I Explore by Swimming

I’m reading ‘Teaching a Stone to Talk’ by Annie Dillard. She has an extraordinary perspective which includes some direct observations about living, including: “We are here on the planet only once, and we might as well get a feel for the place.” For her, it’s not about the spectacular, but about seeing “what is there” (p.74).

I’ve found I can see what is there in lake little Norrsjön by swimming. I don’t know about you, but I was taught to swim in straight lines. While I’ve since splashed out into lakes and seas, it’s never struck me before that swimming can be a form of exploration: slow motion, but motion nonetheless. I had this realisation during my second swim, when I went a little further than the first, finding a sandbank and river-mouth. 

On the third swim I found the route via the river, which feeds both lakes, to the larger lake, but the strong current deterred me from making the full journey. Perhaps if the water levels, high after recent record rainfall, drop, then I’ll go further. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll strike out in a different direction altogether. 

I Land in Sweden

I took care, when I waded into the lake this morning along the side of the rowing boat, to note where I’d got in. It’s skirted with pines and I could imagine the boat becoming hidden the further I swam out, and mistaking one clump of trees for another, or one of the scattered houses, painted the burnt red colour which is traditional in Sweden, for its neighbour.

I was swimming the lake, little Nörrsjon, for the first time. My way in through reeds and water lilies was easy. Soon I was breast stroking, my gaze level with the water boatmen skirting across the tensing surface.

I felt safe and held - the water clear and regulated to a perfect temperature by the recent heat, my swimming confidence sufficient, the weather calm. 

When I reached the other shore’s lily pads, and at the moment of my turnaround, the water surface began to pit and ripple. It was rain, and each droplet was defined by its landing. It was rain in close up, and I began to see each drop as an entity. One landed on my nose as if providing evidence of a wetness additional to the lake’s.

I thought of the paperback I’d left out with my clothes and sped up my strokes, soon arriving back among lilies. As I approached the green pads, I noticed a strand of bubbles: a watery contrail delineating my earlier route through their rooty webs.

It surprised me that the traces of my way into the water had survived what was a thirty-or-so minute swim. Although I didn’t need the way marks, I retraced the line back to the water’s edge and my stuff. 

I’ve not always been able to trust my literal or metaphorical sense of direction, and so this happening - the persistence of the pathway I'd created underlining my trajectory - affirmed to me that I've arrived in a place that's intended. 

I Celebrate Life

Things on the allotment have started coming to flower and fruition - things like roses and chives and broad beans and pinks and mint and jasmine and strawberries and thyme and garlic and rhubarb and four types of lettuce leaf and raspberries and two new potatoes and rosemary and one onion. Enough things to get me knowing how to celebrate my son’s birthday today.

Sons may grow (I am thankful). They grow up and grow away grow tall and grow their own music and grow into not needing a 3rd / 6th / 11th birthday party with a Spider-Man suit and candles and party rings and pass the parcel and a cake like a football pitch or a Rubik’s cube or made entirely from ice cream and Oreo’s.  

I was wondering about this growing and flowering and fruiting and separation and this birthday in particular and my need to celebrate my son and remember his birth-coming and my self as mother, earthed and physical as I was when I carried him.

This year’s so-far growth - and last year’s leftover growth - helped me into knowing.

Yesterday - The Harvest:

The plenty enough for my imagination and gratitude and the hunger of my senses. 

The scent of mint and jasmine and pinks and roses

The touch of each lettuce leaf picked

And today - The Celebration Meal

The sight of the harvest  (with salmon and pasta caught from my freezer).

The sound of water bubbling round potatoes

The taste of the year so far, and of the long-drawn out maturation of last year’s green tomato chutney

The Full Party! 🥳 

I Re-hang a Door

As I pushed it closed on Tuesday, it became apparent that the shed door, which had been shaky for a long while, was in danger of becoming completely un-hinged. Screws were loosening, some parts of the wood around the fixings was becoming distinctly flaky. I could see that if I didn't act soon, the whole thing would come adrift, leaving the workings of my allotment (spade, fork, trowel, shears ...) at risk of exposure. It felt burdensome to be faced with this addition to my to do list, and as I walked away from the door, leaving it adrift and listing, it also felt, as with all things allotment, like a metaphor.

How to fix the door has been a quandary milling around in my head for the past couple of days. My approach to allotment life is 'make do' - it's a sort of sandpit challenge to myself. This is partly for the fun of problem-solving, and partly to solve the problem of my antipathy to superstore shopping. 

I went along to my allotment this morning, screwdrivers at the ready, hoping, but far from certain, that I'd have fixed the door by lunchtime. And then I had. I still feel quite surprised about this, especially as, at a few points, intractable problems seemed to arise. These were solved because I received, and asked for, help.

I find asking for help difficult in most circumstances. In all the reading I've been doing recently about my inner life, I've found out self-reliance can be a characteristic of those who've experienced trauma. Moderate acts of independence as a defence mechanism - it puts a whole new spin on this blog and my plumbing adventures. 

It was particularly helpful that the first part of the help I received was offered without my having to ask for it. Just as I thought I'd have to nip to the shops to buy a hacksaw, my allotment neighbour, and good friend IRL, managed to wrench the final stubborn and damaged screw to breaking point, releasing the door from its hinges. This gave me courage to ask for the next bit of help from another allotmentee: to borrow some additional tools for the job.

Having been helped, and the door having been freed from its hinges, I was able to fix it. To do this, I moved the top hinge lower down, and the bottom hinge higher up, avoiding the damaged wood. Before I did this, I sawed a little from the bottom of the door to prevent it from dragging on the ground.

The door now opens and, importantly, closes and can be locked. It's much more secure than it was. And maybe I will be too now, knowing that my skills of moderate independence are just that, moderate - that there is plenty of room within that moderation to ask for help and to receive just what I need to keep things on the inside as safe as possible.  

I Isolate

isolate - From the Latin, insulare, to make into an island

I - sol - ate

I am solo

since the positive Covid test

have made myself an island

plotted my time

as a map of solitude

coordinated myself to a pattern of rest

I - sol - ate

within my flat

on the sofa

under a rug

beside the coffee table

between lunch and supper

among books   music   TV   podcasts   phone calls 

with glasses of water

within   on   under   beside   between   among   with --

these prepositions hold me in time and space

identifying relationships between me and my environment

until I am better

I Prepare For Burial

I have felt myself in the underworld this winter. 

I feel, therefore I am. 

There is richness here, and discovery. There are people to meet, a mycelial network of seekers, resting travellers offering stillness, wisdom and quiet hope. In therapy, I have felt the presence of new parts of me too, and they need attention. I have had to absent myself from some of what has being going on above ground. 

As part of this rooting, I booked a massage this morning, a gift from Kate. As Maddy worked with the muscles, channels and fabrics of my being, oiling my skin, working into the tensions across my back, I experienced myself as holy, as if being prepared for ritual. I saw myself stretched out like a Viking warrior, or Boudicca at the end of her fierce struggles, wholly at peace, welcoming the unknown. 

It's been coming to me slowly, this sense of fulfilled embodiment - a from head-to-toe Liz-ness. My inner wisdom tells me (I feel it) that I'm reaching the end of the Cartesian divide that I've carried like a cross, and which has tortured my mind at times like an unknown language: an endless mathematical formula in the centre of my thinking which, if only I understood it, would give me the answer. 

For as long as I can remember, whenever there's been something difficult happening, whenever I've been hurt, or caused hurt, I've split against myself - mind / body; good / bad; right / wrong; saved / lost. These responses made sense in childhood, protected me given the context, but they've troubled me in adulthood.

This legacy of polarisation - part Cartesian, part evangelical Christian, part inter-generational woundedness, part good intention - this legacy, it was never mine, but it was given to me. It's 60 years today since I was baptised. At 68 days old, before speech, before almost everything, I was spoken for.

Gabriel and I saw Rene Descartes' tomb in the Abbey of St Germain des Pres last summer. We were exploring Paris according to a map of its philosophers. Parts of Descartes are missing from this tomb, taken when he was moved there from his original grave. Part of him, a piece of his skull, is, apparently, in Sweden, where he spent important years of his life. 

I'm going to Sweden too, all of me. I'm going to come back, all of me. Do not worry about me - I'll be in good hands there, among old friends and yet-to-be friends, taking part in a grief ritual to which I'm taking loss in all its forms, and hope in all its forms. There's a sense of purpose - the welcome information begins: Grief dares us to love once more (Terry Tempest Williams).

My body has been preparing me for this burial, for five days 'off-grid' among fellow grievers, in trees, near water, and under huge skies. I have been going underground, been going quietly, giving in to spaciousness. And this morning, lying on the massage table, I felt ready. My body is telling me I'm ready. 

I Send Cake To Myself

My sons are grown up and living independently, and more than capable, but there's a part of me that feels a tug towards their birthdays - of course I do. This includes some sense of responsibility for their happiness: a wanting them to have special days.

And since I feel an almost equal tug towards cake, which combines so naturally with this birthday wanting, it made sense to me at around lunchtime yesterday (even though I'd already given a card and presents at the weekend) to order a box of brownies from a company which promised delivery in time for my elder son's birthday which is today - just to make extra sure I'd done enough. 

I tapped his fairly new address into the cake company's online form - I felt confident and on familiar cake-based territory: that I knew what I was doing. 

In fact, because of the way Apple Pay works, I didn't. I now know, owing to an exchange with the cake delivery company, that yesterday, the payment app filled in the billing address (Shrewsbury) as the delivery address as well, despite my previous manual filling in of the intended delivery address (Gateshead). 

Damn.

So when I arrived home, after a tiring but hopeful day of therapy and walking, I found a parcel from DPD on the mat, and in my inbox the offer of a 10% discount on my next cake order as a gesture towards the inconvenience of the difference between Shrewsbury and Gateshead. 

Feeling that the 10% offer was missing the whole birthday point, I answered a timely videocall from my son. He looked cheerful and happy, as did his thoughtful fiancée who had, he demonstrated by turning his phone camera towards it, arranged a delicious-looking birthday cake, complete with icing and decorations. I explained the brownie mix up in a sort of rush of relief. "Never mind, Mum. Why don't you make a start on them, and we can carry on when I'm down next week - and how about we eat them while watching Gilmore Girls." I can't think of anything much nicer. 

With that double pleasure to look forward to, and reassured that my son is having a lovely birthday, I cut through the seal on the brownie box. 

Maybe I knew what I was doing, after all.