Cycle and Recycle – a Day in the Life of our Planet

I was pondering the other day on the ‘cycle of life’! A big subject for one so young…

In recent weeks we have had both a death and a new birth in our family circle. A great aunt gone and a new baby arrived. What does it all mean? Well, it seems to mean different things on different levels.

Objectively speaking, it is simply a question of arithmetic. One in, one out. In statistical terms, we wiped the slate clean. No change. Still the same number in the family; still the same number on the planet. Life goes on. The family continues. Things are just a little re-distributed. On one side of the family there is an additional mouth to feed, an additional bundle of fun – and of trouble! On the other side there is one less aged relation to care for, but also one less human being and much-loved family member. But in the scales of life, it all weighs the same.

Subjectively, it is a whole different ball game. The loss demanded a funeral, a modest crowd of grieving relatives and a gap in the family which will never be filled, no matter how many new additions arrive in the family. So much individuality, creativity, personality and love lost, never to be recovered. Such a big gap to fill in the lives of those closest. As for the new addition – such a source of happiness, hope, expectations, warmth and vibrancy! A new life which just the other day did not exist – and now does.

People are born. People get old and die. On a similar theme, again just the other day, I was pondering the strange qualities of the English language, more particularly, the question of ‘opposites’. ‘Old’. What does it mean? We can learn more by examining the opposite concept. But what precisely is the opposite of old? On closer examination we find that old is coupled with young – yes, we knew that. But also with ‘new’! Young and old; old and new! So young and new – are they the same? Their opposites are obviously both contained within the concept of oldness.

In this spring season, I have been confronted with a lot of young-ness – baby chicks, lambs, ducklings, calves, piglets and the family of blackbirds that are in the process of hatching out in our hydrangea bush. They are very young, very vulnerable, very sweet. But also, of course, brand new! Their newness is exhilarating and a large part of their charm. Lambs on new wobbly legs; baby birds unable yet to fly; ducklings that have yet to be introduced to water. Why? Because they’re new. It’s all new – and exciting!

So the cyle of life goes on. Spring is full of it. Autumn sees the other end of the cycle. But that’s another story. Life and death: joy and grief. Hope and disappointment. It’s a big subject, the comings and goings on our planet, but one we take for granted every day. Funny that...

Lily Grace

We have a new member of our family now. She arrived the other day and was given the gift of a name on arrival: Lily Grace. She'll go far with a name like that! Some names just have a ring to them - a kind of flow. They sound like music.

What's in a name? What indeed? A name can make all the difference. Ask the marketing companies. There's a fortune in the right name for the right product.

Lily Grace is a product, of course. In the strictest sense of the word, she was produced by her clever parents, with a little help from the cosmic plan that underwrites all such happenings. One day her name may come in handy from a commercial, career enhancement point of view, but not just yet! Right now she's just Lily Grace - that sweet bundle of joy in a pink babygrow who delights the rest of her family with her charms. She has no idea what her fortune may turn out to be and whether her name will help.

A friend recently sent a joke via the internet about 'Being Poor'. The gist of it was the shame experienced by a young girl during her first ever school lesson on that age-old mystery: where do babies come from? Mortified, she explained to her parents her embarrassment when her friends voiced their various expert theories on the subject, from storks to gooseberry bushes to supermarkets and she was forced to admit that her own parents had been so poor they had to make her themselves!!! The truth will out! But the truth is we're all products and we all need the right name.

In many cultures names have a meaning. We researched our own daughter's name extensively. Catherine Joy: pure + joy = pure joy! Not a bad start in life. Does the name shape the baby or the baby shape the name? An interesting question. Names such as Faith or Hope, Charity or Verity give a child a lot to live up to but also mark the level of trust invested in them by their hopeful parents. It's good to have positive expectations.

So here's to you, Lily Grace! May you be blessed with the beauty and sweet temperament your family have invested in you. We look forward to meeting you.

Soft the rain is falling...

It's a pretty month - May. One of my favourites. It doesn't always come up to our expectations but when it does it is one of the best.  Sadly, spring is often swallowed up between winter and summer and barely happens. One minute we are frozen; the next minute, finally, it is summer. Not so this year. April has been  how it should be - a glorious start to spring with a typical mix of April showers and blustery days, punctuated by warm sunshine. May promises to follow suit, although we are only at the beginning. Maybe we've had a touch too much rain for some, but with a shortage of rain these last two years, we can hardly complain, and there's plenty of sunshine too.

It is not often I celebrate the rain. But at this time of year there is a special kind of rain which drops softly down on our gardens, encouraging fresh, prolific new growth and bringing hope. Winter is over and, no matter what the weather may do, it will not return until next year. Balmy days are on the way. We can even enjoy the rain... especially in these days of drought! 

Soft the rain is falling

Gentle on my garden

Sweetly gently falling

Bringing summer softness.

Gone the winter’s harshness

Melted now for summer

Memories of winter

Peaceful, flowing down.

Lilac brings forgetfulness

Like the pain of childbirth

Gently, gently borne

Into the soft and waiting earth.

Purple petals falling

Blossom drifting downward

Fragrance all around

Is scattered on the breeze.

Seasons bring new gifts;

Old ones are forgotten.

Bright the summer skies

As the rain falls gently down.

Healer of my winter times,

Time is flowing onward,

Mellows tones of harshness

Into softened shades of gold.

Like a gentle river

Time flows on unending

Bringing back perspective

And washing sorrows clean.

Come then gentle raindrops

Wash away my sorrows.

Bring your glistening rainbow

In the sunlight of new hope.

Linguistic Kaleidoscope

Recession:
The wave of progress falters.
Relentless pounding on the shore
Recedes as the tide turns.


A downturn:
An inverted smile.
The disappointing of our expectations
While the economy wanes.


Affordability:
Euphemism for no choice -
What we persuade ourselves
Can be afforded – or must.


Economic viability:
How many lives can we save?
How many kidneys, hearts, livers
Can we afford to repair or replace?


Sustainability:
How many wells can be dug,
Mouths fed, babies born
In this modern day economy?


Adjusted:
Wages down, prices up,
The interest on our savings plans…
Rarely in our favour.


Human resources:
Cogs in a machine;
A subtraction from the jobless total.
Is that all?


A challenge:
Another hardship faced
That must be endured stoically,
With a smile.


Kaleidoscope:
Our changing meanings,
Rearranging patterns,

Spinning round and round.

The poem is short but this story is a long one, it seems. We began so long ago, even before Northern Rock and the newly-coined phrase: the Credit Crunch. It seems a long time ago now and we thought we were reading a short story. Now it is becoming an epic novel and still the saga continues. It is still current news. The media love it. Even the government of the Netherlands has been dissolved due to the inability to agree on a plan of austerity measures. Nothing has changed, except that we have become used to it. It is still about dwindling pensions, increasing taxes, spending cuts and unemployment. Gradually it is changing our outlook on life and our language reflects it. It gives out the subtle message that life is simply about money - about lots of it or about having less: too much or too little. Is that all? I hope not. It is a sad story, that's true, but we are made of stronger stuff and we will get through this and find another tale to tell with a happier ending. At least, I am trusting so.

Night Train to Lisbon

I am reading a fascinating book.* A respected college lecturer, expert in ancient languages, fluent in many tongues, reliable, trusted professional colleague of many years' standing is in crisis. One day he walks out of his old life, leaves his briefcase full of books on the table of the lecture room and disappears. At that moment he exchanges certainties for uncertainties, security for adventure, respect and adulation for humble anonymity. Why?

A fleeting encounter with a Portuguese woman on a bridge in Bern, a chance introduction to a book of wisdom in a language he now needs to learn open up new possibilities. In the space of a few life-changing hours he is thrust into a new culture, a new language and a new mindset and finds himself on a bewildering quest for those parts of his being that have never been realised. What might I have been if I had not followed this particular path in my youth? What could I have become if I had turned another way? Who would I have been if I could have seen my reflection in the eyes of a different set of peopl? Where did all those other abandoned parts of me go? The night train to Lisbon provides a time and a space for him to consider these questions.

Identity, such a fragile thing: such a precarious concept. Mundus imagines himself as others see him. Do they see what he sees? His students, his fellow academics... how do they see him? His wife, what does she see? "Am I boring?" he asks her. The Portuguese author he is now pursuing through the streets of Lisbon, because he is entranced by the wisdom of his book, describes a disturbing experience in his own life. Peering through the window of a department store, he finds his vision obstructed by his own reflection in the glass. As he gazes into the window at this representation of himself another man stands behind him, lighting up a cigarette and staring at the reflection of the man in front of him. The author is paralysed by the sudden thought 'what does he see?' How can he understand the disparity between the outer and the inner self. Who am I? Am I what I see or what others see? How reliable is what a man sees? Does he see reality or does he see a modified image, a reflection of his own self, his limited knowledge, his prejudices, his desires and dislikes in the object of his gaze? Does what he sees tell us something of the nature of the one whom he sees or only truths about the beholder? Reflections of reflections... concepts of being...

Life is not so fixed as it seems, perhaps, nor identity so sure. Maybe it does us all good sometimes to take the night train to Lisbon and re-examine our own possibilities.Perhaps we can recapture something that has been lost, take a new turn, experience something fresh and new. Who knows what we could become.

*  Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

Freight Train From Watchet

Watchet is no fools’ paradise,
No easy suntrap for idle tourists –
Bristles with history and hardship,
Commerce and men’s toil.

White waves pound on Watchet’s shore;
Boats bob in the harbour.
Fishermen on Watchet’s wall
Are waiting for a catch,
Watching and waiting…
Harbour walls glisten, green and damp;
Masts jingle in the breeze,
Gusts of wind whip up the sea –
Day trippers take care!

Watchet is no fools’ paradise,
No easy suntrap for idle tourists –
Bristles with history and hardship,
Commerce and men’s toil.

Ida Lucy in a long black skirt
Waits on the busy quay,
Toddler by her side,
My mother in her arms,
Watching and waiting…
Almost a hundred years ago,
Waiting for Albert,
Watching these shores
Till war broke out.

Little museum tells its story
Of iron ore and ships,
Setting out for the open sea
From its plucky little harbour.

Even the steam train, laden
With tourists, pauses for thought
At Watchet’s harbour,
Recalling it’s history,
Watching and waiting…
Here past and present meet
In fading photographs,
Women in long skirts
Shopping in Swain Street.

Watchet is no fools’ paradise,
No easy suntrap for idle tourists –
Bristles with history and hardship,
Commerce and men’s toil.

I've just been back in time, exploring my roots, staying in the Somerset village where my mother grew up and where we spent so many summer holidays on visits to my grandparents. We visited Watchet, that feisty little harbour town where my mother was born, just before the onset of war. They were hard times and Watchet is no chocolate-box, thatched-cottage rural idyll. It has guts. It 'bristles with history and hardship' but it has charm too and I was certainly touched by it. Strange to spend your holiday wondering if your mother walked up this street holding Ida Lucy's hand, if she rode over these moors when she grew up, if she stood and looked at this view from the top of the hill, close to our holiday cottage or stood on the harbour wall, looking out to sea...

Life's Little Luxuries

The day is rushing by me. I’m tired, but pleased with myself. I made myself do the cleaning first thing, before anything else, before I had time even to think of putting it off! It’s enough! I’ve cleaned, shopped and done some research for family birthday presents, strolling about armed with pen and paper, making notes, writing down prices and annoying shop assistants by asking questions, comparing prices and buying nothing. Not yet! That will come later when I’ve had time to think.

Thinking – that’s one of life’s little luxuries. It’s so good to stop, to sit idly by the window of ‘Het Konings Huys’, the friendly hotel restaurant in the market square at the heart of town. The King’s House! Well, there’s a fitting place to while away the morning, taking time for a spot of ‘mindfulness’.

Time to reflect, time for me, time to let life drift past taking my thoughts with it and restoring my soul. The music wafts gently over me… “this crazy life…”, “whatever comes our way” – snatches of a song that enhances the moment, slows me down. I didn’t really need the coffee but I needed to stop. If not, I would have hurried straight home and found myself mechanically embarking on the next task on my list. It’s my day off, but there’s still a long to-do list. It’s time to firmly push away all thoughts of what is written on it and drift! So I’m here in this hotel instead.

Living in the present – so hard to do! Enjoying the moment! Last year our annual summer getaway took us to Wales where, totally won over by some clever internet photography, we fell in love with an idyllic, riverside, Welsh holiday cottage and buried ourselves there for a whole week of blissful doing nothing. This year we will return – for two weeks! A bubbling stream burbled on past the kitchen window, stopping me in my tracks time and again, entranced by its simple beauty and making it impossible to continue on my way without slowing down to match its gentle rhythm.

I am learning, slowly, that life is too short to be busy all the time, however pressing the need. As I sit, I soak up the knowledge that there is a flow to life if only I just stop once in a while to acknowledge it. There is a stream that beckons me to jump in and be washed downstream in its gentle, invigorating flow and give up the relentless fight through today’s list of chores. Often enough, I find that, re-energised by these moments of reflection, I have more than enough – later- to see me through the day and accomplish at least enough of the necessary tasks to send me to bed happy.

Mindfulness, meditation, enjoying the moment – there will never be another moment precisely like this, with these people in this place… I think maybe I need to learn this, to practise, to perfect the art. It’s a lot more fun than housework… but maybe, with practice, I can find a way of relishing the moment and enjoying even that for what it is… Maybe…? Maybe I need another cup of coffee while I think about it.