Finding a way through.
I’m finding life challenging at the moment. Wondering how to manage, it seems to me that the tried and tested methods are the best, and I’ve written about these a lot. I use my writing to help inform my beliefs about Life, the Universe, and what to do when surprises crop up.
I’ve had a few surprises lately: News about my father that makes me grieve; a new old friend in the mix, bringing back memories from decades ago; unexpected delays over a whole host of small and not so important details. Through these concerns, the threads of life weave continuously. Meals need to be prepared, food bought and laundry dried….thank God for the small anchors of domesticity. They drive me bonkers, at times, but they also give me something to do when my brain goes off the deep end, into memories filled with dark eddies and painful compromises.
I wish I had had more courage, and talked more honestly of what mattered to me. If I had cultivated honesty instead of silence, I might be better at dealing truthfully with what matters to me now. My father, whom I love so much and without being able to express it well, is going to be passing on soon. My husband deserves to hear more about what is troubling me, but suitable words seem to be on sabbatical.
My first tool for coping is to surrender. A quote in my IN box lately came via Ingrid Bergmann, who said, ‘Happiness is good health and a bad memory’ and I am relieved to hear it. I enjoy the reminder that the past may be real, but is not as real as the shadows beneath the trees I can see over the road. And in the midst of life’s unexpected challenges, it is anyway easier not to think about our preoccupations. Somehow, that makes them bigger and more looming. As they get bigger, they cast a wider shadow over the rest of life.
The next tool is notice how far I have come. Not to dismiss the compromises and the dignified silence, but to see these as the best I could manage, at the time.
And finally, keep eating. Oatcakes at three am, with a cup of barley coffee, are remarkably sustaining, and remind me that small acts of love are just as important as big ones.
Thanks for reading. I may not post blogs for a while, and hope you will bear with me. Please do keep in touch.
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October 7, 2015
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Fran Macilvey Books I Have Reviewed, Path To Publication 4 Comments
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Authonomy, the HarperCollins on-line community has closed, and I now know how lucky I have been, to be part of that. The friendships and companionship I found there have been incalculably valuable, the humour and shared solidarity irreplaceable and, for me, uniquely rewarding: With the best will in the world, hubby cannot console me when I am working away in the dead of night, on yet another scheme and hope. Across the airwaves I have found genuine understanding, love and empathy that has fuelled my hopes and kept them alive.
If I am ever invited to speak about my experiences of writing, I favour a very lose, informal beginning, something like, ‘If anyone had told me ten years ago, what I might expect to encounter when setting out on the writer’s journey, I would have run screaming in the opposite direction and not stopped until I had reached rural Italy!’ It is often just as well that we don’t know what’ ahead, and that life proceeds, one step at a time.
I wonder at my fear of authority, for example, that has often left me mute and desperate (yes, rather like the old joke of the boy at the public toilet holding a bent penny in his hand) while others have appeared to surge easily forward. Now I know two things. First, other people are just as fearful and as brave as me; and Second, that life will not fall apart if I ask for what I would like. Indeed, if I am fearless, I may find Life falling together rather well. I just have to locate the courage to ask simple questions, and proceed gracefully from there. Me? Graceful? I can be, apparently, just as we all can. Other people don’t make such a fuss, is all.
I am also deeply saddened at the death of one of my favourite authors, Judith Williamson, a long-standing and much valued member of Authonomy. I just finished reading her first novel, ‘The Mark’ written under her pen-name JL Fontaine. Numerous heartfelt tributes on Facebook and elsewhere testify to the deep love and esteem in which Judith was held.
I was so relieved to have found Judith’s book, and pleased to have become re-acquainted with writing which I can recommend unreservedly, for being empathic, careful and extremely thoughtfully set down. What a pity that Fontaine’s first offering, ‘Stonebird’ (about which there are still a few cache memory references to be found on the Web) has not been published. Now, there would be a project worthy of completion.
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