Dear Friend,
When we were kids we weren’t so great at predicting what would happen next. Adults were in charge of the future.
Bed times, what would appear on the table for breakfast, the rituals of school, that was all in the hands of the giants. It was assumed, they knew what they were doing. They did not. They were making it up as they went along. Like we do now we are grown, they were superimposing the past onto the future. Two mind made concepts, past and future, overlaid onto the ever present, ever changing mystery of now.
Once I was chased home from school by actual giants. Their footsteps crashing inches from me as they tried to stomp me into the ground. Seriously rattled I made for the safety of the side garden gate. Jamming my panicking fingers into the iron latch, skinning my knuckles on the red brick, racing for the safety of the kitchen door I was stopped in my tracks.
All round the side of the house, in the freshly dug dirt, giant footprints. The giants had sent robots ahead to capture me, they had beaten me home. By now I was sobbing. Fighting for breath I launched myself at the door handle and burst into the kitchen. Mam was baking scones. Safety. To be held. To be understood.
I wonder how it was I didn’t on that day recognise thunder? What was chasing me back then? Tiny kid, vast imagination.
The footprints were real hoof prints. A pair of young colts had escaped from the nearby allotments and had trampled the soft earth of Dad’s seedling lawn. Someone had left the side gate open. Probably me.
Somehow I always seemed to be to blame for accidents, mistakes and mishaps. Dad wasn’t a fan of taking responsibility for small things, though he shouldered the big. Holding down a job. Driving the car. Laying down the law. Seeding the lawn. Being a grown up.
There’s a chain of shops in the UK that sell things to cheer you up. Mugs and bags and framed prints and other stuff. I saw a poster that reads “Don’t Grow Up, it’s a Trap!”
It stuck in my mind. I wonder if it’s true.
Maybe if growing up means we foolishly believe we know what will happen next, limiting our imagination, that would be a trap.
Since beginning writing to you everyday like this, something wonderful has begun.
I’m seeing more of you.
Making time to meet up. Time together is truly precious. Sitting by the Serpentine, dinner in a storm, sushi overkill, coffee, a real old fashioned cinema queue, a call on Saturday afternoon, an open fire in a central London pub.
I’m beginning to feel young again. Not knowing what will happen. Knowing that whatever happens we will cope with it, we will learn and we will grow into it.
Yesterday I saw a friend who’s not been answering messages for a while. We went for coffee, he told me he’d been fighting with himself. A strong sensitive and intelligent man, someone who feels deeply the injustices of the world’s power brokers.
No single individual can take on the weight of our collective insanity, it is not ours to bear. We can direct change when we do so together. It’s a trap to imagine that peace and justice cannot prevail.
Just because, our species has been at war with itself for our entire lifetime, doesn’t mean it has to continue.
We can make peace with ourselves.
There is an unkind voice. It is a liar. A convincing liar and a sticky raconteur. Quick to judge and certain of itself, this unkind voice’s one aim is to engage us in endless inner dialogue.
The kind inner voice speaks with authenticity. It’s a quiet voice.
Like a wheel spinning. At the edges the forces of gravity are multiplied, we cling on, muscles tight, fingers slipping. We fear being hurled into the abyss.
In the centre, at the hub is stillness.
True friendship endures.
We don’t know what will happen next.
Connected to the still place inside.
Breathing.
The warmth in the centre of our being.
Loving as we did before we knew.
We can do that.
A practice.
Being.
Now.
In the safety of each other.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey.