Lily and the mobile phone guy

What do you do on the anniversary of your daughter's death? It's not the sort of question I imagined I'd have to deal with when I held my 4 newborns in my arms. But it is something I have to think about every year now.

June approaches with stealthy feet, all blossomy with foaming elder trees and blowsy roses, tangled hedgerows of campion and stitchwort and budding honeysuckle, and I get the same feeling of strange dread and an opening heart.

The weeks before have been tumultuous emotionally, flare ups and misunderstandings, journalling and outpourings, private tears and heart connections, jagged, raw poems that can never be seen...realisations and illuminations.

But today, the anniversary of the day 4 years ago that they did the brain stem test in Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, to see if they should turn the life support machine off, well it seemed strangely normal and so so hard to feel any connection with deeper emotions.

Its hard to feel and connect when I'm busy. Doing not being.

We were up early to rush back from a mini break in time for Hugh to go to work, so sweeping caravans and packing at seven instead of a quiet reflective time.
Shopping with the kids for groceries....trying to have a moment of thought over pancakes in a cafe .....jarring with children who were slightly hysterical and tired....
And then for God's sake, meeting the mobile phone repair guy in the supermarket carpark at 4.30. My date with normality. Drawing me into its web with its dulled ravening claws....rushing away from a painting hour where we created angels and doves for Lily's grave...to meet the mobile phone guy, and buy loo roll.

But maybe that's ok. Maybe I don't have to create a perfect hallowed day on June 11th and feel like I've let Lily down if I don't. I did need my phone, we did need loo roll. We did connect over the painting and we did visit Lily's grave.....and we do have spontaneous moments where we feel.

Curled up in a little grassy place we go to sometimes where the younger kids feel safe and relaxed, and say how they miss her.
A moment alone to pick flowers for her table where each blossom seem to glow with the essence of her love for it. Where the world swelled and condensed to a tiny distilled fragment holding Lily and me in its tender embrace.

A chance conversation sitting in the car in the rain with all of my children, remembering, crying, little forgotten details recalled, healing tears.....soothing our struggles alone.
Messages from friends, a kind word which helps grief to flow.

And that is the challenge. To create the space to let the grief move how it will, without dams or blockages or  avoidance tactics, or just the practical demands of daily life. To let Lily into everything. To allow the joy and grief to weave and flow around our lives, the tears sparkling among the breakfast dishes as the laughter ripples into a walk to the garden. No separation. No compartmentalisation.

It is a challenge.

When I meditate, or spend a moment seeking a connection with nature or myself, the tears and emotions are very close to the surface, waiting for a chance to escape the rigid confines of my busy hours where I rush without feeling. I know that the more I do this, the more emotion can flow naturally in my life and become more balanced and help me and my family to heal. I've made a commitment to do this more.

Spending time in nature, in this beauiful place that is our home now,  sitting with a flower, a tree, being quiet and receptive to the spirit that is in everything and in us, makes my heart much bigger and makes me feel that anything is possible. Spending time connecting with friends old and new, in deeper ways, more nurturing ways, makes me not feel alone. Makes me feel the beauty of life, the endless possibilities that are always there.

I guess Lily would just laugh about meeting the mobile phone guy, she just needs us to love her, remember her, connect wih her, just like always. It's another day, like yesterday, like tomorrow.

A day for us all to connect with something more than our mind driven rushing, to open our hearts to a deeper level. Its a huge tapestry of glowing, luminous threads we're part of, all interwoven with the practical homespun browns and greys, the vibrant reds and pinks of daily activity, the soft iridescent violets of our connection to the spirit which is in everything, the subtle greens of nature unfolding....we never stop weaving...

Do you manage to hold all the threads of the loom together.....is it easy for you?

Growing bigger

I've always been tall, often the tallest woman in a gathering, the tallest kid in class, not really, really tall but above average......my weight has slightly fluctuated over the years but I've never been fat or super super thin, just kind of ok.
But you know I've always been small. Kept myself small, squashed myself into small insignificance, self sabotaged, assumed I can't do it, shouldn't do it, would be better if someone else did it. Write the book, illustrate it, raise the child, bake the cake, run the stall, make the speech. Hazy memories of shrinking down behind my desk at school cowering from praise from my English teacher, wishing my navy knee highs were long enough to cover my blushes.  Starting amazing projects, business ideas, courses, books......and abandoning them for fear of what? Fear of failure? Or fear of something else?

 I recently went to see a kinesiologist and what came out of it.....I have.a misguided, inherited pattern to see other people's jewels as more important than my own.
And it wasn't so much of a shock to hear it.
Resentfully bottom of the pile..oh its only me I'll just sit on the floor over there..yes I know I'm 7 months pregnant but its ok really. 

The other day I read a post from Lucy over at Dreaming Aloud What stands between us and thegreatness of our potential
Read it.
 To summarise in a phrase;
 What we are afraid of is not how inadequate we are but how powerful we are.
I read it and reread it and began to watch myself....

Recently I've been writing short stories, quite a few, to enter competitions. (note to self..I really wanted to add "not that I've any chance of winning"....grrr) . I notice that just when I get into the flow, just when I reach that luminous moment when the story seems to twist itself out of my grasp and capture the essence of what I knew was there, without any particular effort from me, just at that moment when my pen is jumping around in my hand from excitement and I'm smiling from that Yes Yes Yes feeling. Guess what? I head off to do the washing up, or sort the laundry, or make sure Freddie is doing his homework, or do a bit of general tidying in the lobby.

Strange isn't it. But familiar?

Its ridiculous that's what.

Ok I don't wear navy knee highs any more...(only in certain situations...just kidding) and I don't blush when someone appreciates something I've done, but I do have to fight hard not to disagree with them. Or I might do one of those little self deprecating put downs...oh yes but you should have seen me when I was .....insert some mildly humourous incident where I seem ridiculous or wrong.

This is where it gets serious.
I am 40, no kidding, my birthday was in December. I say no kidding because it's still a little surprising to me.
I'm pregnant with my fifth child, and pregnant for the eighth time.
I am an adult
I have lost my eldest daughter in a traumatic accident.
My house has burnt down.
I'm really an adult.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
I'm not saying that traumatic events happen just to send me some sort of cosmic message. But they have happened and although I am changed, I'm also still the same,  the same little me.
And I'm not ok with that.

Doing great things sure, daily hum drum things, little special things, hugging my kids, making up stories planting out squash and beans, smelling the apple blossom, coming up with another sugar free recipe, navigating the turbulent waters of adolescence, pregnancy, children.........but still feeling as though my life is only part lived. As though I'm a water nymph, swimming in circles at the bottom of the pond, catching a glimpse of the sparkling sun above the surface of the water, the azure summer sky, the rustle and dip of the soaring birds and dragonflies, just out of reach. Feeling ok, but knowing that something luminous and magical is there, just waiting for the gauzy translucent wings to sprout from my back to launch me into a vast shining universe that I hardly dare admit I can inhabit.

Because I can inhabit it...so can you, so can everyone. We were all born to live in the true joy of  a full existence and potential, and we're not supposed to live small mean cramped lives. You don't see an apple tree apologising in the corner of the orchard, limiting its blossom output and thinking well maybe I shouldn't this year. Or a robin at dawn thinking it ought to just tone it down a bit today, and sit quietly behind a leaf instead.

The more I think about this, the more I am aware of and drawn to the many shining souls there are, glowing with the energy and beauty of their creativity, enthusiasm, passion.

 BUT...

I have to fight the thought that they are different somehow from me, more able, more passionate, more creative......more more more than little me. Its hard to think this. Especially as its just my head that does this. My heart knows the truth, and when I have a moment's stillness; a moment of connection; a moment where my busy busy censoring judgemental pattern ridden brain stops its goddam thinking.....then I know. Then I catch a brief golden glimpse of the simplicity of how things could be, how they are, how I could be.

And I owe it to my daughter Lily to become this person, yes I owe it to myself, and my family, and the little tumbling babe still dark and warm inside me, but especially to Lily. I can't waste my life, I know I have bigger things to do, I can feel Lily, in those quiet golden moments of connection. She knows with the whole of her; unencumbered by a mind and a thinking brain, she is free to really see, and she helps me.

So I've decided to make some changes..ways to grow bigger. (And not just my tummy which is by the day!)I might share them here, I might not, but sharing helps, connecting with others helps, knowing that we all, to a lesser or greater degree go through similar doubts, restrictions realisations, moments of illumination.

I'd love to hear yours..please?!                                                                     

Still Here!

This feels like forgotten space, strange unfamiliar fruit tasted long ago, yet recognised, missed......Lack of habit, distraction, busy days, inertia, who knows..I haven't written here in a regular way for such a long time I almost don't know how to. It feels awkward, like that first uncertain hug after an argument.

Meanwhile my belly grows rounder, and Spring grows greener and warmer and more abundant with just a whisper of north wind to remind us of the weeks of chill which kept us shivering by the fire knitting reluctantly while the sap rose in our veins just the same.

Now, the windflowers dance like stars in the woods, the lawns are embroidered with Primroses, Lady's smock, Speedwell, Daisies; the promise of Bluebells, the memory of Snowdrops. In the walled garden herbs are hurrying to break from their long enforced slumber, Mints and Balms, Angelica, Tansy,  Rue in a frenzy of life and hope. The polytunnels are bursting with verdant abundance. There is so much bursting energy, buds swelling, coy pigeons flirting, (downright violent duck mating!) my baby swirling and swimming in its own warm, secret haven. It's hard not to get exhausted by it all! Its suddenly become almost impossible to go to bed early, and the sun peeps around the shutters so early now...

We have so much to be thankful for. Sometimes Hugh and I look at each other, and marvel, 'how did we get this lucky?' Our house burnt down but somehow, in an easy flowing synchronisity of events, we have ended up in a beautiful vibrant place full of love life and community. We garden together and share Thursday soup and bread, we sing together, meet together, borrow, lend and share; the children spend hours and hours playing in the trees and gardens, learning, accomodating..being children.

Now that the Spring warmth is here and I no longer dread undressing to go to bed in the glacial heights of our enormous bedroom, I am relaxing into the final couple of  months of the pregnancy...the final months! July seems close. Friends are starting to talk about nappies they have put by for me, I am thinking about a king sized mattress, I am still not really believing I'm pretty close to having another baby. It's exciting!

New beginnings and gratitude

First, cascades of love and gratitude to the lovely Lucinda at Whispering Earth who, on reading of the fire, emailed me to offer support and herbs to replace some of the ones I lost. A couple of weeks ago, a special parcel arrived, containing soothing herb teas, a delicious rose scented moisturizing cream, some tinctures and a mysterious oil whose true purpose will become clear as this post progresses. It was such a generous and lovely gift. I am still overwhelmed by the love and kindness of friends, those nearby, and those I have never met! Thankyou so much.


The snow drops are blooming bravely in swathes around the grounds of our new home, promising so tantilisingly the coming of softer Spring weather. In the talons of the east wind, its hard to forget this, and in the chilly outreaches of our new home we shiver with blankets and hot water bottles. It's not a cosy cabin, its the wing of a mansion, but we have one warm room which we cook in, knit in, play in, paint in, hang out in, and we are very happy to be here, despite the bone numbing chill.

Around us are acres of beautiful grounds, walled veg gardens, polytunnels, children (and other adults) to play with, community meals and choirs to attend, ...even our chickens have settled, integrating with the existing flock and laying boxes and boxes of eggs.
We've joined a community, a few miles from our land, and, after our three months in town, are feeling the healing balm of being again surrounded by trees, green plants, growing space, room to run without fear of cars and streets, the balm of being with others.


 More later about our new home  because there is more excitement....

More beginnings.
New tender shoots sprouting
A phoenix rising from the ashes.
Springtime promises of a growing,  swelling, surging Mother Earth.......
and well, me.

I'm half way to growing a new baby. 20 weeks in and getting quite a belly, soft little kicks, and jeans that don't fit, and morning sickness nearly passing......number 5...phew!
How did I ever think 2013 was going to be a quiet, calm year?

And the oil from Lucinda?

Phoenix rising

 
Days keep tumbling by, days with things to do, days with space to be filled, days of jumble and overflowing
thoughts, days to remind myself where we're living: where we were living two months ago, three months ago, where we'll be in two weeks. 
Friend's caravans, friend's cabins, a friend's house, our cabin.....and our new home waiting around the corner at the end of the month, new beginnings....

People mention Phoenixes quite alot at the moment, which is encouraging, as the other option is to sink into the ashes of our home and grovel among the broken plates and charred books and let our eyes and ears slowly fill with toxic choking grey dust...wallow in the sorrow and loss of our vanished home...

We must rise.

There have been days when rising is the last thing I want to do, when the weight of loss, not just for the fabric of our cabin but for the whole way of life it represented....is too crushing to bear, and wallowing seems like the only possible way, but there are little shards of light piercing the dark.

We have lost our home but not our friends and family.
Friends and family who have given us food, money and bedding, toys, books, art materials.
Who have rung up at just the right moment to invite me to coffee, when loneliness and sadness were just about to consume me.
Who have cooked meals and given us their son's old bed...and said any time you need......
Who have sent messages and words of support, love and hope.
Who have spent hours sorting second hand laptops out for us and hauling galvanised metal and bits of burnt house around.
Who have never even met me but still offer help...

We have lost our belongings but not each other.
We are changed, buffeted again by the tornado our life has become, but still here, still eating, drinking, singing even, laughing.....still living..

This is what I'm learning:

Loss strengthens us.
Loss plunges us into an abyss so deep and terrible that the only way out is to a better shining place. Our delicate tender selves, wounded and scarred, are irreversibly toughened; imbued with hard won wisdom and  a depth which opens doorways to our hearts.
Our hearts and everyone elses .
Loss strips away material concerns (ironically) and pares away the petty trappings of our fluttering lives, the aneasthesia of media, shopping, worries about what other people think, strips it all away and allows us glimpses of the shining core at the centre of everything, at the centre of us.

We sigh into this, and are touched by the sight of a delicate new moon or an apricot infused sunset, we can see it reflected in the harassed woman waiting for the bus, or the man who just pushed past us to get across the road.
We are all wounded. We all carry pain.We have all suffered, or will all suffer loss of something or someone we love.
But we do have a choice.
We can carry that pain bitterly and closely, twisted beneath our burning skin and become sick and miserable,  or we can allow the searing heat of our loss to cleanse and clear what is not needed in our lives; the armour we paste around ourselves, the shields, the judgements, the  comparisons, the guilt....and find our way back to ourselves. Our way back to others....especially to others...we are not alone.
 We need each other.
 We're not supposed to do it alone.
This is one of my biggest lessons
This is one I'm learning faster than I thought I would.

There are more changes and huge life events ahead of us in the coming months and I know I'll be repeating these words to myself many times, just to remind myself.

We're not supposed to do it alone.
And thankyou to you, dear readers for reminding me too!!!

Ashes

This post has been a long time coming. Its been trying to. I've been trying. Its been twisting and thrashing like a tormented snake that's been cut in two pieces and is bleeding in fragments on the garden path. Do snakes even bleed? Anyway, its this post that's been thrashing, desperate to be published....Me, I've been deep in a strange, lethargic torpor, which has precluded any creativity, save a rather rushed and lumpy doll named Jo for Leo's Christmas present.
Every evening I sit sullenly, thinking vaguely I should write something, every evening I do something else. Like go to bed, or wash up, or make hot chocolate, or read a magazine....or make a lumpy doll. There are so many things to do when you're feeling like you can't explain how you feel.

 But  you know, the relief I feel to be even writing this far is huge, it's as if  a part of me that has been sleeping for three months is slowly stretching, yawning, stepping out of bed and trying out the world again, even with the tip of a toe.

Of course I have been in the world a bit, I even went Christmas shopping once, I cook, I took Tansy and Leo to a local home ed group, I feed the goats and chickens (did I mention we have goats and chickens?) There's a lot I haven't mentioned.

Like the fact that our house burned down.

In fact I think I'd better say that again, just in case anyone didn't get it the first time, just to make sure I get it.

Our house burned down.

Not just a little bit down, or partly down, or in any way retrievable or salvagable down, but completely down.
It was built of wood you see, built by Hugh who worked every day for four months to make it.

It was a middle of the night waking to see flames licking round the woodburner sort of fire; it was a naked screaming grab the kids and run barefoot into the wood fire; it was a dash back in the dark to see if the phones and computer could be saved and no it was far too fucking hot fire; it was a drive down the track sobbing to escape the exploding gas bottle and leisure batteries fire......it was sitting in a fire engine wrapped in  blankets and realising I had my period and all my handmade pads had gone, it was drinking hot chocolate and eating porridge at our neighbours in borrowed clothes and shoes too big.....

It was that sort of fire.

The planners had spotted us you see. For anyone who isn't on intimate terms with the planning laws in England,  if you build an 'illegal structure,'  ie our home, to have any chance of getting planning permission you need to prove that you can not only earn significant amounts of money from the land, but you also have a 'functional need to be there overnight'. Now we did have our plans. Plans for goats, plans for cheese, plans for herb products, plans for a yurt based retreat for bereaved families. It's just that we hadn't reckoned on being fully operational quite yet, we wanted to finish building the house, let Fred have his own room at last, finish cladding the walls, that sort of thing.

 But the planners had other ideas, they spotted us, we got a letter, a visit was scheduled for two weeks hence. Two weeks to go crazy. Two weeks to not sleep for writing business plans and financial projections, two weeks to change our bedrooms into a barn to minimize the impact of our dwelling, two weeks to start a small holding, build shelters, sort fencing, buy goats, milk goats, drive the length of the county to bring back 20 rare breed day old chicks. Hmm, the chicks. Marsh daisies and Jersey giants. Very cute, rather smelly. Our very lovely planning advisor suggested using our newly acquired ex-bedroom barn space as a chick raising area. Do it the old fashioned way round the wood burner, a functional need to be on the property every night if ever there was one. Chicks need constant monitoring to ensure they don't get cold and die.Well they didn't get cold. Their pen got too close to the burner. We were lucky to escape with our lives.

The fire happened on the night after the planning officer visited. We relaxed for the first time in two weeks. We relaxed for the last time in a long time. I don't know if lethargy and inertia count as relaxing, it sure doesn't feel as refreshing.

We find things. Tarnished silver spoons; distorted reindeer cookie cutters; Leo's patched trousers, hanging inexplicably on a briar nearby; fragments of a blue and white plate which was my ninth birthday present; sodden charred lumps of books, beguiling half phrases leaping out of the ashes to twist our hearts in two; 'Little House in the Big Woods'..'all was cosy in the little log cabin as the snow blew around.....' ....'and Noah and all the animals wept salt tears because the unicorns were gone for ever...'

I think the unicorns did leave that night, I certainly haven't seen a whisker since. And there are no owls in town either, floating feather light in their ghost cloaks, no foxes screaming down the moonfilled valley, only street lights and garden gates and next door's illuminated santa.

I really miss our home.

Birthday boys

Its birthday time in our house. September is busy that way. Leo and his dad, Lily and her dad, Leo and Tansy's granny, Fred and Lily's step mum...yeah its complicated.....and busy!

We kick off with Leo and Hugh, who share the 8th and a love of boats and fishing. So guess what we did...grabbed the canoe, and a kayak for Fred and went out to sea again.

We had a late start. The birthday table for starters...laid out lovingly the night before with cloths and flowers, candles and presents, paintings and cards. Then there was the bowl of raspberries dropped on our doorstep by our lovely neighbour Ruth which inspired me to whip up an enormous batch of banana pancakes with cream. That took some time. Then there was the birthday song, composed by Fred and me while wandering round  the National museum Wales  in the summer holidays and performed live in the sitting room. And did I mention we didn't get up until..hmm about nine o clock?

Finally the vessels were strapped on the car and, as the veteran of one whole sea canoe trip I felt pleasantly excited rather than mildly terrified like last time.

The sea was calm and clear as a green marble and we canoed hungrily from Paignton to Brixham for birthday pasties with five turnstones and several gulls.

And birthday cake...

There were no fish biting this time, and the youngest birthday boy nearly slumbered over his fishing line. His newly acquired five years (is that right? My youngest child five?) not enough to carry him through the long paddle home! 

It's always strange to have the two boys share their birthday, working out a cake suitable for both, staying up late to finish paintings and birthday stories, trying to find a day suitable and acceptable to both. So far Leo has not ever had a party, his birthday activities centre around crabbing and water based activities, fishing puppet shows, boat shaped cakes etc.

It's also a strange time because there is always the knowledge of Lily's birthday just days away and what do we do about that?

I usually try to put it out of my mind while I prepare for Hugh and Leo, and then there are the days that follow when dove and angel cards start to appear  in the post and I start to think about the horse cake I made when she was two.

But for Saturday it was the boy's day

And two of these....seals for those may struggle to see...made their day!