I have just been for my daily bit of exercise, walking round the lake near our house. It was a stormy night and there has been a lot of rain but I thought I had picked a calm moment. How wrong I was! As I reached the lake the rain began again, driven by the wind in sheets into my face. I had a waterproof coat and sturdy boots but no hat or umbrella and was soaked in minutes. I could have gone back but at that point I decided to go on and try to enjoy the walk for what it was - and I did enjoy it.
One of the things I am trying to do in retirement is be more present in the moment and I took this opportunity as a sort of spiritual exercise as well as a physical one. The lake and the trees around it always lift my spirits and they did so just as much in the rain as in the sunshine. I enjoyed the pattern of the raindrops on the water and the colour of the branches made dark by the rain. I gave thanks that I can still walk without difficulty and feel the wet and the cold.
Now I am back in my warm study I can give thanks for that too and I am remembering some lines from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet:
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
A Happy Return
Today is my 60th birthday so I thought this was an appropriate time to get back into blogging. Obviously I haven't said anything here for a long time but I have been reading other people's blogs - especially via http://www.quakerquaker.org/. Thanks a lot Martin for helping me keep in touch with the Quaker conversation.
60 feels signficant to me. I'm officially an Old Age Pensioner from today with a state pension and a free bus pass - not to mention free prescriptions, eye tests and lots of other goodies! I'm determined to use all the opportunities I have and to keep thinking and learning all I can, but at the same time I am on a continuing journey to discern what I need to do, rather than what I think I should.
I retired from paid work in the middle of 2006 and I am still getting used to that. I'm doing some 19th century Quaker research which is taking me in unexpected directions. I have decided that I need to write my family history in order to understand where my parents came from as well as myself. There is a lot to write about here so I will try to do that as well as reading other blogs.
60 feels signficant to me. I'm officially an Old Age Pensioner from today with a state pension and a free bus pass - not to mention free prescriptions, eye tests and lots of other goodies! I'm determined to use all the opportunities I have and to keep thinking and learning all I can, but at the same time I am on a continuing journey to discern what I need to do, rather than what I think I should.
I retired from paid work in the middle of 2006 and I am still getting used to that. I'm doing some 19th century Quaker research which is taking me in unexpected directions. I have decided that I need to write my family history in order to understand where my parents came from as well as myself. There is a lot to write about here so I will try to do that as well as reading other blogs.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Top of the family tree
This morning the phone rang as we were getting ready to go to meeting and just for a moment I thought it was my mother wanting something. Then I remembered – she died 6 weeks ago.
She was 92, physically increasingly frail although mentally alert, so in many ways her death was expected. Certainly she herself had been wishing for it for years, but I had somehow convinced myself that she would go on for ever.
She was taken into hospital on a Thursday with a suspected heart attack although the doctors were not sure what was wrong. I was called and sat with her for 10 hours as we waited for diagnoses and decisions. At the time I was anxious, frustrated and exhausted but I am glad now that we had that time together. I held her hand and interpreted between the hospital staff and her deafness and she stroked my head, something I cannot remember her ever doing before, and apologised for all the grey hairs she had given me.
She was admitted for tests but the weekend intervened and the tests were not done. I settled into a visiting routine shared with my son Matt who lives nearby and she seemed to be improving, finding the energy to complain and demand as usual. On Monday, after I had seen her at lunchtime, she saw a doctor she liked who told her they were still not sure what was wrong. My son saw her in the evening and told me she was in fine form, laughing and joking with him. Early on Tuesday morning came the phone call from the hospital I had been dreading for years. “Your mother’s not good. Please come now.” In fact by the time the call was made sudden heart failure had almost certainly already taken her past any hope of resuscitation.
Since I said goodbye to her that morning I have had a lot to do and think about. I am slowly coming to terms with the absence of someone who had gradually needed more and more of my time - two days a week with her and many more hours organising her care and her finances, worrying about her and looking for ways to make her existence more bearable. I miss her and weep at the most unexpected things but at the same time all kinds of possibilities are opening up in the space she has left.
I am an only child and my father died 22 years ago. Now I am at the top of my family tree, the older generation, the keeper of family memories. More than ever I feel a responsibility to write down what I remember, what I have been told and what I can find out. I made a start when I wrote the eulogy for my mother’s funeral, trying to be fair to her and true to our intense and not always easy relationship. Writing this is another step on the journey.
She was 92, physically increasingly frail although mentally alert, so in many ways her death was expected. Certainly she herself had been wishing for it for years, but I had somehow convinced myself that she would go on for ever.
She was taken into hospital on a Thursday with a suspected heart attack although the doctors were not sure what was wrong. I was called and sat with her for 10 hours as we waited for diagnoses and decisions. At the time I was anxious, frustrated and exhausted but I am glad now that we had that time together. I held her hand and interpreted between the hospital staff and her deafness and she stroked my head, something I cannot remember her ever doing before, and apologised for all the grey hairs she had given me.
She was admitted for tests but the weekend intervened and the tests were not done. I settled into a visiting routine shared with my son Matt who lives nearby and she seemed to be improving, finding the energy to complain and demand as usual. On Monday, after I had seen her at lunchtime, she saw a doctor she liked who told her they were still not sure what was wrong. My son saw her in the evening and told me she was in fine form, laughing and joking with him. Early on Tuesday morning came the phone call from the hospital I had been dreading for years. “Your mother’s not good. Please come now.” In fact by the time the call was made sudden heart failure had almost certainly already taken her past any hope of resuscitation.
Since I said goodbye to her that morning I have had a lot to do and think about. I am slowly coming to terms with the absence of someone who had gradually needed more and more of my time - two days a week with her and many more hours organising her care and her finances, worrying about her and looking for ways to make her existence more bearable. I miss her and weep at the most unexpected things but at the same time all kinds of possibilities are opening up in the space she has left.
I am an only child and my father died 22 years ago. Now I am at the top of my family tree, the older generation, the keeper of family memories. More than ever I feel a responsibility to write down what I remember, what I have been told and what I can find out. I made a start when I wrote the eulogy for my mother’s funeral, trying to be fair to her and true to our intense and not always easy relationship. Writing this is another step on the journey.
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