The deep shy wells filling up fast just behind the translucent veils of my eyes, he can see.
The innate need of those silent wells to spill, overflow and sometimes cause the floodgates to break open, he can understand.
The fleeting invisible memory that dramatically dances across the fields of vision, mid-sentence, he can sense.
The black smoky sadness that sits inside my hollow throbbing chest, breathing itself in and out of every cell all day and all night, he can feel.
The villainous thoughts that come pounding savagely on the doors of my skull repeatedly hacking at the delicate synapses within, he can hear.
The childlike need for a carefree little jive around the kitchen table, he can share.
The latent desire to synchronise my irregular heavy sighing breaths with his joyful light calm ones, he can know.
The inbuilt, deep set vault filled with priceless gems of secrets and hopes, he can reach.
The obvious potential for boundless joy, love, freedom and creativity, he can fathom.
The big thanks I want to say to the generous kindness of the Universe to have placed us next to each other on this short trip, he can imagine.
Thank you Si.
belonging
Day 505
Sadler’s Wells and Old Vic are two iconic theatres in London. The former is famous for its dance performances and the latter for theatrical ones. This week we happened to visit both of them. The last time I visited these two venues, Saagar was with me.
I looked at the seats we had and remembered what we watched, the restaurants where we had dinner, the food we ordered, others who went with us, his light flirtations with the waitress, some of the jokes we shared, him excusing himself to go out for a smoke… everything.
Is there ever an end to heartbreak? How many times is it possible for one poor heart to shatter? How sustainable is the process? What is this ‘motherhood’ thing? Why is it so strong and painful? The scientific analogy that best summarizes it for me is maternal-fetal microchimerism– a phenomenon of fetal cells crossing the placenta and establishing lineages within the mother. These fetal cells have been documented to persist and multiply in the mother for several decades. So Saagar and I are likely to have some of each other’s intact cells inside us forever — as I have with my mother, and she with hers, and so on.
Elizabeth Stone says “having a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” To me, that includes half my DNA, some of my cells, and so many of my hopes and dreams, all in one sweet, kissable, adorable package. The one I lost.
Day 501
Ikebana is the ancient Japanese art of flower arranging in practice for the last 600 years. It developed from the Buddhist ritual of offering flowers to the spirits of the dead. By the middle of the fifteenth century, with the emergence of the first classical styles, ikebana achieved the status of an art form independent of its religious origins, though it continued to retain strong symbolic and philosophical overtones.
In 2012 Saagar left home for university, about 5 hours away. I missed him so much that I avoided coming home in the evenings. After attending an Ikebana exhibition and a few demonstrations, I was enamoured by the beauty and creativity in those arrangements. I started taking lessons in Ikebana once a week. The classes were held in the evening. They brought me close to the smells and textures of various kinds of fresh flowers and foliage. I learnt some lovely musical names like Lisianthus and Zantedeschia. I also learnt to match them with their faces. I could now appreciate the depth of the redness of dogwood and the palpable tenderness of rose buds. It was a whole new world of shapes, materials, colours, techniques, spaces and movements. It was meditative in its own serene way. A couple of hours went by in the blink of an eye.
After a gap of nearly 18 months, I restarted the lessons last week. It is heart warming to be reunited with old friends.
Day 498
It started with a box of chocolates. In 1979, one woman identified the need for a day-care centre for the mentally ill in a small community in Birmingham. She took a box of chocolates to their hostel and soon became friends with them. She slowly gathered community resources in the form of food, clothes, space and people in order to help them regain their self esteem.
Kinmos became a place where they could find warmth, refreshment, recreation and above all friendship. A few months later the Kinmos Volunteer Group was registered as a charity and by July 1980 it’s first full time paid organiser had been appointed. A great number of people from the local community, the churches, schools, businesses, individuals and the grant making authorities contribute to enabling Kinmos to pay salaries and running costs and providing equipment, gifts, food and funding for parties and outings. Kinmos continues to provide a haven where all who visit can find relaxation, support, friendship and respect. It also offers
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One to one support and encouragement focusing on good mental and physical health and well-being;
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An early intervention strategy to delay the need for support from other statutory bodies by closely monitoring service users’ triggers and detecting early warning signs of deterioration in their mental health and
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Support to carers and families.
This story fills me with hope.
I believe that each one of us can do something when we have passion and compassion.
Day 497
‘Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football-pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.
His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.
When teacher talks he won’t hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the pattern off his plate
And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State.
Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor
And they say there aren’t boys like him anymore.
Old Man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy’s dosed with an aspirin.
The welfare Worker lies awake
But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.
At Morning Prayers the Master helves
for children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars “Amen!”
So come one angel, come on ten
Timothy Winters says “Amen Amen amen amen amen.”
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen’
This poem was written by Charles Causley in the 1950s. He was a primary school teacher and this account is based on a real child.
Research has linked exposure to abuse, neglect and other forms of severe adversity in childhood to a wide range of mental and physical illnesses including cancer. This understanding can make a profound change in the way we prevent illness.
Parenting is an art form that should be taught formally to all prospective parents. People too often think of “trauma” as something extreme, like being directly physically abused, but there are so many ways, on a continuum, trauma can occur and one’s perception of a situation can cause it to have a traumatic effect, even if the “perpetrator” didn’t intend to abuse.
Good parenting has to be one of the most difficult jobs in the world.
kidsaregifts 