the feeling

the rambling rose

It's been wet, so much rain, and the garden is exploding. This year, the three plum trees are so full - even after dropping some unripe fruit - it looks suspicious, as if the trees are giving it their final all.

the veg bed in mid May

There have been days when I felt I was losing the plot and on these days, I go through the motions with teeth clenched (not literally) and the thought that no, I am not going to stop doing what I want to do regardless of colicky pains and all the rest of it. I walk into the library, pick up my ordered books, move on to the whole food shop, sit down with a coffee, smile at everybody thinking, nobody knows. Surely, I must look healthy.

the tomatoes are meh this year

 

On the way home, checking the front gardens and greeting the cats, the feeling of dread surfaces. The dread has nothing to do with my health, it's much deeper, bigger. It has taken me some time to recognise that it has become a constant feeling, low down, watchful. It is a bit like the feeling you get when you are awake in bed, waiting for the sound of your teenage daughter's key in the door after the night bus has passed the stop down at the corner. Only bigger. Because, your daughter has grown up and can look after herself. In hindsight, it was such a tiny feeling of dread, for such a brief period. And what a relief to know it's over. Nothing compared to this big dread. Bigger even than the fear of war, of the madman in Russia. Of the fascists gaining ground in Europe again. Of the bird flu virus spreading to humans. Fiddlesticks.

And I look at the people I pass on my walks, greet and smile at, watch them in their gardens, on their patios, playing with their kids and grandchildren, walking their dogs, the two guys who empty our bins, the postman on his e-bike, the mad woman across the street as she carefully covers her front steps with old crockery to ward off evil spirits, the toddler next door to her learning to walk, the twin girls across our garden playing Elsa and Anna. And I wonder if any of them, all of them, feel it too, maybe not right now but some day to come, the feeling of dread for our planet's future. The dread we keep on pushing away. And I wonder what would happen if we could share it and make it go away.

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship, or family, or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.

James Baldwin 

 

the pillows are in place