Love and Pianos

There are many inexplicable things about love.
Why it finds us when we least expect it.
Why, once it has found us, we cannot let it go.
Why it is so all-consuming
Why it creates such a thin line between complete happiness and utter despair.
Why, even though we know it can hurt us, we will never stop looking for it.
Because that' what we do.
We, all of us, spend hours...days...months...years ..of our lives searching for love.

 Searching for Love by Juli Cady Ryan

And when we are not searching for it, we are imagining how it will make us feel.
How love will rock our world.
How  everything that once was grey will become bright and colourful..
How everything that was wrong, will suddenly seem right.
How it will make you want to skip down the street and dance round the kitchen, smile at strangers and wave at passing cars, commit random acts of kindness and hug everyone you see.

At least that's how we dream falling in love.

But as with everything in life, reality is never quite as we dream it.
And falling in love is rarely as rose-tinted as it should be.
The  best thing about it, is  the flutter of time just before it happens.
The days when  you have met someone and your heart is beginning to melt and the edges of your world are  beginning to turn hazy. 
The days when you stand there on the edge of your dreams, love shimmering before you, an ocean of beautifully swirling possibilities..
In front of you lies the happiness of all your tomorrows, behind you lies the sadness of all your yesterdays.
And for just that one moment, the moment before you begin to fall,  everything you've ever dreamt about love can be true.
There's a reason we call it " falling," in love.
Like falling, we cannot control how or when or why it happens.
Like falling, we do not know if someone will catch us before we hit the ground.
Like falling, we do not know if all that will happen is that we get hurt.
Like falling, we cannot stop it from happening.
Love is strange and undpredictable and frightening but somehow we want to fall into it.' 

I was talking about it with our friend in Germany this weekend.
" What if falling in love is a terrible experience for our kids," I say, " what if it all goes horribly wrong?"
For a moment he stops walking and watches as my teenage son and daughter walk nonchalantly into a Hamburg clothes shop.
He shrugs.
" Perhaps it will go wrong," he says, " but all the same, you have to let them try."
He looks at me, this friend of ours who wears his sadness, wrapped, like an invisible cloak, around his heart
If anyone understands how painful and sad love can be, it's him who, after all his searching, found  his soul-mate and lost her so suddenly and so soon, when their children were almost too young to remember.
" You just have to let them fall," he says, " In the end the right person will catch them."
He smiles at me.
And I know he's right.
Because the thing that I've forgotten is that it's not so much the " falling in," as the " being in," love that shapes our future and makes our days worth living.
It's the sharing of dreams and the planning of adventure.
It's the laughter and the tears and the certainty of togetherness.
It's the peace that comes with a sense of completeness and the knowledge that your search is over. 

Back in our friend's house, in the countryside near Hamburg, I stand looking at the shiny, black, well-cared-for piano that has pride of place in the living room.
" Do you or the kids play?" I ask.
He shakes his head.
" No, but when their mum and I dreamt of living in England, she always wanted her piano to be there. Only when we moved I wouldn't let her bring it. It would be much too big and heavy, I said."
I think about their house in England. 
It was where they were living when she died.
It was one of the dreams they shared, living in England until their kids were fluent in English. 
" You were right," I say, "it would have been hard to fit in a piano in that house."
" Maybe, " he says, brushing the polished lid with his fingertips, " but..." his words fade away, tinged almost five years later, with the despair of what-will-never-be. 
 " At least it's here now," he says quietly, " even if none of us ever play it. At least it's here now...." 
And that's the other side of love.
The part that makes us put a piano we will never play in our living room.
The part that makes us want to care for someone else completely.
The part that makes us want to keep them safe and stop anything bad from ever happening to them.
The part that makes us want to make all their wishes come true.
The part that makes us less selfish and more giving.
The part that makes us kinder and more humble.
The part that makes us forget about ourselves in the bringing of happiness to someone else.
That's the enormity and the mystery of love.

One of my friends has just texted me to say he is on the plane, heading home from Manila for Chinese New Year.
" Safe flight," I say, " I'm just writing a blog about love, anything you'd like to add?"
My phone is silent for so long I think he's not going to text back.
And then it beeps, a three word text:

" Love is good...?"

And perhaps it's as simple as that.

However scary love can be,  however many times we have to fall without knowing if someone will catch us, however long the search, in the end it's always worth it.
Because love is good and we are better for it, even if all you are left with are the dreams you shared and a piano in the living room.

White Witch Mornings

There's something grim about these grey, half-hearted February days.
 Spring is still too far away to fill us with hope and the holidays too long ago to remember. 
Even the weather is undecided.
" Has it snowed,' asks our 17 year old son, Joss, still rumpled and disgruntled from sleep.
"Almost but not quite," I say.
Joss groans.
It's not that he's imagining the beauty of a landscape covered in untouched, glistening whiteness but that he is dreaming of a school- closed " snow-day.'
And to be honest, in England, it doesn't take much snow for the country to grind to a halt, probably about about half a centimetre.
But this year, even that drama has evaded us.
It's just plain cold and damp.
Sometimes it's hard to remember why we stay in a gloomy, wintery England. 
The blue, fluffy-white-clouded skies are hard to imagine and the countryside is a long way from the scenes of idyllic rural beauty you see in the picture- perfect postcards.
Instead the skies are grey, the clouds are swollen with rain and the countryside is one big muddy field of rural slush.
At least that's how it looked from the window of my friend's car the other day as we drove through the West Sussex countryside towards our coffee date with a White Witch/ Druid-in-Training.
" I took the " powered by witchcraft sticker," off my car," she explains, throwing her door open to us, "  I realised it was freaking out my kids' friends every time we drove to school."
She laughs, the warm, rich  laugh I had forgotten.
It's been a while since we have spent any time together.
And I have the strange feeling that last time we met, she was a different person.
The beautiful mum who turned heads (especially dads') at school sports days, swirling through the crowds in her bright red, polka- dot dress with matching  shoes and lipstick.
The carefree mum who threw the wildest parties and told the raciest stories.
The coolest mum with the whackiest house.
The spontaneous mum who would pack up the children and the car and disappear off to Italy on a whim.
The lost mum with the restless, misunderstood soul, always searching for a way to fit in

Sherry- white witch, Druid-in-training, friend.

But not any more.
She has moved away from the city, living in a house near the sea that used to have a garden full of guinea pigs and a living room full of chickens roosting comfortably on the worn-out sofas.
The animals have gone now but the house is still overflowing with timeless trinkets and aritstic antiques just begging to be picked up and touched.  
Like everything else in her life, my friend has not made being a white witch into something pretentious or mysterious. 
 Instead it is simply a part of her every day life, a piece of who she is.  
Potions and powders stand in a cupboard with the salt and pepper grinders. 
 Tarot cards lie on the kitchen table, next to the coffee pot.
Huddled next to the fire, our hands warming round mugs of steaming coffee, she talks to us of Pagan festivals and age-old rituals, of telepathy and the orbs of energy that drift erratically round her house. 
" When I first started my Druid training," she says, tipping coal onto the fire, " I had a rebirthing.  They took me right back. It went so deep I couldn't move my arms or legs.  It was like I was part of the ground.  -Look down at your feet,- they said to me just before I went  under, -check what shoes you're wearing. Shoes are the best way to work out where and when you are-... So I did, when I was ready, I looked down at my feet, only I couldn't see them, couldn't see what  shoes I was wearing, because there were these whopping great kneecaps in the way. And when I turned around, I was guarding this man on a throne.  I think it was Caesar. It only turns out I was a big, strong Roman soldier in a past life... " 
She turns her faraway gaze back to us. 
" At least that explains why my kneecaps are too big for my legs and why I've always had this inexplicable love of Italy. "
She laughs and chats on.
And I watch her, trying to work out what has changed.
Why she seems so different.
And suddenly I know what it is.
She's stopped searching, stopped trying to fit in. 
She's no longer lost.
And I realise something, that in the end it doesn't matter whether you are a believer or a sceptic, whether you have been reborn or are simply living for today.
What matters is that you feel you have arrived, that you are where you want to be.. 
There is an indescribable comfort in talking about the intertwining of the past and present,  in knowing  somehow that we are, all of us, bound together by something deeper and more permanent than the here and now, 
And for the rest of the morning, sitting in that cluttered living room, warmed by the glow of the fire, caught somewhere between the supernatural and all-to-real present, it's hard not to feel tinged by magic.
Or perhaps that's what you always feel when you are sitting in the living room of a white witch who used to be a Roman soldier and who has, at last ( in this lifetime at least ) arrived at the place she wanted to be.

By the time we walk back past the "no-longer-powered-by-witchcraft-car,"  I have almost forgotten that it is a damp, grey English February morning.
" Mornings like that, just make you feel better," says my friend, opening her car door.
I nod.
I know exactly what she means.
My phone vibrates.
It's a message from Col, a friend from so long ago that I can almost feel my past and present intertwining as I read it.
" Landed in London at 6 this morning," he says the message , "Pretty dreary weather. Just looking out of window. Not even snow or slush to cheer me up.."
" I know," I start to type back, " bet you wish you'd just stayed in Singapore.  February is always so grim and gloomy here..."
I stop.
However hard I try, and even though I know it's February, I can't shake a sense of inner peace and wellbeing.
I'm wondering if it's a spell.
And hoping, if it is, that it will last, at least, until Spring..
I glance out of the window.
On the verge at the edge of the road,  I spy the first snowdrop of the year.
Its petals gleam white against the mud and slush.
" Look at me," it says, " I'm where I'm meant to be.  You know Spring won't be long."
I smile and delete the February moans and groans I was just about to send.
Instead I type:  " Hey Col.  Never mind the weather.  I'm just glad you've arrived."

Doing the Right Thing

"It doesn't matter what you do in life," I tell our 17 year old daughter, Mia,  in a "let-me-give-you-some-motherly-advice," sort of way, " as long as you always know you are doing  "the right thing."
Mia looks at me and I can feel a debate brewing.
" What do you mean?" she asks.
I pause, trying to clarify my thoughts, Mia has a way of unravelling my certainties.
" I mean that however inconvenient or scary something is, if it's the right thing to do, you should do it anyway," I say, proud of my explanation.
" But how do you know if something is the right thing to do?"  she asks.
And so I tell a story.
" When I was 14," I say, " one of my best friends died while I was on holiday.  We didn't have mobile phones then, so I didn't find out until we got back...."
And suddenly I am there again in that moment, climbing out of the car tanned and happy, my grandmother, ashen-faced, whispering the news to my mum. My mum telling me. Me screaming....but that is not what the story is about.
" I had missed the funeral," I continue, " it was while we were on holiday. I didn't have a chance to say goodbye or to see her parents.
 And the worst thing of all was that the last conversation my friend and I had had before I went away, the last conversation we ever had, was an argument.
 I can't remember what it was about.
My friend was on very strong medication for her asthma, I knew it made her moody but I couldn't help rising to the bait.
 I should have phoned her back, I  should have said that I was sorry, that i didn't want to argue with her.
I should have done the right thing.
 But I was a teenager, convinced of my rightness and everyone else's wrongness, so I didn't.
 I left for holiday without speaking to her again. 
For days after we got back, after I found out she was dead, I would peer into people's faces, trying to make them fit into the hole in the world where my friend should be. 
I kept thinking I saw her walking just in front of me or heard her bubbling laughter in the room next door. 
And worst of all, for days and days, I kept trying not to think about the thing I knew I had to do. 
Kept pretending that I was too busy, had too much homework, had to buy my friends' birthday presents.
 Anything to avoid it. 
 Anything to avoid going to see  her parents. 
When she was alive we had spent hours in each other's houses. 
 Now that she was gone, the thought of going back to her house, of seeing her mum who always bought us Wagonwheels and made us lemon squash to drink, was petrifying. 
She was an only child, the centre of their universe and she was gone. 
I didn't know how to face the immensity of their grief.
 But I knew I had to. 
I knew it was the right thing to do 
" And did you/" asks Mia, " did you go and see them."
" I did," I say, ' I sat on the sofa and we smiled at each other and I talked about school and they nodded and in the emptiness behind their eyes, I saw the scattered fragments of a world that would never seem beautiful again. 
And when I walked out of that door that day, I vowed, that, whatever else I did in my life, I would always, always do the right thing.
 However inconvenient or frightening. or unpleasant."
" But how do you know going to see them was the right thing to do?" asks Mia insistently
, " Perhaps it  just made them feel even sadder." 
" Of course it didn't," I say "it showed them how much I cared,  how much my friend meant to me."
"You make it sound so black and white,"  says Mia," right or wrong with nothing inbetween. I don't believe anything is that simple. There is no black and white, only grey.
I know you did what you thought was right. But what about them? What about her parents? What's right for one person might seem wrong to someone else. Muslim suicide bombers who kill themselves and hundreds of other people believe absolutely that what they are doing is right.  Do you think it is? "
And I am non-plussed by the powerful logic of her words, by the possibility that she is right. 
I feel the value system that I have built for myself for so many years,  crumbling around me..
And much as I would like to argue with her, my seventeen year old daughter, I find myself lost for words.

" You love it," says my husband, when I tell him of yet another friend in crisis who I am trying to help. "You love all the drama, you love the fact that they all come to you." And the implication is that It makes me feel good about myself.
And somewhere, deep down inside, I know there is a lot of truth in what he says. 
Aspiring to do the right thing, the noble thing,  means that you can wrap yourself in a blanket of altruism, your conscience safe, your sins atoned, free from finger-pointing.
But as Mia says, it's not that simple, not so black and white.
If someone we love or care about is hurt or sad or ill, we will, all of us, do anything we can to make them feel better. 
That's what caring for or loving someone means.
 It's not about making ourselves feel better, it's about stopping them feeling so bad.
And we are not being " good," or 'bad," or " right," or '"wrong," when we do it, we are simply  being human.
And perhaps our reasons for doing what we believe to be right are more selfish than we care to admit but at least they can sometimes give meaning to what seems meaningless, create hope where there was despair, create a sense of purpose where there was only  helplessness .
While I am writing this, I have received a text from a friend.
One of her son's best friends, Oliver King, died from  sudden arythmic death syndrome(SADS) when he was 12 years old.
After he died his parents set up the Oliver King Foundation to raise awareness of SADS' And our friends became trustees.
I've never talked to them about why they did it, I can only guess. 
But  I think it might be because they wanted to show how much they cared, because they  because it gives Oliver's life meaning, because it helped with the helplessness, because it was completely the right thing to do.

Oiver King

The tweet says:

The OK Foundation @TheOKFoundation · 

"It is not length of life, but depth of life": Happy 16th Birthday Oliver. Missed, loved, in our thoughts every day.

Mia's right, there is no absolute right or wrong, but that should never stop us from doing what we believe is right. 
How else can I say the sorry I never got to say?
How else can we give our sometimes shallow lives, any depth?

RIP Georgina
RIP Oliver

Word Power

Amidst all the terrorist horrors of this week, I have been thinking a lot about the power of words. 
The power of words written in a holy book to induce murder and mayhem.
The power of words to make people do evil things and believe that they are good.
The power of those who can take words and shape them into phrases that inspire hatred and loathing and..passion.
Because that is truly the  power of words - the passion they evoke.
Although in England, at the moment, nothing could be further from the truth.
It's hard to imagine words less passionate or inspiring than those used by our politicians and leaders today.
Their main aim seems to be to use as many words as possible to say as little as they can get away with.
The most important thing when giving interviews or making speeches is to make sure that you have committed to nothing, alienated no one and, most importantly, have expressed no particular point of view.
Perhaps it's not surprising that a generation is growing up disaffected, apathetic and directionless.
And I'm left wondering when it was that we became a nation of planners rather than doers, of procrastinators rather than instigators, of accepters rather than dreamers.
Perhaps it's not surprising that people are open to the persuasive power of passionate words when the only other choice is the language of mundanity and inaction.
Extremists are sure of their message, clear in their beliefs, quick to react.  
Suddenly their words can give a meaning to a life that has felt meaningless, a certainty to a world where all things have seemed so uncertain, a clarity and a vision where there was only confusion and haziness.
All it takes is someone who is clever with words.

Many years ago, my half-Jewish Austrian grandmother, told me how she had once heard Hitler speak.
" He was amazing," she said, " a tiny man, standing in front of thousands of people. And even though I knew that his words were condemning me and my family to death, I found myself longing to be part of his Great Plan."
That's the power of words.
Words can make all things seem possible.
Words can convince us to do anything.
Words can fill a meaningless void with passion and direction.
Why else would masked men have stormed into an office in Paris and killed people because they drew pictures.
How else could a ten year old girl have been used for a suicide bombing in a crowded market place in Nigeria.

It's easy to blame extremism and religious fundamentalism, easy to shrug and say " it's not my fault" - but there are reasons why these ideas and beliefs are flourishing and spreading here and now. 

I have sat in so many meetings where, over a cup of tea (sometimes even with biscuits) we have discussed the problem of lack of engagement, disempowerment and disillusionment  of our most vulnerable families: young parents, workless households, ethnic minorities,those with disabilities.....the list of the disengaged or voiceless members of our communities is endless.
By the end of the meetings after many people have said lots of things, we come up with a plan. We will set a target: by a certain date in the future, the number of these families who are engaging with services will have increased by a certain percentage.
Feeling proud of ourselves, we set a date for the next meeting where new data will be looked at to see whether or not we have made any progress towards reaching our target.
That is the power of words to create the illusion of problem-solving when all they have really done is provide a framework for inaction and a justification for creating more meaningless words.
But there is something else we could do.
A way we could use the passionate power of words to do something instead of nothing.
We could agree that instead of meeting to talk about change, we use our words and actions to make it happen.
We could agree that instead of sitting and talking, we stand up and shout.
We could agree that instead of planning what to do tomorrow or next week, we do it now.
We could put back the passion and reclaim the power of words
Perhaps then, those who feel they have lost their identity won't have to turn to fundamentalism or extremism to feel that they belong.
Perhaps then, those who want to change the world can do it without becoming angry or full of hatred.
Perhaps then, the voiceless will be inspired to speak because they know they will be heard.
We all of us have the  the power of words within our grasp.
Let's use them to make the world a better, safer place.

These in-between days

It's strange this time between Christmas and New Year.
Like a no-man's time of in-between days
Between Christmas and New Year.
Between this year and next year.
Between the over-indulgence of Christmas and the resolutions of New Year.  
But while we waiting for all those next things to happen, we just sort of carry on doing all the things we were doing at Christmas: eating, drinking, spending too much money, but with a bit less enthusiasm. 
The Christmas decorations and flashing lights that looked so exciting at the beginning of December,  look slightly forlorn now, like has-been film stars who still want people to believe they are young and beautiful and full of promise.
The excitement and interest in new presents has waned and for parents of young children, the days return to their normal wrong-side-of-6-am starts and tantrum-filled evenings.
And for the rest of us, who are lucky enough to not yet have to go back to work, the days are mostly full of crisps, staling crackers, cold turkey and all the tear-jerking movies we don't want to admit we love.
There are, of course, " The Sales," casting their elbow-sharpened, mania-inducing, bargain-hunting shadow over these half-hearted days.
People queueing outside shops at 5 o'clock in the morning to make sure that they get to the " must-have," bargains before anyone else
But even the most die-hard consumers can't keep it up for a week and in the end, they too have to surrender to the inbetweeness of it all, to the knowledge that the next part of the year isn't here yet.
But there are worse things to surrender to.
Worse things than snuggling up on the sofa with an oversized packet of crisps-( the crisps you're going to give up eating in the New Year so you might as well eat the whole packet now ) - and a glass of the Baileys you only drink at Christmas.

Worse things than waking up in the morning and knowing you don't have to get up and go to work or school.
Worse things than watching good films on TV and relaxing together.
Worse things than knowing that the day is yours to fill.
Because the good thing about these in-between days, is that most of the holiday obligations are over.
You've seen all the family members you're meant to have seen, bought all the presents you're meant to have bought,  sent all the cards you're meant to have sent - there is nothing left that you're meant to do, so instead you are free to do whatever you want.
Perhaps these in-between days are not so much "no-man's time,"  as "an island of time," when we can bask in the warm feeling of having nothing-in-particular to do and relax in the knowledge that we can do whatever we want.
They are rare, these days of "no-strings-attached -indulgence," so the best thing to do, is enjoy them.
And who knows...perhaps these days of faded Christmas decorations and leftover mince pies are the very days that dreams are made of, or if not, they are the very days that sleep is made for, so that there's a lot more time for dreaming!
Enjoy...

Putting the HAPPY back in Christmas

There's no subtle way to say this, so I think it's best to be honest - I don't like Christmas.

I don't like the flashing lights or the  glitter and tinsel.
I don't like the messages of peace and love stuck on the windows of neighbours who haven't spoken to each other for years.

I don't like the overt consumerism or the pressure to buy presents that nobody wants at prices nobody can afford.

And I don't like the tension Christmas creates within families.
It's starts with the phone call ( usually in June ), when one parent or parent-in-law asks:
  " So, what are you doing for Christmas this year?" and it carries on right until the inevitable family row over the Christmas dinner table on December 25th.

The Family Row is almost as permanent a Christmas tradition as the roast turkey, long-standing, unresolved family feuds have started while pouring the gravy over the roast potatoes and stuffing. 
And everyone with young children knows that all they have to look forward to on Christmas evening are the tantrums, tears and broken presents that come with too much excitement and too little sleep.

" I don't have anyone to spend Christmas with," said someone I bumped into at the Christmas market the other day, " so I thought I would spend the day researching my new novel..I've just booked my ticket, I'm spending Christmas Day  in Auschwitz."
It seems like a bit of an extreme response, spending Christmas in a concentration camp,  but I can sort of see where he's coming from.

Nothing makes you feel more lonely than having nowhere to go and no one to be with on this most family-oriented of days. 
 Perhaps immersing yourself in desperately horrific memories is the best way to put it all in perspective and cheer yourself up.

For the families in the Children's Centre where I used to work,  Christmas stress begins with the opening of the first door on the kids' Advent calendars.
By the time Christmas Eve is upon us, the hysteria is almost tangible and the downward spiral into financial and emotional crisis has begun. 
January is a Christmas hangover month, not just because of the lack of money and huge amount of seasonal debt, but worse than that because of permanent emotional scars caused by overindulgence and over-much time spent with family members. The number of couples filing for divorce in January can be double that of any other month in the year.

"Experts claim factors ranging from the stress of family gatherings at Christmas, unwise candour encouraged by excessive alcohol intake and even office (christmas) parties can prove the final straw for many married couples."
Ian Cowdrie, Daily Telegraph

I'm thinking I should start a " Stop Christmas Now!" campaign.
I'm sure the government would back it .  They could cancel Christmas for a few years, the way they've cancelled so many other things like public services, benefits, and public funding for anything important.. Think of the money it would save (except for Amazon) and the emotional crises it would avoid, not to mention the multi-cultural, secular message it would give:

Our 17 year old daughter, Mia, despairs at my lack of festive spirit.
" Can we at least put up some Christmas decorations and our tree before Christmas Eve this year?" she asks. " I don't see why we all have to suffer just because you don't like Christmas."
I shrug. 
" Well," I say, " If you want to do it, I won't stop you.  The tree's in the cupboard under the stairs but we haven't got any lights because they broke last year and we don't have that many decorations."
She shoots me a " did-Dr-Seuss-actually-base-the-Grinch-on-you?,"  look, and googles " My Parents Hate Christmas Support Groups<" and templates for Christmas decorations.
" Did you have to get a Christmas tree this colour," she complains, dragging the dusty box out from under the stairs and trying to unbend the wire branches.  " I mean, if we can't have a real one, couldn't we at least pretend the fake one was real by getting a green one."
" We felt that a black one was a more honest visual representation of our true feelings about Christmas," I say.  
Mia groans and tries to find a way of keeping the star from falling off the top.

And much as it pains me to admit it, she's done a good job.
The tree looks as good as can be expected and a little less lopsided than usual and our front window is now covered in snowflakes and reindeer and stripy candy-canes.
And in big red and green letters across the top, she's written the words:
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS, Cred to Mia."
But the best thing about it, is not that she has dragged us kicking and screaming into Christmas but that everyone who walks past, smiles as they read it.
And I suddenly realise why it is that my inner Grinch always takes control at Christmas, it's because something really important is missing.
Amidst  the hectic preparations and manic last-minute present buying, it's easy to forget the " happy," and the "merry," that should be the biggest part of Christmas.
The words of the song aren't: " We wish you a present-filled Christmas and a debt-filled New Year," 
And the truth is, I would take off my " Stop Christmas Now," T-shirt if Christmas truly did make people merrier and happier.
And I know there are moments when it does.
For our family it's Christmas Eve when, whatever else we are doing or wherever else we are going, we always have dinner with the family who lives next door.
Over the years we have become more part of each other's family than friends. 
And each  Christmas Eve ( although none of us can actually remember how the tradition started) we, each of us spend the day cooking  a special dish and the evening sitting around a table overflowing with delicious food, contagious laughter and warm, rose-tinted memories.
And I'm sure that as the evening wears on and the cognac appears, I will be filled with the very un-Grinchlike feeling that perhaps, just perhaps, Christmas isn't so bad.
And already I can tell that my campaign is flawed because it's not so much that I want to stop Christmas as that I wish it would start meaning something different.
I wish that instead of being about the giving of meaningless presents and the cooking of too much food,  it could be about caring for each other more and celebrating what we already have.
So today I'm launching a new campaign to -"Put The Happy  Back in Christmas."- if I can do it, you must be able to!
And I'm going to start by wishing everyone all the love, laughter and "dreams-come-true,' that a really happy Christmas can bring..

Queen of Nothing

It's strange, but since I've stopped working, I've found myself increasingly defined by my past, by the things I used to do.
" This is Becky," people say when they introduce me, " she's..um...she used to run a Children's Centre," or " she used to work for  that charity PACSO." or " Do you remember Just Write for Kids Club, she used to run that?"
And it's fine.  I don't mind.  .
But there is a little bit of the : " she-used-to-be-someone," about it.
It's almost as though people are embarrassed for you, ashamed for you that you don't go out to work or have a "proper," job.
" Is it really boring being at home?" people ask, "What do you do all day?" .... and when I think about it, I'm not sure what exactly it is I do but I know that I'm never bored.
I know that since I stopped working, my life has become much simpler and in a strange way, much more meaningful. 
And that's what's hard to explain.
it's easy to give a value to work that is paid.
Easy to believe that if you have a job with a title and a job description, you must be doing something useful and important.

it's harder to believe in the importance of what  you are doing when your days are spent hanging out the washing, unsuccessfully matching socks,overloading the dishwasher and generally failing to be the domestic goddess you thought you were. 

But truthfully, I've never felt so fulfilled.
When i worry, it is about things that are important to me or my family and friends. I no longer have to worry about a budget that isn't mine or targets imposed upon me by people I will never meet who care little or nothing for the services they are asking us to provide.
I'll let my MP and local councillors worry about those while I worry about what to cook for dinner,  how to convince our son that revision is important if you want to pass exams ("what's the point, they're just mocks, I'll have forgotten it all by May") or our daughter that she really doesn't need to buy anymore clothes or another pair of shoes ("you don't understand mum,I can't wear the same outfit twice,")...
They are all things that  I used to worry about when I remembered, but only in a half-hearted, " I know they should matter but there isn't really time," sort of way. 
I couldn't even worry properly. 
I couldn't do anything properly: not my job, not being a parent, not tidying the house, not cooking the right food..and so I used to feel constantly guilty.
Being able to concentrate on one thing is amazing.
 Sometimes I even feel that I'm doing it, if not well, than at least to the best of my ability.
And that's such a relief.
It feels as though slowly, very slowly, I'm reclaiming my life, remembering who I am and what's really important to me.
Instead of bombarding our son with unwanted questions the moment I walk through the door, I wait for him to volunteer information. And In spontaneous, erratic moments of closeness, he is beginning to talk to me again. 
Instead of listening with half an ear to our 17 year old daughter, Mia,  while I'm making dinner and mentally responding to work emails, we sit down together and talk when she comes home from school.
Evenings are not spent in collapsed exhaustion gazing helplessly past the television at the growing piles of untidy chaos that surround us and thinking: I'll deal with it all tomorrow.
" I hear there's much less shouting in your house since you stopped working" says my mother-in-law when I speak to her on the phone
" Do you?" I say, surprised, "who told you that?".
" Mia ," she laughs, "when she was here last week."
And thinking about it, I realise it's true. 
I can't remember the last time we had a full blown argument, the kind where you worry the neighbours are going to report you to social services. A consequence, I suppose,  of the fact that, when I was working, I was in a state of perpetual slight irritation with work, with my family, with my life and took it out on whoever was closest to me.
" I couldn't do it," said one of my oldest and most treasured friends this weekend,  " I couldn't stay at home, I'd just sit on the sofa, eating and watching telly all day. I'm too sociable, I need people to talk to."
She has a point the temptation of chocolate and day time TV are a definite downside but not the lack of conversation.  
Of course I miss the people I worked most closely with but I still see them and now they are friends instead of work colleagues. And there are lots of unpleasant conversations I'm glad I will never have again. 
And then there's the friends I almost lost because I never had time to meet up, the friends who drop in for an hour for a cup of tea and a chat, the mornings spent sitting round the fire in our living room, talking about things that matter to us instead of things that matter to someone else, sharing the hopes and dreams that come with trust and friendship.
And I know I'm very lucky.
I know it's a privilege  to have been given this chance to rediscover what is truly important to me.
I know it is not forever but just for now.
And just for now I'm loving it.
Loving being here when the kids get home from school.
Loving being here to catch them when they fall.
Loving having no deadlines or time limits.
Loving baking cheese muffins and making vegetable soup that no one eats.
Loving laughing with friends and really listening to what they say.
Loving almost touching my dreams.
Loving being "Queen of Nothing," and "Mistress of Everything That Matters To Me."
So the next time somebody introduces me, I'm going to say:
"I'm Becky, I used to be someone else, but now I'm me."

The strange coincidence of birthdays

There are some dates that become unexpectedly important to you in your life.
November 14th is one of those dates for me.
To begin with, it's the birthday of my husband, Ninesh- a-goes-without-saying-important date.

Happy Birthday Ninesh

But that's just the beginning.
Because co-incidentally it's the birthday of two other people who have become very special to us.
It' s the birthday of the eldest daughter of one of my best friends. 
But what makes her " not just a daughter," is the fact that she's adopted.
She and her younger sister, not born on November arrived in the arms of my friend and her husband more than 10 years ago 
The wait had been a long, hard and frustrating one.
Sometimes my friend  would come round and talk about it: the raised hopes, the shattered dreams, the heartache, the constant expectation, the impersonal  beaurocratic, box-ticking nightmare of the adoption service.
There would be days when she would float through the door, hopeful, smiling
" They think they've found a match," she would say, " nothing's certain yet but...." and her eyes would stare dreamily into the rose-tinted, child-filled future.
But there were other days, days when she would sit on our sofa, huddled over a cup of tea, trying to be brave, trying not to show that her heart had been broken again,.. the match hadn't worked out or the birth parents were being given another chance or the children were being offered to someone else first...
" It's alright," she'd say, trying to smile, " I guess.. they weren't the ones.

And then there was the day the wait was over.
There was a ring on the bell
" I've got something I want to show you,"  she said, sitting down at the table while I put the kettle on.
I watched as she pulled two photos out of her bag.
" Holiday shots?" I asked.
" No," she said, shaking her head and handing me the photos.
I took them and stared at the two girls smiling out at me.
"I wanted to show you my...our....," I watched her hesitate, like she wasn't sure if she had the right to say the words, " I wanted you to see our... daughters." 
There she sat, my friend who was already a mother long before she had children, my friend whose aching emptiness had at last been filled, my friend showing me photos of two of the luckiest girls in the world.
It's always easy to try and read too much into things, to try and put a positive spin on what is essentially bad, to explain away every cloud by finding its silver lining.
And of course I would never wish upon anyone the agony, emotional anguish and sadness of not being able to give birth to your own children. 
But when I see my friend and her husband with their two girls now, it's impossible not to think that it was meant to be.
Not to think that somehow in this crazy, unpredictable universe of ours, they were meant to find each other and be a family. 
And somehow, sitting there in our kitchen, photos in hand, that day, I wasn't surprised when I found out her eldest daughter and Ninesh shared a birthday.
It seemed right somehow, like an invisible thread bonding her new family with ours. 
And in the end, it's the thousands of invisible threads  connecting us all that make us who we are and catch us when we fall.
A shared birthday is just the start and it's hard to explain why it's special.
Because birthdays are strange, they are like coloured bookmarks in the pages of our lives, a subconscious marking of the beginning and ending  of chapters, a chance to celebrate what we have achieved and how far we have come or an opportunity to make a promise  that next year will be better. 
Or, of course, they are simply an excuse for a party.
But the best thing about birthdays ( and the older you get, the fewer good things there are ) is the people who remember.  There are people you only speak on your or their birthdays, people who are part of your past, from a different page of your life but whose warmly, familiar voices immediately make you smile and float you back into the kind of friendships that can only be created by time.
But time is something one of our friends never had.
In another one of those quirky birthday co-incidences, it turned out that one of the friends we met in Chichester was also born on the same day as Ninesh, just a few years later...
I met her at the Children's Centre where I worked and very quickly, unusually quickly for us, our families became friends.  Although their children were younger than ours, we spent a lot of time together, walking, talking, chatting, laughing.
It was while we were camping together for the weekend that we discovered that she, Ceylan, and Ninesh shared a birthday. But as soon as I found out, just like with my friend's adopted daughter, I wasn't surprised. It just seemed like another thing that connected us, another coincidence that added to the sense of "meant-to-be-ness," of our friendship.
Laughing, Ninesh and she, both of them quietly passionate, thoughtful, caring and kind people, planned the shared birthday parties of their future.
And under that starry sky, it wasn't the flames of the barbecue we were huddled around that kept us warm, but the certainty that our friendship was a lasting one.
I'm glad I didn't know then that Ceylan only had two more birthdays left to share with Ninesh.
Glad that, for at least one of those birthdays, she and Ninesh did celebrate together.
Glad that, because the 14th of November is Ninesh's birthday too, we will never forget to remember.

Ceylan, trying ( unsuccessfully ) to unicycle through the campsite on our son's unicycle

In a room of 23 people, there is a 50/50 chance that 2 people will share the same birthday. 
In a life full of twists and turns and crossing paths, I'm not sure what the odds are.
But it doesn't really matter.
All I know is that the 14th of November has become a very special day for me because it is the birthday of so many people I care about. 

So here's to love and laughter and silver linings, to star-filled memories and smiling photos and most of all, here's to very, very happy birthdays.

50 years of happiness and soup bowl mortality

We have just come back from an amazing holiday to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.
What made it so incredible, apart from the constant sunshine and unendingly delicious food, was the fact that all their grandchildren- aged from 11 to 17 -said it was the best week of their lives.
And I'm wondering how my parents have done it.
Not only how they've managed to survive 50 years of togetherness, but also how they've  managed to inspire such love and devotion from their ( mostly ) teenage grandchildren. 

Lisa and Vic 1964

Lisa and Vic 2011

" How have you and Lisa done it?"  Matty and Mia, the two eldest granddaughters asked their granddad while we were there." How have you two stayed together for 50 years?"
My dad, Vic, looked thoughtful.
" I don't know the answer to that," he said, " I suppose it's like Lisa explained on the phone the other day...." and he began to tell the story.
Mum and dad had been sitting down, having a quiet bowl of soup with crusty bread for lunch, when the phone rang.
Like most people their age, my parents have a long list of ailments.  Most recently it is my mum, who suffered a stroke about 5 months ago.
So when it was their GP on the phone it wasn't particularly surprising.
" So Mrs Gersten, How are you?" she asked.
" Not too bad," said my mum cheerfully.
" Good, good," said the GP "I just have a quick question,"
" OK," said my mum.
" If you were to have another stroke, would like us to put -do not resuscitate - on your file?" 
My mum who is rarely ruffled by anything, was completely thrown by the question
" Well, I um... I," she stuttered, " well, the  thing is... " her eyes rested on my dad, " the thing is, I think we still need each other. So I don't think I do."
Being faced with your own mortality over a bowl of soup can really spoil the flavour.
For days afterwards my mum was shaken by the call.
" It's just not the thing you expect someone to phone and ask you at lunchtime," she said.
"Or anytime," I want to add.
" But what she said was true," explained my dad looking affectionately at my mum and addressing his young, fashionably bikinied granddaughters, " After 50 years we still need each other."

And perhaps that's it, the thing that keeps people together for 50 years is mutual need.
But I can't help feeling there's something more to it than that..
For the last 50 years my parents have been each other's constant companions. 
Through good times and bad they have never stopped being there for each other, never stopped caring, never stopped trying to make the best of things and somehow, they have never stopped finding things to laugh about.

When one of my friend's was getting divorced, she had to tell her daughter's teacher.
" Why are you doing that," the teacher asked
" Well, we just don't get on anymore," mumbled my friend.
" That's ridiculous," said the teacher, " my parents have hated each other for years and they're still together!"
So perhaps the extraordinary thing about my parents: after 50 years they don't hate each other.
Most of the time, they're even quite fond of each other! 
Like everyone, they have had their share of disappointments, missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams.
" When I think of all the mistakes I have made ...." sighs my dad.
" How about all the successes?" I say.
He just shrugs,
But even he must admit that their marriage counts as a big success.
I watch him and my mum surrounded by their children, their children-in-law, and all their grandchildren.
Everyone is laughing and chatting, enjoying being there with them.
And perhaps I see what they don't see: that they have created something special, something that many people aspire to and few actually achieve.
They have created a family who love each other and who love them. 
And perhaps that won't make any of us rich or famous but it does make us happy.

And if 50 years of marriage does nothing more than create happiness, it has been a race worth running - even if it is with a zimmer- frame these days.