Tension & Growth
Dear friend,
The engine of the East Midland Railway’s carriage bucks and sways its way back down the country to London with me amongst others on board. Magnolia and blue.
To my left a little kid is loving the sound of their own voice. You know the way kids approximate language.
It sounds like they are affirming “I am here, I am here!”
I’m finding the tannoy system overbearing.
Who was it invented the phrase “see it, say it, sort it”? It’s an invite to be vigilant. We are perhaps at war?
The kids have their phone on speaker watching some American tv show and the engine judders as we pass the street lights of village by the tracks. We plunge back into the inky darkness. If I look out of the window I see my fellow travellers reflected with orange streets lights zipping past far off in the distance.
I’m tired. My false self is flicking one of my ear lobes. The kids phone, the grime on the floor of the carriage. The juddering and rattling.
It would like to skip this moment. And the crowded tube journey I imagine when I think of arriving at St Pancreas station. The kid’s father has fallen asleep, he’s woken when the kid raises the volume. He looks irritated.
But you can’t skip a moment.
In fact, you can’t escape it.
The mental game of being somewhere else other than being here now is the cause of the discomfort.
The kid is cute.
The tv show is benign.
The train is moving and making good time.
The boy has become quiet and is nestling his head on his dad’s arm. I can see them if I look at their reflection on the window. Maybe the tapping of my keys is winding up someone else’s false self?
Just this moment.
What else do we do?
How extraordinary the change when you drop the mental complaints. The world transforms before your eyes; becoming softer, quieter as it was before your mind started meddling with it.
The kid has fired up again, his Dad has fallen asleep. The boy after all only wants the most natural of things, the attention of his father.
The trip to Sheffield has been intensely positive. I found myself in a community of artists and musicians and designers and teachers, dogs and dog lovers. You could walk around thinking nothing much is happening then you sit in a cafe with a group of old and new friends and there are concerts, venues, new companies and projects being planned. When you’re with Ash you can’t walk more than ten minutes without a hello or a wave to someone.
I remember it.
When I was in the grip of a depression or a sustained attack of my false self, when I was a lost boy in this city, swamped with shame, I wanted nothing more than to disappear. “How are you?” Is a hard question when you’re running from your feelings. I couldn’t know back then just how strong the human spirit is.
The body can hold and process any emotion it can create. The tension if we allow it the space, opens into growth.
I met a friend who I’ve not seen for several years for coffee.
She told me about a prolonged and frightening illness, her crying holiday.
“I knew I had to get away, book myself into ‘hospital’”, she explained “ so I booked a package holiday. I needed someone else to do the dishes and cook for me and I needed to be alone. I wore my sunglasses all the time, to spare the other people in the hotel and I cried for a week. At night I sneaked up onto the roof and shouted things at the stars.”
When she came home, when anyone asked them how the holiday was they’d say with a huge grin:
“Oh it was absolutely shite, just what I needed.”
Somehow, life serves us.
Gives us what we need.
To grow.
You learn to soften.
To give way.
Not to give up.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey