Love is …

Her name is Devi. I see her every day. She works in the big house next door. We smile at each other when we meet accidentally. I see her in the garden, watering their plants, taking out rubbish bins, sweeping dead leaves. I see her in the courtyard, putting things out to dry in the sun – red chilies, black pepper and coffee beans. We have no common language except our smiles.

My neighbour says she was born in this village and has hardly ever left. She has been a house-help for decades. She doesn’t have a phone. She doesn’t like dogs. She doesn’t talk much. She has no teeth and loves drinking coffee. She takes Fridays off. Her husband died a long time ago. Her son moved to some big town some distance away. Her granddaughter goes to architecture school. That’s all I know.

She is a woman. A wife. A mother. Working. Making ends meet. She has suffered losses of various kinds and she smiles often, especially when someone smiles at her. She is looking after herself the best she can.

On a closer look, she is like me. We have a lot in common. While our bodies are materially different, we are nourished by the same air and the same Earth. The same sun and stars shine upon us, and we come from the same soil. We both wear green glass bangles.

My thoughts, feelings and stories are possibly different from hers, but we are both aware of our respective experiences. What is it that’s aware of all this? If my mind would journey back from the stuff of life to the source of its knowing, where would it find itself? In a field of awareness. We both have that field in common. Each of our minds shares the same awareness. The aspiration of the mind is to be relieved of all the limitations of its perception. That is why my heart is happy to see her in the mornings. While I respect our differences at a relative level, I hold a deep understanding that we are essentially, the same infinite being.

The experience of love is that intuition of our shared being with all Beings! No two. Only one. If each one of us could take this understanding into every situation, I wonder what kind of place our world would be.

(Inspired by the Advaita, or Non-Duality teachings of Rupert Spira)

An Irish Legend

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Most of his stories are based in small towns and villages of 1950s Ireland. He writes about the underdog: small men and hard-done-by women. He has a deep concern for sexual exiles. His writing is true to that time in history because he normalizes silence, evasion and ambiguity. His fiction reads like truth. It reminds me of the time we lived in Northern Ireland. Almost every day I was flummoxed by the response I got on asking a colleague, how they were.

“Not too bad.”

I was never sure what that meant. Were they well? Or not as well as before? Or not as unwell as before? Not as well as they could be? Bad, but not too bad? I soon came to accept that as normal. In time I came to understand it as a safe answer – not giving away too much. It was historical.

William Trevor was a genius at talking about the unknown known, of knowing and not knowing at the same time. A cognitive disjunction. A common social ailment.

Yes. Mary Louise is in a loveless marriage to an older man and everyone in their small town knows but they pretend like they don’t.

Yes. Everyone knows that Elmer is becoming an alcoholic, but they act like they don’t.

I lately read ‘Two Lives: Reading Turgenev & My House in Umbria’ – a book with two artful novellas by Trevor. Reading Turgenev was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in its time. My House in Umbria was made into a film in 2003, available on YouTube. I haven’t watched it but apparently Maggie Smith is brilliant and the end has been changed for Hollywood.

For me, the protagonists of both these stories exemplify how hidden and unacknowledged grief can escort one to the thin red line between sanity and insanity. Both women are poorly understood even by people who claim to love them, their coping labelled as unacceptable, erratic and bonkers. Judged, condemned and outcast for simply managing their losses. Punished for somehow managing their loss. And finally, put away.

September

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Last month the blackberries in Wiltshire were lush. Competing with the bees, popping them into my mouth within one second of picking them. Thorns or no thorns. Chemicals or no chemicals. Forgetting to take any home. Feasting on the juicy little blobs, licking my purple fingertips, not bothered by the juice forming maroon dots on my yellow t-shirt. That was ecstasy. Big thanks to the hidden roots of the blackberry bush, the wind, insects and bees, the soil, the birds, the people who planted it, the sun, and the changing seasons.

For years we have witnessed the fullness of the ash tree behind our house thin down to a bear skeleton in the autumn. It stood naked through the winter. Come spring, it was fulsome again. We came to think of it as our friendly live green screen. It beautified the views from our windows and was home to so many birds that woke us up in the morning. Three years ago, our neighbor hacked one branch off, saying it was sick as it was dropping heavy twigs in his garden, unprovoked. Over the last few years, it’s been dwindling. No leaves old or new for the past two cycles. Now we wake up to a skeleton of a tree and an eerie silence. No birdsong. A few crows and pigeons. That’s all.

Yesterday, we watched on sadly as two tree surgeons with helmets, chainsaws, ropes and harnesses methodically chopped off one branch after another. Within a few hours all that was left of it was a neat round flat surface slightly raised from the ground, with many fine irregular concentric rings. In the space above this stump my eyes fabricate a ghost tree every time they look.

It must have risen from a dark cold earth, God knows when. In reaching toward the sun, it was majestic. It had a quiet dignity and poise. It knew how to gracefully let go of old forms of life. It balanced the perennial energies of the winter and spring within its living bark. It was a wise old teacher, hospitable towards new forms of life. Standing still, it showed me the meeting point of two journeys – the path inwards and the road outwards.

(Inspired by a passage from Eternal Echoes by John O’Donohue)

Grey day

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I didn’t light his candle today. Not because I forgot. But I just couldn’t be bothered. He left without saying bye. I know it’s silly to bring this up now, after so many years. He needed to do whatever it was he needed to do. He needed to go. I understand. But the missing makes my heart crumble again and yet again. How is it possible to keep going after its smashed so many times? It feels like the old yellow rubber duck in his bath, being stamped heavily upon, by a topless angry Arnold Swarzenegger wearing big black military trousers and boots. What is this thing that pretends to drum in my chest, tattered and torn?

He broke the rule. Saying good-night was our ritual for many years. After settling him in his bed, I religiously kissed him on his chin, both his cheeks, first left and then the right, his closed eyes, first the left and then the right and then, once on his forehead. He put his little arms around my neck and we both held each other for a short while before I switched off the light and went to my room. We loved it and slept peacefully.

He didn’t respect our little rule. Maybe he couldn’t. But, I deserved at least, a proper good bye. But then, can anyone truly know who deserves what?

all my love,

endlessly

black and white portrait.

It changes. And changes again.

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Over and over I asked myself – Now what? Now what? What happens after a severance such as this? How long do one’s bones bleed? Do the tears ever finish? What does ‘recovery’ look like? Is it even possible? How does one keep placing one foot in front of the other? Where is the road? Where does it come from? Where does it go? How long and meandering is it? When does the screaming in my head stop? How long can I keep up the facade? Pretend to be sane? Is this what a new diagnosis of a terminal illness feels like? Is forgiveness possible? Self-forgiveness? Acceptance? Surrender? All these big words! Surrender what? To whom? Who am I now? What do I do?

No answers. Silence. The tilted earth keeps spinning around its imaginary axis. It keeps cradling me. The sun stays at the center of its orbit. My son stays at the center of my being. My breath keeps coming and going. I grow new eyes. My bones carry my weight even though they bleed. The road appears under my feet. It reveals itself one step at a time. Rumi and Khalil Gibran come and hold my hand. The screaming softens. The wall of bricks that was my body, loosens. I come to know the terror and the joy of being insane, catch glimpses of being free. Respect for those who went before and sadly others, who follow. I stop fighting with the big words and keep it simple. Watch. Observe. See. Open. Let the gash in my heart, allow the light in.

A recent talk for The Compassionate Friends, a charity dedicated to supporting bereaved families.