. Past, present and future. Multi-tasking. Life is a schizophrenic kaleidoscope - so many memories, sensations, hopes and dreams. It is a rich, heady mix that takes a lifetime to process. I am a wealthy woman - I have a past, a present and a future and the capacity to enjoy them all at once.