Happiness Matters

July 4, 2022

Testing Positive

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Testing positive

Sorry, this isn’t a post about the current isolation rules, the different expectations between England and RUK, though it could be: one of my immediate family tested positive yesterday, and we are still working out what to do about it. I expect that we will buy in a few more Covid tests, make a plan, and try to stick to it. Positive family member will isolate until they have two negative tests; in the meantime, it is highly likely that we will all catch Covid, and if we do, we isolate until we all have two negative tests.

No, my thoughts run in a different direction this morning: My mother is now staying in Montrose. While husband, daughter and I were away in Paris for a few days at the end of June – we all tested negative several days in a row – arrangements were put in motion for my mother to transfer north. With the decision a fait accompli before our return from holiday, a week later, bags and books packed and private ambulance organised for the trip from Edinburgh, Mum is now in a new home.

I have felt, and do feel, grief about this. The move was sudden, and, given the long silence, unexpected. But there are other thoughts that flit in my head, so abruptly emptied of things to think about: where there were pre-occupations, these are now not my problem, and I have a lot of space, into which thoughts are apt to enter, pause, meander and get lost for a while before being retrieved and dealt with.

I also notice, while chatting or being with others, that I’ve been in the habit of continually checking-in mentally, to see what I should be thinking about or doing for or with my mother. Now, I don’t have any of that to do at all, and though old habits are hard to break, I’m sure I will get used to it.

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June 15, 2022

Waiting to be noticed

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Waiting to be noticed

Me? Religious? Not so you would notice, though I do believe in God.

Otherwise, how do I make sense of all this? Why do I have a home, a place to rest my head and a husband who loves me, when others don’t? Why do I have the most amazing child in the Universe? It hardly seems fair, otherwise. There has to be a reason in all this random abundance, so apparently casual and replete with generosity. All this loveliness, just waiting to be noticed.

When I realise that every atom in the Universe is unique, I feel breathless for a while, until I can feel my lungs filling again, and I relax. When I despair at the stupidity of those who should know better – why fight wars, and disputes over land? It’s not as if you can take it with you! – I want to shake them that make those far-off decisions which carry such deadly consequences and tell them to wake up! That to destroy what we barely understand is to blaspheme against the most amazing miracle that is Life Itself. It is urgent, I feel, to have some respect, for Christ’s sake. As my sister says, “There are no pockets in a shroud.”

Meantime, in the midst of knowing how mind-blowingly lucky I am, I carry on doing what I have to: visits to the supermarket, the bank, to see my mother in the care-home where she is no happier than she ever was… I’m away on holiday soon, and have to run the gauntlet of airports, security, bodies seat-belted in, overhead ventilation and everyone on their phones…

I think – when I stop to think – that all of this is such a miracle, we hardly need anything else – no flights, no foreign holidays – to make it better. If we could just wake up and see what is, we would marvel, and never cease to be amazed.

***

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May 12, 2022

Casting Off

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Casting off

In scenes of family life, I see myself surrounded by strong people. My parents and siblings seem, most of the time, to have cherished many opinions, and I would be the first to say that I have learned to listen. I am a good listener.

Recently in the post-office, I found myself studying the cards and notelets on sale, glancing up at the outsize posters on the walls and wondering which ones I actually liked. Which in fact, were to my taste? And I struggled to answer. Because in my birth family I have so often been cast as ‘the youngest’ and one most in need of help and advice, my opinions have been muted so that even now, I struggle to know which of the many things I do, I do because they are my choice. Which of the many things I possess, do I hold because I choose to?

I struggle to know what I enjoy and what my tastes are. And when I know, I still find it hard to honour them: Wonderful walk on a sunny day, lovely meal, beautiful painting? Maybe later…

So often my choices have been coloured by wondering, “Would s/he like that? Would s/he approve? What would s/he do?” I discover, in late middle age, that learning to choose and decide for oneself, is something that most adolescents get through. As my own daughter nears the end of her teenage years, I marvel that she is already making the kinds of choices I still struggle with, navigating the world as I might have hoped to, had I been less cowed, less in awe of others’ certainty.

Yet, my age and experience confer at least a superficial dignity and the assumption that I know what I am doing. As I refine the processes of casting off from old family influences, I find I must go slowly and work in a new way to reach decisions, knowing that others besides me will have to live with their consequences.

The past, they say, is a foreign country, they do things differently there. And, life, as they say, is a work in progress.

I hope I am making progress.

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April 23, 2022

A beautiful season

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A beautiful season

It’s a beautiful season. The crocuses and snowdrops have emerged among the bright, triumphant narcissi, only to be succeeded in their turn by the bulging, generous bunches of pink, white and red blossom of flowering cherry trees and the docile, large-blossomed magnolia all weeping generous petals by suburban roadsides. The sky is blue and the sun is warming gradually.

The world of nature, though we have thoroughly lassoed it to our own purposes, always reminds us that as soon as one beauty fades, another comes out to delight us. Thus, we should not hanker after what has been, but look for what is now, in full blossom.  

Though heartbreak is never far away these days, it’s a lesson I do endeavour to listen to, and learn from.

Sorting through decades-worth of possessions, aware that the few things my mother still might lay claim to – she is now in a residential care home, and cares very much about that – are only the smallest fraction of what, until recently, she might have called her own, I am caught by grief: at the dispersal of her much-loved collection of books, sought over many years and studied carefully, their contents analysed and understood; her clothes, mostly of the everyday variety for comfort, though in a drawer I find some silk scarves, recalling more elegant days when a quick dress change was required for a sudden acte de presence at some function or other; her clay pots and keep-sakes, all carefully preserved, and each with a story that makes them meaningful.

And so I catch myself wondering at the nature of possession and ownership. Which must surely mean, to have an association with an object that makes it meaningful to self, in a unique way that it can never be to others. As soon as the association is lost, and unless a new association is made, (“I remember when Mum used to wear that dress…”) the objects of one’s affection can be passed on; and in some sense must be passed on, since not only are associations unique to each one of us, but each person, each successor must make their own memories in this life: no-one else can do that for us.

Let us hope that we can each make good memories.

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January 6, 2022

All I wanted for Christmas

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All I wanted for Christmas

Having had an ambivalent relationship with the Festive Period for many years – I’ve only recently learned how to truly enjoy the cooking, the jollifications and the present giving – I have often said that all I wanted for Christmas is to be happy. And we have had a truly wonderful Christmas and New Year. As, I hope, did you.

While tidying, mindful of wrappings and boxes to recycle, I reflected on the presents we received: many books, blankets and things to eat: confectionery, biscuits, seasonal jams, oatcakes… Not a techno gadget in sight, and no new clothes either. Instead, perhaps mindful of the climate crisis, rising fuel prices and much murmuring about supply chain problems, we now have enough blankets and scarves to keep warm should the heating go off, enough books to read until next year, and comfort food galore.

Is what we have received as a family an indication of a more general shifting of priorities across society? I do hope so.

While I would not go quite as far as to suggest that presents should only be for children, I do occasionally find the sheer avalanche of goods on offer a little daunting. So I’m heartened to notice a real up-turn in the fortunes of ‘pre-loved’ clothing sellers and the like; and relieved to notice that – finally! – more plastic packaging than ever – plastic-festooned boxes of chocolate, anyone? – are now being presented in recyclable packaging, but perhaps it’s simply that books, blankets and biscuits will always be welcome here.

I find such a clutch of items immensely reassuring and kindly – indeed, I need never worry, this year at least, that I will run out of books to read, and I can save a small fortune on delicious treats and chocolates. Now, all I need to find is an eco-friendly thank you card to send. There are quite a few to choose from…

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December 16, 2021

The Year in passing

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The Year in Passing

The year in passing has taught me a great deal: about the value of patience, humour and empathy, and about the need to be clear about our choices, and unafraid to make them. I wonder how many times I’ve accepted a situation because others have suggested it, or organised it around me, and I’ve just nodded, as is my wont, and allowed it to happen.

I’m a great believer in fate, since I realise that there are some things that, no matter how much we might want them, we cannot have; but I hope that does not mean I am fatalistic, and allow life to drift without purposes of my own. Knowing how much power there is in the choices we make – big and small choices count equally – I’ve become more decisive, which brings an air of freedom and clarity to the things I do. And increasingly, I find that when I make choices – no matter how unlikely – the Universe goes into gear to deliver them to me. How delightful that is!

This year, I have managed, despite my fairly constant domestic duties, to edit into completion three novels – and here I give thanks to my beta readers for their enthusiasm and very insightful suggestions. The first two novels are now submission ready, so in the New Year I shall be submitting again, and more hopeful than I have ever been, of positive outcomes.

With winter, Covid and Christmas in mind, I’ve been tidying our living space, hopeful of refreshing it next year, while buying more ‘pre-loved’ Christmas presents than before. The environment does not need me to throw any more plastic at it, so, with that in mind, meaningful minimalism seems to be this year’s motto: less is more. I only hope that our combined efforts will make a difference to the environment, and mark a shift in our thinking about ‘black-Friday’ spending and consumerism in general. It seems a pity that we so often let that search for “the perfect present” get in the way of enjoyment and our pleasure in company.

I wish you all a very happy Festive Season, with blessings and hope for the New Year 2022. May all our dearest wishes come true.

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November 1, 2021

A Bad Habit

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A bad habit

Last Saturday we went to visit our daughter at University, and at the close of a lovely afternoon – during which it stopped raining for long enough to allow a lovely bright blue sky to emerge, with warm sunshine, a fitting end to British Summer Time – we had the ritual trawl around the supermarket and then back to her digs with several shopping bags.

As husband stood from the car and daughter went to fetch her provisions, I automatically assumed – bad habit – that I would be staying with the car, even although I have no real problem with stairs and do indeed enjoy the challenge of them. While my present self knows that I enjoy a challenge, because of the extra walk, and the stairs to climb to my daughter’s room in a top flat, my more historically timid self bid her a fond farewell, and then sat and waited, for husband to lift and carry his share of the bags and return.

It was only as we were driving away that it occurred to me: I didn’t need to wait by myself with the car. I could have accompanied my husband and daughter up to her flat. They would not have minded, and indeed, it would have been good fun, even if, as I feared, it would have taken an extra ten minutes to do everything. So what? My daughter is not one to resent the minutes I spend at her side, nor would she tut impatiently as she waited for me to catch up.

That I think she might, is a residue of an ancient habit that I have yet to entirely shrug off: This idea of being a nuisance, somehow in the way. The next time we visit, I do hope that I have the courage to simply join in, and not worry about the extra time it takes, to make time for me. I reflect how often I have excused myself rather than face this dilemma, and only now realise that my husband and daughter see me in a very different light from that of my childhood. No longer a nuisance, but a part of their lives, accepted, and expected to participate.

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September 10, 2021

Do people forget?

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Do people forget?

By now, I’ve been intimately involved with my mother’s affairs for several years. And whereas even members of my family will say on occasion, “It’s just to collect Mum’s meds, she’s just out of hospital!” or “It’s only one day, what’s the problem?” I can’t help feeling an ache and exhaustion in my bones, nor can I escape the regret of knowing that doing any physical task – let alone tasks for my mother that have become loaded with worry, regret and sorrow – takes me three times as much energy as for someone who walks easily, who can stroll at the run twice as fast as I stagger, and who doesn’t have to worry about falling off pavements and such like. For me, there are no longer any ‘simple’ things.

Do people forget to see that? In the midst of others’ busy lives, I find that my very real limitations impede their expectations of what I will do for them. Even my nearest and dearest sometimes appear to be oblivious to my exhaustion. But though I’m still here, still working, I have finally begun to accept that the end result of continuing to work as I have done, navigating and dealing with constant demands and a shifting landscape of imperatives and semi-disasters, for me will be complete physical and emotional collapse.

I have no wish to go down that route. So, as a first priority, I have to do what I can to set my own agenda and stick with it. Faced with seemingly endless and tiring jobs to manage for other people, this is the only answer I can summon: I must do first what I need to do, and the rest will have to be dealt with by others, or simply not dealt with. Any and various disasters that crop up will either have to be endured, allowed to languish, or sorted out, and not always by me. It’s what we planned for in any case: no-where has it ever been writ, or stated, that I am my mother’s physical carer, or that I am available for her every beck and call.

In recognition of that, I have to truly begin to accept my limitations and step back, so that, little by little, I can reassert my right to make choices which, though they may not always be the best, are at least my own.

My mother will approve of my desire to reassert my freedom in what is, after all, my own life.

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May 5, 2021

More lessons learned in lockdown

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More lessons learned in lockdown

We may never get back to the way things used to be: the ‘new normal’ may well be here to stay, and in some ways, the year-long lockdown feels to me like a dress rehearsal for the real business of saving the planet, which means that we all have to urgently redesign our lives around low-impact living: using less, saving more of our stuff, repairing, mending and tidying, instead of taking the line of least resistance and first resort to high-gear newness.

The way things have been running is expensive – I don’t mean financially – careless and extravagant in ways we are finally beginning to appreciate. And too often, it is other people and creatures in distant places that are now paying the cost for our extravagance. So what more lessons have I learned during lockdown this year?

I’m now as much of a vegetarian as I can be, which is to say I avoid meat and fish, though when I feel the need to eat a portion of chicken curry that everyone else is having, I will do so, and I will eat sardines occasionally. I’m not a meat reducer and not a vegan, since although I avoid milk and cheese products, I do reserve the right to eat eggs. Vegetarianism feels like a release from the old tired expectations of ‘meat and two veg’ as I finally give myself permission to extend my usual range and eat the things I really do prefer: grapefruit and soya yogurt with breakfast, almond and cashew butter as well as peanut butter; more vegetables and greens, more home-made soup…It’s such a relief to enjoy my food more, and to enjoy cooking. Conversely, it is astonishing to see how quickly I turn away from meat. So there is, in me, no sense of hardship, nor any need to buy ‘fake’ bacon to fill some perceived longing or lack.  

I’m using bamboo products more, instead of traditional paper options so often sourced from wood-pulp and paper; and sustainable and natural fibre clothing wherever possible. There is of course a place for using recycled paper products, and those often made from rags and such like. But once I started looking at what can be made from bamboo – food to eat, clothes, cups, utensils – I had to ask myself what took me so long to clock on.

(To be continued.) Thanks for reading.

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April 29, 2021

Life as I know it

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Life as I know it

It seems that my life as I know it is about to change, though I have no idea when. My mother, who for several years has ‘enjoyed indifferent health’ – the kind of health that Georgette Heyer gifts to the hypochondriacal mothers of her feisty heroines, so my mother would appreciate the joke: she doesn’t enjoy her indifferent health at all – is on a steady decline. Another one, following several previous occasions when her life hung in the balance. It is testament to her strength of character that she has come so far, so often pulling herself back from the brink by sheer willpower and refusal to concede defeat.

And I’m grateful for the time we have had together, time which, I reflect, we didn’t have while my siblings and I were growing up. Sent off to boarding schools – two apiece, my eldest sister and brother to one, my twin sister and I to a different one – as unlike Mallory Towers as it is possible to imagine, we grew up apart, finding solace, I suspect, in learning, reading and books, much as my mother has always done.

The times when Mum was at home with us – school holidays, mostly – I remember her working hard at her typewriter / computer, in her own thoughts, in her workspace. Determined not to follow that particular example of absenting oneself from the rest of life, I have made a very conscious effort to set my work aside whenever I have company, and so far, the effort has paid dividends. I am not as work obsessed as my mother was, nor as I used to be, since I appreciate with fresh urgency how precious is time spent with other people. A realisation that has become crystal clear during lockdown.

Being in my mother’s company has taught me to be patient, and that there is always room for cheerfulness and optimism; being cheerful and optimistic is often the best thing we can gift to any situation. That is a lesson that will stand me in good stead, and for which I am immensely grateful. Why things are as they are, is often unknown to us; but we can appreciate the progress we make in each day, being kinder and gentler with one another. In being so, there is less to regret, less to worry about. A wonderful lesson to have collected from being with Mum.

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