Bubble of one.

They said you can travel within the UK. I did. Took a few days off and invited myself to a friend’s place in Aberarth, Wales. Excitedly booked a ticket from London Euston to Aberystwyth via Birmingham and back.

I’ve never had so much space travelling from anywhere to anywhere, ever. It was like moving from one fake film set to another. A story where nothing happens. No one meets anyone. Nothing is exchanged. No conversations are overheard. Even my tickets were not checked. I was truly in a bubble of one. The announcements were made by invisible human voices. Welcome to … but there was no one there. No shoulders brushed. No smiles. No queues at the solitary coffee shop at Euston.

Finding a window seat was no problem as there were at least 30 to pick from. As my train sped out of London, land and sky were revealed. Every now and then I got a glimpse of little streams of water holding a string of multi-coloured narrow boats along their edges. The sun glistened the patchwork of fields. The horizon was a long horizontal line interrupted only by thickets and vertical carpets of green.

Townships appeared with colourful children’s play-areas crying out for children. Don’t know why I tried to log on to the Train Wi-Fi but they wanted me to agree to a multitude of things which was the perfect excuse to put the laptop away and simply enjoy the ride. Branches burgeoning with white, pink and yellowish-green life, embellished the pliable black skeletons of trees, dancing to the tune of spring. Spring, the upward thrust of sap through roots and trunks to the fulsome tips of cold branches.

Nowhere to buy a bottle of water at the normally chaotic Birmingham International Airport Station. No noise other than the oh-too-loud announcements. Toilets, the cleanest they’ve ever been, on and off the train. From one desolate platform to another, I changed to a country train with 2 carriages meandering through gentle hills and fields towards the sea, stopping at places I’d never heard of before – Y Trallwng, Drenewydd and so on. I felt my fists loosen to receive this new freshness.

The next 3 hours were a dream. Ewes tailed by their cute little lambs scattered on both sides of the rail track. Lamb ears sticking out of their heads at a jaunty angle and their tails wiggling with joy! Clear waters mirrored the dance of life all around. Green slopes rose and fell in a soft rhythm. And I was here. My eyes were dry and my heart open. I clearly witnessed the fresh air and bright sun work their magic.

A few years back I had believed the season would never change. It would forever be autumn. But it has changed. It really has.

Isness of Is. Clayness of clay.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

T: It came to a point when she couldn’t bear to celebrate Christmas with her family. Her brother and sister and their respective spouses could roll out one child per year effortlessly while she had been through all kinds of tests and procedures, and nothing. Absolutely nothing but heartache and multitudes of unbelievably negative pregnancy tests to show for it. Six years of nothing.

S: Yes. I suppose nobody’s got it all. Some of the missing stuff is obvious and some not. Surely, even those who appear to have it all have their painful stuff hidden away. Who said everyone has to have everything?

T: It’s hard for her to watch other people with their babies. Intolerable. I can understand.

S: Isn’t that like saying no one should walk in front of a man in a wheel-chair? They might be offended. Let’s all pretend we can’t walk. Poor man! It might be intolerable for him.

T: That’s harsh. That’s a completely different situation.

S: It is an extreme example. Yes. It’s all about comparisons though. Isn’t it? You have something that I don’t. By right I should have what you have. Everyone should have it. But everyone is different. Their life path is different. The lessons coming their way are different. Her unhappiness comes from ‘yours’ and ‘mine’, ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’. Kids come with their own brand of drool, cackles, dirty nappies and tantrums. Those things are there for everyone.

T: But her sister’s kid is not hers. That is fact.

S: Indeed. However, the kidness of the kid belongs to the whole world. It’s okay to be jealous – nothing wrong with it. It’s also okay to know there are other possible routes to take, other possible responses to make. She could choose to recognise jealousy as the most conditioned and expected response and embrace it. She could also be present to the pastness of the past, the kidness of the kid, the sisterness of the sister, the aliveness of her life, the heartfulness of her heart and work with that. See what happens. She might be surprised. There might be a beautiful garden behind that wall.

T: It’s hard though.

S: It’s worth a try. There are more Christmases on the way and they want to be happy.

Be the Change

Posted by kidsaregifts20

RIP George Floyd.

The waves of raging violence in one form or another, in the street, on the TV, on Twitter, on Facebook, against the government, against one section of society or another. It is present everywhere I look. It seems to be the problem and the solution. Cops carrying guns to control gun-carrying people. Knees as weapons. Cries for mercy falling on multiple pairs of stone-deaf ears. Rich countries indiscriminately bombing poor ones in the name of peace, to bring them ‘liberty’. International leaders goading each other on to continue expanding their defence budgets.

I was born in a country of huge contrasts. It won its independence from the Brits, who ruled by the gun, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, who lived and led by non-violence which was the core of Gandhi’s contribution to the world. For him nonviolence was the greatest force at the disposal of mankind, mightier than any weapon, superior to brute force. A living force that no one has been or ever will be able to measure the limits or extent of, just like love. In fact, he translated the Sanskrit word, Ahimsa (which literally means non-violence) as love.

True nonviolence is dissociated from fear. Gandhi felt that possession of arms is not only cowardice but also lack of fearlessness or courage. Gandhi stressed this when he said, “I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice but true nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.”

The same country, India, classes some people as ‘untouchables’ and treats them as such. The discrimination against dark skinned people is ugly to watch. You only need to watch an Indian film and look at the mountains of money spent on the skin-whitening cream, ‘Fair and lovely’.

Saagar and I knew what it means to look different, be different. We both suffered in our own ways because of people’s instant judgements, inability to look beyond our skin and their downright unkindness.

Let’s teach ourselves and our children a new alphabet:

A – Abundance of love

B – Belonging / Brotherhood

C – Compassion/Connection

D – Diversity

E – Empathy

F – Forgiveness

G – Giving / Gratitude

H – Harmony / Healing

I – Intimacy

J – Joy

K – Kindness

L – Listening / Learning

M – Meaning

N – Non-violence

O – Openness / Oneness

P – Peace

Q – Quest

R – Remembrance

S – Self-compassion

T – Trust

U – Unity in Diversity / Understanding

V – Victory over our inner demons

W – Wisdom

X – Xanadu (an ideal place of magnificence and beauty)

Y – You matter.

Z – Zeal for love and life.

Ms Autumn

Posted by kidsaregifts20

(‘Autumn’ by Frances Macdonald)

Three weeks ago I had an almighty fall while mindlessly running on an uneven pavement for a bus. I didn’t have to run. I had plenty of time. One second I was vertical and the next, face down, splayed on the side of the road. My hand-bag flew off to the left and my laptop case to the right. In my shock, I stood up like an automaton, gathered my stuff and carried on. The thing that hurt more than my pride was the nailbed of my right little finger. There was some red on it too. Both my knees screamed out. The nearly new jeans from USA bore no traces of a nasty fall but the skin on those knees was definitely open. And, the right elbow… and the left.

Over the next few days I lost my very personal diary which was luckily found in the ‘ladies’ of the office I had visited in Birmingham and kindly returned. I left my shopping bag at the Pharmacy where I was picking up dressings for the old knees. I put bottles of milk and apple juice back in the fridge without screwing the caps on and so on … Am I loosing my mind?

Is the Universe trying to tell me something?
Slow down.
Slow right down.
It’s time to prepare for the stillness of winter.
To face the darkness within and prepare for the birth of light.
A time to let go, like the trees, silently celebrating colours before denuding themselves.

Orange, maroon, ocher, burgundy, terracotta, yellow, red.

One flower-like leaf being let go, after another, until they’re all gone.
Time to witness and breathe in the splendorous grand finale before the end of this cycle. Acknowledge abundance as my natural state of being.

Passively let good things happen, like the mulching, crisping leaves under my feet make the soil more fertile.
To be one with the magic of this season.
Become Ms Autumn.