May 2025 – Page 2 – Judy Fairbairns

There’s loads of room in there. In fact, acres, hectares, whole countries. When I find myself tumbled into such a state, unexpectedly and completely unprepared, my thinks go viral. Something, or someone, I knew as in a confirmed state, the shape of it, or them, suddenly shifts like a new weather, from sun to cloud, from known to strange, from confidence to pull back and run and I do tumble. I have been good at such tumbles over the years, although I am no acrobat. But, I can resume a stand-up and pretty quick. Things change, things break, people change, people break. It wonders me, it does, because it seems to me that, in this culture, in the the now of now, change brings in a desire to destruct, and I don’t mean, necessarily, to take apart and reassemble, not if the break is a person, a living, breathing strong, and wonderful person who is, let’s be honest, in the evening of their life, and for whom a switch has been switched. They gave no permission for such. It isn’t as if their battery ran out. It is just one of the many things unexplained which took a foothold. just when they were about. to make some great adventure. What I mean is a a desire to control.

My issue is with the response to such a dynamic shift. Because it comes a-sudden, just when, ach, please, no, ‘I don’t need this thing’ blasts in on a new wind, not one anyone had heretofore noticed, and which now is very and loudly here creating confusion, at first. That’s shock, and I get it. But for those who can think beyond their own convenience, and for those who can swipe away any talk of confinement or control, there will be renewed freedom for the changed one, and for everyone else. Someone else doesn’t know best. The person who has experienced all of it is suddenly falling into the mercy of others, having never been at the mercy of anyone, and for decades. It saddens me. There are so many rooms in this situation, acres hectares, whole countries.

Why would a person who has lived over 7 decades want confinement, control? Would you? Oh, I know we might need help with bigger letters on our phone, with a stick, with kindly neighbour watch, with lifts to a doctor’s appointment, to a farmers market, even to check we didn’t have make-up in the wrong place. This is life, and this is the autumn of a long one. Not many of us get here.

I get that a change is Confusion. Think Capacious. there are so many rooms, acres, hectares, a whole country, for the intuitively wise thinkers. Even in your busy young lives. You’ll be here one day.

We say things, we look this way, away from this way, away from that, towards both. We just do it, not much thinking, nothing conscious. We have, or may have, little idea of the result we just cemented in time. I so would like for children to be taught this, about body language, about what is never communicated via vocal chords. However, that is another thing. Let us elevate from the depths of wisdom, for now.

Saying something, doing something, any something has consequences. I remember learning that word, behind a scratched-on desk in the afternoon of a very long room, and being determined to know it for ever, even if I had yet to grasp the meaning of it. It was a big long word to me which meant nothing, but, I knew it, had a forward grasp.

We learn as we fumble our way through life, letting dreams what slip through our fingers, fighting for space, unsure, and, if we are open to our own possible failings, we can rise again, recognising our wrong choices, whether intentioned or just the result of carelessness, lack of research, or thought, and we can still clean up and take control of the next step.

There is never an end. There’s just a stop which leads to a new and informed, humbled,open beginning, thinking this. Whatever I do, or say, or act upon, all of that brings consequences. All of it.

Have I thought about that?