Dear Ceylan...a letter

Dear Ceylan
It's hard to believe that it's been five years since you left us.
Five years since I last saw your smile. 
Five years since you were part of this world.
Five years since your heart stopped beating so suddenly.
Still, there are moments when, in a busy street, I look up and am sure that I  have glimpsed you hurrying around a corner just ahead of me or slipping into a shop before I can catch up with you.
I know now, that it's just a trick of memory, a vision made almost real by the desire for it to be true.
But for just an instant, I allow myself to believe it's you.
"It's been five years," people say, " Time heals all wounds. At least the grieving is over now."
But that's not true.
Grief is not that convenient.
It's not time-limited,
it has no beginning or end.
It becomes a constant companion..
And true, it's no longer all-consuming the way it was those first few days, weeks, months.
It no longer engulfs me like a black fog, turning everything it touches into shadows of inconsequence.
Instead, now, grief has become the emotion that fills the empty space where you should be.
Five years on Ceylan, we have not stopped grieving the loss of you, but we have learnt to live with grief.

We went to Germany to see Torsten and the kids a few months ago.
They're doing ok.
Selma is so beautiful.  
Tall for her 9 years, he hair a mass of tight, unruly curls. 
She still hates having it brushed but Torsten doesn't give up.  
He knows you would never have let her go to school with messy hair.
Her favourite colour isn't purple anymore, she thinks it's blue, and she loves playing " it," and climbing as high as she can .
We climbed to the top of the goal post in their school playground, Selma and Mia and me.
She's an amazing climber. 
She was already scrambled to the top before Mia and I had taken our first step.
We sat watching the sun set over the fields and woods that surround their village.
I watched Selma absorbing the peace.
She tries so hard to be brave, to fold away her cloak of sadness and hide it in her pocket.
But there are still times when the lack of you is too unbearable, when all she can do is curl up and cry.
" When that happens she tells me that she is just sad because the world was more beautiful when her mum was in it," Torsten sats, " And all I can say, is that I know it was. But I think things are slowly getting better.  The other day we were buying her some shoes.  She has quite big feet and the woman in the shop smiled and said- it won't be long until you can wear your mum's shoes- and for the first time, Selma didn't say anything.  Didn't say my mum is dead or start crying. She just nodded. When I asked her why afterwards, she  shrugged and said it's just not  worth explaining it to everyone dad. That's an improvement, isn't it? A sign that she is beginning to cope better?"
And it probably is Ceylan, she's probably learning to cope without you.
But it made me feel guilty.
Made me wonder how many times  we, all of us, unknowingly, say careless things.
How many times in the course of a normal day, children who have lost a parent, are reminded of their pain.
I see it in Selma's clear, blue eyes as she watches the sun set,  searching the horizon for something she will never find.
I see it in the calm independence of Luis who has grown up not knowing that some of the things he does himself are things his mum would have done for him.
He was so young when you died Ceylan, still so unformed.
He looks like you.
His 7 year old eyes are so dark and deep you feel as though you are falling into them.
His gentle, thoughtful smile is heart-breakingly beautiful.
And he's a perfectionist, just like you.
Dividing sweets precisely between two boxes and very exactly cutting the crust from his bread.
His hair falls dark over his face, just like yours.
You would be so proud of him.
He's self-contained and definite.
There's a "just-so-ness," to his world, that holds his life together.
He seems to possess an inner strength way beyond his years.
He loves cooking.
We made chocolate chip cookies with him and Selma.
Luis knew where everything was and measured out exactly the right quantities.
He's as delicately determined as you were.
And he's amazing at ice-skating.
Were you?
I think you must have been
Because I stood at the edge of the ice rink and every time he flashed past, I could imagine it was you.
Sometimes the three of them, Torsten and Selma and Luis, glided across the rink together, holding hands, laughing, watching Mia and Joss and Ninesh as they wobbled uncertainly near the edge ( I was too cowardly to try! ).
Selma and Luis tried to help them.
Selma held Mia's hand.
Luis hovered near Joss.
But in the end the joy of gliding smoothly across the clear, white ice was too tempting.
They were just two kids having fun on the ice with their dad.

The house is lovely Ceylan.
Torsten has done such a good job making it into a home.
It's much bigger than your house in England.
I think you'd like it.  
Big and airy and full of light with just the right amount of furniture.
There is a tree in the garden that is your tree.
The kids bring things to show to you there: feathers and special stones they have found.
You can see the garden from every room but it looks best from the living room.
In the living room, 
Joss was lying there on the sofa when I walked in...
" Mum," he whispered, " Selma just said Mama."
I looked at Selma.
She was sitting on the floor, behind a chair, trying to fold a picture she has made in a special way.
It wasn't folding right.
Silently I sat down next to her.
She kept trying to fold and re-fold the paper but it wouldn't work.
Suddenly she looked up at me, tears streaming down her face.
" You can't help me," she said.
And the words stabbed me because I know she's right.
5 years on and her grief is still so huge and so raw, there is no pocket big enough to hide it in, no one who can help her enough.
Torsten tries so hard Ceylan.
He tries so hard to do the impossible, to be a mum and a dad to them.
And he does everything he can to make your dreams for them come true.
He's so proud of them.
So worried about them.
And he reads to them all the time- remember how you told me he wasn't so good at that?
He wears your wedding ring on his little finger so that it touches his.
And he carries your memory with him everywhere he goes.
It's not always easy for him.
There are times when the children cling to him, clambering over him when he is sitting down, hanging round his neck, as though they need every ounce of his soul to make them feel complete.
And he is endlessly calm and kind and patient.
His love for them shines so bright and is so strong, it's almost tangible.
They are surrounded by love, Selma and Luis.
His parents and your parents still come and look after them every few weeks.
They still spend every Summer in Turkey with your mum and dad..
The children would like it if Torsten stayed there longer but he says he can't, not yet.
He's still not ready for that.
I think that, In Turkey, everything he sees or touches or hears is a memory of you so that there, your absence doesn't lessen, it grows.

And so, you see, Ceylan, life has somehow muddled on without you.
Mia and Joss are growing up, standing on the gritty beach of teenagehood, occassionaly dipping their toes into the adult life beyond.. 
Ninesh and I are getting older, with all the grey hairs and wrinkles that come with age.
At least you were spared that.
After you died Ninesh bought a convertible and took up paragliding.
He never said it, but I think it was because of you.
I think he realised that life is too short and unpredictable and fragile to put off doing the things you have always wanted to do. 
And me.
I gave up work to spend time with the people I really care about.
I keep thinking of you, how you had given up work for that first year in England.
How you spent it with Selma and Luis.
How that year is their most precious memory.
If the loss of you has taught me anything, it is to have no regrets and to have the courage to do only what I believe is right.
And so that is how I live my life.
It makes me happy.
From even the saddest places, hope can grow.
I talk to you often.
Do you hear me?
If you do, I hope it's not too annoying.
You always were a good listener.

So you see Ceylan, you are only out of reach, never out of mind.
Today the skies are blue and cloudless, not raging with rain and thunder like the days after you died.
I hope it's because you have found peace.

As I write this, our garden is bathed in sunshine.
I imagine looking up and seeing the outline of you, your gentle, half-shy smile mingling with the sunlight, your words a whisper on the breeze.
And I think, perhaps,I know what you are telling us.
That five years on, it's time to stop crying.
We will try Ceylan.
Life has this way of forcing us to live it and even if our tears have dried, we, all of us who knew you, live it a little more sadly for the lack of you.
I'll never stop missing you.
Love always
Becky x

Your family

Patchwork Lives

Last  Sunday was my uncle's 90th birthday celebration.  
It has been a long time in the planning, this gathering of the generations.
Guests travelled from the far North of England, from Wales, from Germany. fellow survivors of the Holocaust travelling miles, to celebrate with him..
His daughter, my cousin,  had very impressively managed to arrange most of the party from her home in Germany.
" How's the planning going?" I asked, the last time I spoke to her before the party.
" Well," she said, " it's all sorted. We've booked the local synagogue hall, we've sorted the caterers and we've asked 70 people, family and friends, who have all accepted the invitation. Only one person has said they're definitely not coming."
" That's a shame," I said, " who is it."
"My dad," said my cousin.
I laughed, she didn't.
" Do you think we can celebrate his 90th birthday without him?" she asked. 
I hesitated.
" Well you can't cancel it now.  Perhaps he'll feel better about it on the day."
" Maybe," she said,  sounding  unconvinced.  And I understood why.
My uncle has always been stubborn, even when he was well and young.  Now that he is unwell and old, he clings to his stubborness like a lifebuoy. 
 It is the one thing that is not disappearing with his memory.
"Perhaps we could persuade him to sit in his wheelchair and then run.." I suggested.
My cousin gave a half-hearted laugh.
"He doesn't really use a wheelchair. I guess we'll just see what happens on the day."
But the day arrived and even as people began to trickle into their house, my uncle remained determined not to enjoy his day.
Family and long-time friends gathered in the front room while my uncle sat, resolutely grumpy and alone in the kitchen.
" Walk with me to the hall," said my cousin, half an hour before the party was due to start. She turned to her mandolin-playing minstrel brother, " perhaps you can just tell dad it's time to go," she said, " maybe he'll forget where it is he's meant to be going to and just come with you.."
Her brother nodded, " I'll do my best," he said quietly.
We set off for the synagogue, the hall decorated with balloons, round tables laid out with name plates and cutlery.
" It's looks amazing," I said, "I don't know how you managed to arrange all this from Berlin."
My cousin shrugged. " Let's hope everyone comes," she said, ' then at least, if dad really doesn't come we'll be able to show him the photos. It's amazing how many people care about him."
And everybody did come.
The hall was full, everyone seated and the first course just about to be served, when my uncle arrived.  
Leaning on his stick, he walked slowly to his seat and sat down next to my aunt.
My cousin grinned,  heaved a huge sigh of relief and her brother took out his mandolin and played the first notes of happy birthday.
A mixture of tuneful and disharmonious voices filled the hall.
Everyone  joined in, and even though my uncle's eyes were closed, he was smiling.
The courses were peppered with speeches ( and even a poem ) by family and friends and the room was filled with the gentle hum of conversation and the odd screech of laughter from the table of teenagers.
All the grandchildren and great nieces and nephews from the ages of 7 to 17, were sitting together.
And, as is always the way with groups of teenagers, they were wrapped in a cloak of unrealised potential, an edgy energy, that seemed to say, ' we are just slightly more important than the rest of you.. 
While the speeches remembered my uncle's past, the teenage table represented his future, my uncle's fingerprint resting on the heads of his two grandchildren.
They are half Indian, half Jewish and, in a strange twist of fate,  living in Berlin the city where their granddad's life began and from which he had to flee. It's like his world has turned full circle, but somehow in the turning it has moved to a different universe
I wondered, if in all his wildest, long-ago Berlin dreams, my uncle, a young Jewish boy, could ever have imagined he would be part of such a patchwork family.
In those days, anyone who married outside their faith would be shunned by the rest of their family.
Yet in his 90th year he sits at the head of a family that is like a small version of the United Nations. A mixture of-Indian, English, Thai, Sri Lankan and Welsh blood coursing through the veins of his grand children and great nieces and nephews. None of this third generation are practising Jews, most of the second generation Jewish in name only, The trauma of his niece coming out as gay many, many years ago, a distant memory ( even the never-ending Passover night when she added "or she," every time God was called "he*) and her partner long-since accepted as a member of the family.

Some of the patchwork family

But despite this diluting of his religion through the generations, nothing has meant more to  my uncle or had more impact on his life, than his Jewish faith. 
 Family and friends stood up  and, with warmth and obvious respect, told the story of his life, 
As a German refugee  at the beginning of the Second World War, his life in England  began  in a children's home  for children who arrived on the Kindertransport. He was lucky., his mum and dad were with him, they were running the home. But he had to share them with all the other lonely, frightened, suddenly-parentless children.
 It was a strange, sad beginning to a new life in a world that had been turned upside down by the crazy,, incomprehensible rise of a devastating anti-semitic hatred.
The speeches were warm and witty. 
There was no anger at the tearing apart of the lives of so many in that room, just a sense of belonging to something  that will never be completely destroyed.
" All these people are nice people" my dad said when the speeches had finished, "they're all kind and gentle. Why would anyone want to murder us?"
I looked at the crowd gathering around my almost-asleep uncle.
It was a hall full of survivors.
 Even the patchwork teenagers were only here because the people before them had survived.
It always seems strange to me that people who have given up everything, had to make a new start from nothing, should end up living every day lives in unexciting suburbs like my uncle, moving from the North of England to Slough and then to Ealing.
But perhaps that's what survival means, recreating the normal, trying to give your family the very thing you lacked, a life of certainty and uneventfulness.
Of course it never quite works that way.
His children are wanderers, restless somehow, not quite wanting to belong.
But he and my aunt made them a home full of love and laughter and life.
And in his 90th year, my uncle still hasn't lost is sense of humour.
Although he seemed to be asleep for most of the speeches, when they were finished he pointed at the microphone.
My cousin was really pleased.
" After all that fuss about not coming, he's going to make a speech," she smiled.
Everyone turned towards him, waiting.
With slow determination he switched the microphone on.
" What I want to know," he said after a pause, " is why no one has mentioned Slough."

Slowly people began to leave, each of them representing a different part of my uncle's life.  Old and young, religious and irreligious, his past and his future.
And I realised suddenly that it is not just our families but our whole lives that are a human sized patchwork of being. A collection of memories and experiences, of now and then, of who we are and what we were, held together by a golden thread of beliefs and values and hope.
As the hall emptied, my uncle made his slow way to the synagogue. 
It's a tiny room now, partitioned off at the end of the hall, a shadow of what it used to be,it's members dwindling and ageing. 
 But it's where my uncle feels most at home, where the sometimes fading patches of his life come together, vibrant and alive for the shortest of moments, a quilt of comfort in an often uncomforting world.
And perhaps, for just a little while, he is transported to Slough.

Happy Birthday Uncle Kurt

Pub (un)Culture

It's a regular argument in our house, a debate Ninesh, my husband, and I have every time we have we are free to go out together for the evening.
"Why go to the pub?" I ask, " What's so special about a pub?"
Ninesh usually looks at me and shakes his head sadly as though to say: " You poor thing, how can you not understand?"
But I really don't.
I don't understand what's so great about going and standing in a packed pub, crushed shoulder to shoulder with  people who you don't know.
I don't understand why sitting and yelling at each other over the noise of the crowd and the music is a fun way to communicate.
I don't understand the point of paying huge amounts of money for a pint of mediocre beer or a glass of horrible wine.

" It's the atmosphere," says Ninesh, " the buzz...."
" Really," I say, "The atmosphere of drunken lairishness and the buzz of flies around the disgusting toilets?"
Ninesh sighs
" What did you have in mind then?" he asks.
" How about we stay in?" I say.
" What!," he says, "Why would we stay in when it's our chance to go out?" 
" The calm atmosphere and the buzzlessness," I say.
Ninesh looks at me dismayed.
" We could ask some friends round here?"  I suggest.
" Well if we going to meet up with some friends, we might as well do it at the pub," says Ninesh, cheering up, " It's probably easier for everyone to meet in town. What's the point of everyone coming here?"
" Well," I say, " everyone around us would be our friends, we wouldn't have to shout to hear each other and we could drink better quality alcohol much more cheaply."
Ninesh is not convinced.
From the moment he turned 18 he has loved the pub culture.
A place to hang out with your friends away from your parents.
A place to meet new people and try out new drinks.
A  place to reinvent yourself and become the person you always wanted to be.
A place to sit nursing a beer, putting the world to rights with your mates.
Going to your "local," was just what everyone did on a Friday and Saturday night

But that was back in the day.
Back in the day when everyone had a favourite local.
Back in the day when every pub prided itself on being unique and different..
Back in the day when publicans  invested time and energy in their customer, because they cared whether or not they came back.
Back in the day when you could walk into the pub and be greeted by familiar faces and the person behind the bar would already be pulling your favourite pint.
But those days are gone.
Most of the pubs, in Chichester anyway, are chains , less dingy but less personal, magnolia and beige to their extremely characterless cores.
" I'm just going down the pub," used to mean, " I'm popping out to spend time with the people I would have chosen as my family if I had been given the choice."
Nowadays it usually means " I'm going out to get as drunk as I can, so don't wait up."
True pub culture seems to be disappearing.
I know it probably still exists in country villages where there is not much else to do in the evening.
But in towns and cities it's getting harder and harder to find.
Pubs are just not the same.
There are fewer and fewer comfy corners where you can sit, beer in hand, putting the world to rights and there are more and more half-lit corners where you can stand, doing shots and using your tongues for something else!
Perhaps it's just that I'm getting old.
Perhaps I've already reached that stage of my life when I'm always secretly thinking: "  In my day it was...."
Pubs, like everything else, cannot be blamed for moving with the times.
I, on the other hand, could be blamed for standing still.
But I can't help mourning the passing of the time when each pub was different, when one was the party pub and one the " live music," pub, when beer was affordable and the person behind the bar knew your name.
There was a time when each small community had it's local pub and that pub was the heart and soul of the local community.
Now pubs compete to be the trendiest place to hang-out.
And instead of being welcoming, there are bouncers on the doors to keep you out.
Being part of "pub culture," no longer means knowing that there is always a stool by the bar with your name on it and a friendly ear to bend when you're feeling lonely.
Being part of the pub culture now means knowing which is the coolest pub to start your weekend pub-crawl from.
It's not about the character of a pub but about which pub has the cheapest alcohol.

Ninesh and I have reached an impasse.
He, a pub worshipper will never stop loving them,  and I, a pub atheist, will never understand why.
But we are free for the night and there are worse ways to spend it than in a noisy, characterless pub- like spending it watching football on TV.
So I take his hand and head for the door.
" Come on then," I say, " which pub shall we go to?"
" Well," he says, " if we go to the Nags Head, the footie should be on...."

I am wrong.... I can't actually think of a worse way to spend the nght!

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..