The Imagination of Trees: 2009-05-10

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

moving on

There are so many decisions made in one lifetime. There are so many factors which lead us to make them. There are so many responses to our decisions and so many factors which lead to the responses to our decisions that in the end some people just give up trying to make them. Every decision has consequences and risks.

There are many occasions in my life where I have wished I had decided to act differently or to do the same thing in a different way. There are decisions that I have made which people have found very difficult to live with and accept. There are decisions that people have tried to get me to change. There are times when I have decided to change my decisions.

But sometimes there are decisions that we take in order to preserve our own lives. Perhaps these are the decisions with the most brutal consequences of all. In extreme situations this can be the choice between taking someone's life or sparing it. In our interior worlds sometimes our emotional and psychological safety is at risk and we find ourselves making decisions for our own mental well-being which other people find shocking or incomprehensible. If they thought of it as a life-or-death situation in a field of war they would see it differently. I am sure of that.

Sometimes I am shocked in Pastoral work when someone is in need and the Church Community are providing support and people say that someone 'has a family and they are not doing anything for their parent even though they live locally'. There is usually a judgement being made that the son or daughter who lives in the vicinity should visit the elderly relative because they are the closest relative and the Church has other work to do with those who are totally alone. But I think differently about this. There is always something we don' t know. People are different behind closed doors. We all keep secrets, we all have complicated experiences. When someone becomes old it is considered a basic courtesy to consider them elderly and therefore vulnerable and in need of our pity and compassion. This is all true but the fact of this rarely diminishes the truth of who they were in their prime of life.

I am thinking this morning of who we are in essence. Can the monstrous mother really become a quaint and eccentric old sweetheart simply because years have passed? Can the person I was at 19 still be the same person I am at 37? Can it be that those who knew us in infancy also know us in our maturity and our old age? Can anyone speak with authority about who a person is or who they are likely to become? Our responses to our experiences and the decisions we make to ensure our survival all shape the path of our lives and they can lead us to places we do not always want to go, leaving people we do not want to leave.

I do not think I am the same person now that I was then. I would find it depressing if I were. The hopes and dreams and aspirations I held dear then would not fulfil me now. The relationships I had then would not be fruitful now. The unhelpful things I left behind me would be impossible to pick up now because I do not have the room to carry them.

My original introduction

This photo was taken by my husband Graham on Iona. It is important here because it represents the way in which my Mum's death and funeral offered me healing. It marks a point at which I have decided, as she did, to be fully myself and live every moment given to me as fruitfully as I can. As part of this I wanted to start a 'new thing' and start allowing people to see more of my writing and therefore live my life more openly.
This blog is a response to the insights so many shared at Mum's funeral. I discovered there that my Mum was so much more than simply my Mum. She was never a saint, had many flaws, she could be frustrating and difficult like me. But I realise that these things were tiny when balanced next to her capacity for living and for giving. What emerged from her funeral was an image of a woman whose appetite for life and for quality of life was remarkable. She was entirely herself with everyone, whatever the cost. She gave all that she had to the people she loved, she fed us, nurtured us and showed us that every detail of every day was a blessing.
I am giving you my writing as part of the fruits of my life and person in honour of her memory and continued presence in my life. It is a risk I am now willing to take. She has given me the courage to live my life boldly.
When my Mum was dying I went to the Cathedral and imagined her saying goodbye at the side of an expanse of water. In my imagination there was a boat waiting for her to depart. In my mind I urged her to get in her boat, turn her back on us all, never look back and hope for the light on the other side of the water.
The boat story of Jesus telling terrified disciples not to be afraid in the storm and calming the waves has always been comfort to me in the storms of my life. There are so many ways of looking at the symbolic meaning of a boat.
For me this photo speaks to me about a song called 'Lord you have come to the lakeside' and in it there is a line. 'Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side, I will seek other seas.' It is a line which kept coming to me as a friend of mine sat at her Aunt's bedside in her final hours. I sang it for her and her partner as they said their goodbyes as a prayer for them, because I knew how much they liked it. I think it began to speak to me too. When I urged my Mum to the other shore it seemed that her boat was only her own and no one could be in it with her. In her death I do feel called to 'seek other seas' as a new beginning with which to honour her departing.

Books I'm reading & books I've just read

The New Black; Mourning and Melancholia by Daniel Leader
The Time Travellers Wife
Retribution by Maureen Duffy
The Summer Book by Tove Janson
Voice Over by Celine Curiol
Perfume by Patrick Siskund
Loads of Alan Bennett's writings
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Salmon Fishing in The Yemen
Engelby, Sebastian Faulks
The Lolipop Shoes; Joanne Harris
The Prospect of Heaven: Musings of an Enquiring Believer, Frederick Levison
The Courage to Connect; Becoming all we Can Be, Rosemary Lain-Priestley

About my Writing

My writing tends towards the poetic, it has also been described as filmic. It is intensely personal and seeped in Christian imagery and thinking. I think it is spiritual writing in that it is rooted in the belief that there is a God and that God is very real to us in this time and place on earth. I write because it is something I am unable to live without. I write because it is healing and therapeutic. I write out of instinct and because I am by nature 'a writer'. I write for myself and for others that I know and love. I write for specific occasions and for purposes as well as for its own sake. Writing is a pleasure for me.
I write sporadicallly and as the mood takes me, it is not a disciplined exercise but something which emerges from my soul when it needs to be created. I have been astonished to find that people around me need my writing. They ask for what I have written and they ask for more. This blog is an attempt to meet that demand, not because I feel pressured to do so, but because God has given me a gift and it is begging to be used. People are asking me to us this gift fruitfully.
I think my writing is healing in its nature, it is soulful and intimate, it reaches places within us which we do not understand and it sometimes moves people to tears. It doesn't seem that writing like this is a productive or lucrative affair. It is not a 'niche market', it is not designed for profit or thought through in any sense. This approach would disable it.

The Imagination of Trees