April 11, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 129 Out of Africa

In Africa I was more likely to find wildlife than wifi. Of course, there were odd times, in a bar perhaps in town or in a friend’s spanking new office block, but mostly, the only form of contact with anyone at all, was with a handshake, a wide smile and an exchange of words, a state of being I rather like, even if I did, out of habit, reach for my phone if ever we stopped for coffee.

This new office block, with its wide light rooms and wrap around views across Capetown, is already a business hub. Inventive and creative thinking, interior design and spatial understanding brings together anyone with a business to run and no desk to run it from. Hot Desks are affordable and genius, because, not only do you get your own space, wifi connection, etc, but you also get to work in a bustling energetic atmosphere among other creators, all of whom are more than happy to network over coffee or a beer.

At every robot (traffic lights) there may be 3 lanes of vehicles. I look across at those parked beside us in our little silver car (Maggie) and can hardly see the tops of the buckies (four-wheel drives) without craning. Inside these sit the well-upholstered Africaaners, their windows tight shut for the aircon to work. On the other side, a people carrier taxi, all windows open, pumps out music, the black passengers grinning and bopping on their way to or from work. The second we stop, the street sellers move in, weaving their way among the cars, holding their merchandise, such as beaded animals, children’s wooden puzzles, mobiles, jewelery, long-legged birds fashioned from plastic bags, woven sunhats and the Big Issue. The sellers are clean and proud, in the main, the turbanned women flashing sparkly smiles, the men making eye contact. Not begging but business. We don’t buy because we can find exactly what they are selling on the high street or at the market, even though they did assure us it was all their own work. It could also cause a cafuffle if the lights changed in the middle of negotiations, for there are always negotiations. The asking price is set high, the rest is barter.

I found the beggars, when we did meet them in town, and you always meet them in town, most distressing to observe. I always wanted to give something, but, had I done so, I would still be there in Market Square with not a penny left to my name. Once you give to one, others move in, many of them children, and all of them thin as rakes. Those who live in Capetown are not cold hearted, but they have grown a thicker skin. They will consider employing anyone who turns up, who cleans up, who decides to move up in life, but they will not easily support those who choose doorways to sleep in and some lethal coctail as nourishment.

I thought much about that. If someone has lost whatever they had, which may not have been much, it might not take long for that loss to turn into an acceptable way to live. I imagine self-confidence and respect dissolve pretty quickquick when your only chance of food is by raiding bins on collection day. I watched a man walk down the street doing just that and talking away to himself. He was oblivious to me, beyond stepping off the pavement to avoid a collision, and his eyes were bloodshot and empty. I pulled my bag closer and felt vulnerable and overdressed and frightfully well spoken and, well, guilty. We were heading out of town for a few nights on the coast, with food and wine and a rented beach hut to wrap around us and all he had to look forward to was another long street of wheelie bins and the possibility of Thai curry leftovers in polystyrene. And a doorway to sleep in.

Then (for life always sends a balance to help out) I met young black people with a zeal in their bellies. Not priveleged and living in one of the townships – mile upon mile of tin roofs and dust floors, but still determined to find new quality for their lives, waiting at tables, working on the dustcart, cleaning, odd-jobbing, and so much more. ‘If anyone wants it, the work is here’, I was told more than once. This is a country where labour is abundant and cheap. Wages are low, work is hard, but these people have a joy about them, a laughter that may well not come from a place of comfort. It’s more an attitude than a result of how life treats them. In other words, it comes first, that smile, that easy laugh.

We saw the maids arriving at the big smart Africaaner homes every morning around 7am. Dressed in black with brilliant white aprons, they trudged up the hills from the noisy taxi that brought them out of the townships, talking and laughing together. They always looked up for a greeting and always responded with friendship. Their hours, from 7.30 to whenever they were done cleaning, looking after children and cooking, might earn them £8 at the far end of a day that expects a woman to do every domestic job required. Then they walked back to the taxi rank, back to the townships to their own families to begin all over again, every single day. When I talked with one maid, she told me she was happy to work. Work, she said, is important. No work, no importance. She look at me, astonished when I told her I had worked as a maid for a time. Why? she asked me. ‘You don’t have maids in Scotland?’ As if cleaning was not for my shiny white hands. I fumbled about for an answer that didn’t sound like ‘well, I needed the money.’ She would have fainted clean away, had she known the wage I was paid for doing far less than is expected of her. And then she smiled the widest smile and then she laughed a laugh that made her bangles jingle and shook her head in amazement and amusement at the very thought of the ‘Ma’ cleaning a house, even her own. Then she gathered up a huge pile of washing and left me wondering at my priveleged life and how often I forget to remember that it is just that.

March 3, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 128 The Songs we Sing

Today the thrush sings atop a nearby larch that is just about to burst into new life. Last evening, as the stars filled the heavens, I listened to it again, this time down by the sea-loch, singing in trinkets. That’s my word, not the official diagnosis of thrush song. Unlike other birds, where there is a chance to follow the melody and phrasing, the thrush jumps from a whirr to a rhapsody, from clicks to trllls, and all in, what sounds to my ears like, one line of music score. I like music like that for it keeps me listening, keeps me wanting more, keeps me turning pages wondering what happens next. I like being around people like that, who fascinate with their creative agility.

Okay, park all that for now, but keep it close to hand.

Some people start to do something one way, and stick with it. I ALWAYS do it this way! they cry, not recognising the fun of variation. I always walk down this road! one that has given way to a dual carriageway, or I always loved that old beech tree! which now has fallen and will soon turn to pulp thanks to endless rains and careless landowners. These people can approach relationships the same way, with an ‘I’ and an ‘Always’ and it can cause havoc just because it refuses to bend or twist, to be creatively agile or adaptable.

At times, and when this ‘Always’ thing is in balance, it can mean wonderful things, such as always doing what you promise, or always being there when someone falls. In this state, it is a gift, a dependability, a trust. However, I would just like to poo-poo the thought that may have just popped into your head. The one that tells you, it must be either/or, always or never, This leaves trinket singing thrushes like me tweeting away on the outskirts of goodness, so, for that reason alone, it can’t be the truth.

Out of balance, the ‘Always’ person, believing, let’s say, in either/or, might look down on the rest of us, or me, anyway. Out of balance means being rigid, dogmatic,unbending. So that, if I were to suggest a deviation from whatever is planned, and if I continued to do this over long periods of time and in many areas of daily life, I might be creating a disturbance in the universe and possibly be the sole reason for climate change.

There is a third dimension to this thrush talk, and it is this. If I, a woman who changes her tune every few seconds, make the ‘Always’ person feel wrong about their way of being, then I am as rigid as they, only in a different, and might I suggest, convenient way. I say ‘convenient’ because I have noticed, that it is easy for me to be Mrs Bouncy Pants when it suits, when the song is wild in me and the day is full of thrushes, but, it is an entirely different matter when I am writing, for at this time, I am as rigid as the old beech tree that couldn’t fight the wind.

So, where do we go from here? If I am to go with my heart, and so are you and you and you, then how on earth can we manage it, and how will we ever work and walk together? It sounds like war to me. I believe firmly in listening to my own heart and hope you listen to yours too, but is my heart ‘right’? If I want to walk in empathy and gentleness with you, then it isn’t you I need to fix, but myself. Although I have no plans at all to give up my own right to be a trinket songstress, I must also honour your way. If I keep pointing out that you are wrong and I am right, then nobody wins for ‘a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still’. Besides, if everyone was like me, there would be no balance anywhere in the world. People like me need antithesis in big boots, solidly connected to terra firma.

My life has taught me many wisdoms through daily encounters with people not like me. I thought, once, that I was wrong in everything and could not understand, nor explain, why my heart said ‘jump in’ when all around me said ‘don’t’. Now I know that I do’nt have to give up on myself, for my self, in balance is perfect for me. I have my own way of doing things, of seeing things, and so do you. If there is an area upon which we both agree, then that is wonderful. But if you want to go left, and I, right, then that is what we should do, re-convening at coffee time, whereupon there is a good chance we will both have forgotten our skirmish, so caught up are we in the songs we’ve heard and the songs we’ve sung, on our different journeys.

And that is the key, if you will pardon the musical pun.

Forgetting.

March 2, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 127 Reasons to Stay

Since writing my book, Island Wife, I have received many emails and letters from women whose own story relates to my own. Some of them are short, some long and detailed, but many of them have the same question to ask me. Why did I stick with my marriage?

The ‘how’ of it, I can answer. Despite what appeared to be going on, and growing shape and form, I could always find one good reason to stay, one reason, however small and squeaky. There may well have been a thousand reasons to leave, but it only took one to keep me in place. In the early days, the reasons numbered five. My five children. I was confident and strong in the knowing that, were I to abandon ship, they would be damaged. I make no judgement, nor did I ever, on women who do leave. In fact, as I re-investigate my heart right now on this matter, I feel no critical twinges, nor any sense of superiority beside those good women who made a choice, a really tough one and one not without considerable personal angst and pain, guilt and fear. I just couldn’t do it myself, not for long, anyway.

I used to watch other wives and mothers, as they flew in on warm winds to stay at Tapselteerie for their family holidays. I warmed myself in the light of their eyes, eyes that told me they had found a nourishing bond in their own relationships, and that they were, yes, happy. Of course, I have no knowledge of them now, but those glimpses into another’s life both helped and hindered me. On the one hand, they made me envious. They had managed to find a man who honoured them just as they came to him, not in need of any re-arranging, not faulty. The new light they brought to the marriage was something he needed, wanted to be around, in order to find fulfillment. He basked in it, sought her wisdom, let her be. On the other hand, they made me feel that, had I been like them, I would also deserve such freedom within a relationship. Oh poor little me.

As the children began to try out their wings and, eventually, flew the nest, I became increasingly aware that I was being abandoned by the five who gave me context. Who am I now? is a question I often asked myself, as the rooms hollowed out and the quiet of ‘just us’ settled like dust. People, friends, told me that this was now my time to do something for me, and, yet, after decades of not doing something for me, I had no ideas at all. When someone has ploughed the same furrow for that length of time, investing fully in the work of every day, and night, it is almost cruel to take it all away and to offer a wide horizon. What could a no-longer-girl like me do with a broad horizon? I’ll tell you what she does. She stands there looking at it, mouth open, eyes wide and head empty, and then dives back to wash the kitchen floor, just to feel safe again.

In a different sort of relationship, one I observed in others and dream-wove from novels and movies, this woman would be given free rein to investigate, to research new roads, and, most importantly, encouraged gently to find her own wings, to grow new confidence as just herself in a new context – that of the big wide world. If that encouragement is not proffered, and if it matters as much as I think it does, then she will hold to what she knows.

I know about monkey mind. That chatter inside a head that always works to undermine walking out a dream. I have worked hard to quiet that voice, and still do, for it is not the truth. To imagine another life, without stepping into it, is just that. Dreaming. I found my way, by writing my story and setting it free in the big wide world. You might say it was written in the hope for understanding, for empathy. You might say I hoped it would bring a flash of remorse and a new beginning. And it might do all of these. It has already brought me a new self-confidence because to have a well-known and respected publisher take up your book, you must be able to write, and in these times of excellent writers, doubly so. It has also taught me that feeling sorry for myself and doing nothing to change my situation is, well, pathetic, at best.

In those times of finding just one reason to stay, I discovered other ones, hiding in my attic. In any relationship, there are at least two people, each with a very different perspective on life and ideas on how to live it. Bring into each mix, parental baggage, school history, sibling rivalry and so on and then dress this damaged person in cowboy boots, or high heels and call it an adult. Then shove it out into a world of high expectations, judgements, parameters, boundaries, social constraints and no mappage, no DIY manual on the subject, but only other opinions formed by those who came before, each one lumbering along under the weight of their own ‘stuff’.

I believe I have just found a new definition for Chaos.

Living now, each day as it comes, I learn something new. Something new about me, about my marriage, my choices, my life thus far. I still find reasons to keep walking, keep looking around, keep my heart soft and my stride strong and purposeful. I have bad days, black dreams, bouts of self-pity and I can still make the house shake with a powerful door slam, but these are just a part of the whole. What I love is a challenge and life is always thus. I find only momentary delight in winning an argument if my opponent just backs down, remaining certain still of his own belief. I find there is little (if any at all) point in going over who said what and when and in what tone of voice. I find no future in paying the slightest attention to either of us in a grumpy mood. I am learning that perspective is king, and that grace is his queen.

At the end, whenever that may be, I will reflect on my choices, made by me, for me, and be content to know, not that I got it right, but that I got it at all.

February 28, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 126 Light in the Attic

Our ‘attic’ or loft for the new generation of home-owners, is mostly dark. There is one piddling light bulb just at the trap door and about a mile and a half of pitch darkness, densly strung with fat dirty cobwebs left by old spiders who thought flies might just fancy a blind spin among the boxes and crates of stuff nobody knows is there, nor cares.

We have employed a miner’s headlamp when required to ferret about for something we think might be there, something high on the critical list for Right Now. Often, that initial enthusiasm is lost in the fight to avoid strangulation by Old Spider and the unlucky miner emerges furious and unrecognisable beneath Miss Haversham’s veil, coughing and spitting and in need of a number four cycle with maximum spin. Old newspapers dissolve into powder at a single touch and underfoot lie fossils that foof into blue smoke after one bootly crunch. Then the fine dust of a rodent’s body rises into a gasping mouth to irritate the cilia into a frenzy, like a field of ripe corn in a hurricane.

Whatever it was that seemed so vital, has now lost all of its shine. Getting out without breaking a bone is what rises to the top of the list. The steps, just too low to reach the trap door, balance between two stairs in an alarming way, and the support group who said they would remain in position for just this moment, have popped down to put the kettle on. Suddenly, all those old spiders, the clutch of their webbing, the dead mice and the darkness morph into a terrifying monster, one that is closing in. All I need now is for the trap door to snap shut and I am doomed to become the next fossil waiting to puff out my own blue smoke in a hundred years time, beneath another booted foot. My throat, or what is left of it, constricts, my heart begins a mad dash to nowhere and there is no way, without jumping, that I can re-connect with the wobbly steps.

That is the very LAST time I ever go up in that attic! I cry, once I can speak again. And, yet, there will be another time, because I am slim and agile and, as the space up there closes down over the years, the only one who will ever be able to get up there at all.

What I want to know, is why we put anything up there for in the first place? The family silver, the pretty china, the old guitar, the boxes and boxes of books on Walks in the Gloucestershire Countryside, or old AA Roadmaps, or those hundreds of volumes of self-published novels by unknown writers, long dead and completely forgotten. Their pages are brown and curling, their bound covers stained and damp. And, yet, we keep on keeping them. For what? For whom? Our children? I very much doubt they would think beyond a bonfire. Perhaps we are thinking that something magical might be lurking up there, something that would change all our fortunes, just by being brought into the light. Another never-ending story.

In order to see the light, we must have the darkness. A darkness that envelops and holds secrets. I can hear the mice up there some nights. It sounds like quite a fun party at times and interrupts my sleep. Tiny feet, many of them, skittering among family treasures, living out their lives in the darkness, along with the monstrous spiders and blind flies. The mice make nests from old hardbacks, or plastic, or the gut from a guitar string. Amazing what you can do with what is all around you.

When I am finally down on terra firma again, I look at the shaft of light on the landing floor, cast by the piddling light bulb and in a perfect, and very small, square shape, one I just wriggled through, twice. I think about the darkness up there, and then of the darkness in my own attic, the attic of my head. Only I really know what’s up there, no matter how much telling I do. There is always more. And it is not easy to squeeze through the trap door of my mind, nor it is it a pleasant experience.

Over here, are the regrets I admit to, and over there, the ones I don’t. Further towards the water tank with it’s wonky lid, lie the memories of my children, what they said and did as little ones. Down there where the webs are dense as a curtain, are the emotions and hurts I have learned to quiet. Near them are stacked the doubts and the worries about which I can do nothing, and never could. Closer to the piddling bulb are boxes of hopes. I keep them near the light for easy access, although I have moved a few of them into a recess because they will never come about. They are tidied away, but not quite bonfired, even though I really should clear that space. The mice chew through old words and the strings that made my music, turning them into cosy nests for their young. I don’t mind that. It’s good to let go, to allow things to move on. And, besides, I can make new words, new music. But, first, I have to let go.

And letting go is the only way to live. I will change the things I can, and let go of the things I cannot. Knowing which is which might appear confusing, but, trust me, we always know the answer to that.

February 19, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 125 Wind in the rigging

When we sail, the rigging is something we attend to at each shift of the wind. The sails may be full-blown, wide and tall, blocking the sun and catching bellies-full of breeze to take us all the way from A to Z. Sometimes, the wind luffs or fizzles out, causing the canvas to flap noisily, unsure of what to do next. A good sailor will see it coming and adjust the rigging accordingly, winching in the sails, tightening them, or going about, which is the time I always duck, never sure when that big ass boom is going to take my head off. We always had to sail close to the wind. That point where we could jibe and lose a mast (slight exaggeration) or, at the very least, lose someone overboard.

Me.

Coming into harbour, my skipper would never lower the sails and motor in like every other sane person, trotting into a parking place with minimum whoosh and flip, avoiding the wide sweep required to avoid turning the smaller boats to matchwood in a heartbeat. He didn’t mind squashing the bounce-back variety of white plastic so-called yachts, all squeezed from a giant toothpast tube onto a production line and given fast names to bely their ordinariness. It’s not me who is the yacht snob here. I’m just repeating what I heard from my own wooden J-Class sloop-loving skipper, he who sailed oceans beneath real canvas, hand-sewn and made just for one boat at a time, bespoke. He who loves the creak of timber as the mast strains to stay where it was riveted with huge brass thingies that nobody could ever remove once driven into place. Hulls laid, larch on oak or teak and varnished to a shine most winters by us with freezing fingers and miles to go before sleep.

In life we are all sailors and we all sail alone, although we can travel together through the wildest of oceans, if we so choose. Ultimately, the set of our sails, the tension in our rigging, the way we listen to the wind’s voice, and bend to her will, working with her changes of mood, her tantrums and tempers, will decide, not whether or not we arrive at Z in the end, but how well we notice the rest of the alphabet on the way.

I speak, not of the wind that blows around the corners of our homes or bends the strong backs of our ancient trees making them squeak and groan, or call out in agony as their ribs crack and break, but of the winds of life, of time. These winds rise and fall in every life at some time, and if we are not ready for change, we will get hit by the boom as it swings across our boat, and we may even fall overboard now and then. All the time, each one of us is dealing with something we find we have not prepared for. Miniature disasters come into every life, just like a little rain will fall, and if we are really ready, we will find a solution comes more quickly, for we are human and creatively agile. We just have to tap into that inner gift and develop it into a strength. We may not know this new set of ropes, but if we are fully engaged with taking responsibility for our own self in any situation, we will find a way to sail again, only better.

I remember learning once, that, in order to play an instrument well, we must learn the discipline of it first, before getting clever with counterpoint or spontaneous harmonies. For me, that instrument is my voice. If I want to ‘play’ as I sing, I must know my limits, the boundaries of the song, how my voice will sound singing it. If I leap enthusiastically into a gritty blues number, I will sound like Snow White trying to be Eartha Kitt and just know that the audience is saying ‘Oh dear….’

But all this is a metaphor for life experience. We are human, not ‘only’ human, as some would have us believe, and there is power and a magic to being a member of such a wonderfully well-rigged race.

February 8, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 124 – Chiaroscuro

It’s not a sausage. It’s a delicious word, nonetheless, and it is the meeting point between light and dark. Of course, there is always a meeting point between light and dark, day and night joined together until the sun burns out, the light and dark, or shade, in a painting. Used in the world of opera, it describes two voices, one soprano, one deep, might be contralto, might be tenor or bass, joined to create a thrilling balance for our ears to hear.

So, this lovely ‘meeting of opposites’ has a pretty name and if you say it with an Italian accent, plus the hand gestures, you can quite lift your day. Chiaro, means ‘clear and bright’, and Oscuro, dark and obscure. Five musical syllables, and the ‘Ch’ is pronounced as ‘K’.

This meeting of contrasts is everywhere in our world, and, without one, we fail to see or appreciate the other. When it rains a flood for weeks on end, and the water moves indoors, it must be a very dark time. Outside, in the village hall, on the sodden streets, in a corner shop, there will be smiles of light, offers of sympathy, support and hope. I don’t have to see it for myself to know I speak the truth. Whenever life feels dark, somebody or something casts light in our path and, with that light, we find we can go on a bit further. At another time, darkness brings a welcome relief. It’s the balance than matters. We want both in equal portions to find a happy rhythm. But let’s just consider the chiaroscuro of life, the meeting point, and an entity in itself.

As we look we find ourselves, for we are both light and dark. All of us. Our relationships, too, for they are also a meeting of light and dark.

Well, you can forget the dark, someone might say. Who wants dark in a relationship?

Have you ever met somebody quite unbelievably light? For this person, everything is ‘wonderful’ I have met such people and I didn’t believe they were real at all, for it is against our human nature to be all light and no dark. Of course, the dark bits can be hidden for years, but they will show themselves in behaviour choices, skin condition, ailments and disease. We are fashioned in balance, and our journey through this life is one of learning and more learning. We develop a creative agility in order to survive and this means we must recognise the dark and the light and make them both welcome at our table. I know I have wished for all light and no dark, but, even as I wish it, I know I am a fool, for how could I ever really feel another’s pain and grief, if I had never felt my own?

I have heard folk banging on about the shoulds and shouldn’ts of benefits, taxes, governmental rulings, as if everything ‘should’ be dished up on an endless supply of pretty plates. I know that some are struggling, many are struggling, with real problems in their lives, with limitations and deprivations I can only ever imagine, but hand-outs seem to be expected across far too wide a swathe of humanity. If we sit at home, watching complete nonsense on the tv and building on whatever is currently causing angst, and never step into the light of day, of course all we are going to see is darkness. If we feed Black Dog, Black Dog will grow big and strong.

I remember my old granny telling me that when I felt sorry for myself for longer than ten minutes, I needed to cheer someone else up, with a phone call, a visit, a text message, and never mentioning one word about my own self-pity. My mum always says she is ‘absolutely fine’ when anyone asks her how she is. And, do you know what…….. both those women have it nailed, because in both cases, their refusal to wallow, their very act of lifting the collective moment, initiates a dramatic change deep inside. I can leave a house, having arrived with both my legs heavy as old porage, my chin scraping the ground and all my aches and pains playing a noisy percussion throughout my body, as light as air and thinking no longer about Me, me, me. Something extraordinary has happened quite silently inside me, something that tells me I am the chiaroscuro of the afternoon, for, in me, the light met the dark and became a thing of balance and beauty.

Next time you look at a wonderful painting, or listen to a piece of music, or a song, remember that, although there is both high and low, dark and light, lift and fall, tears and joy, that this is what, this is who we are too – a glorious blend of opposites.

And then step out and share it.

January 31, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 123 Freedom is all in the mind

My favourite word is Freedom, and I have no doubt written about it before now in my blogs. I have also changed my thinking about it over the years, of all it encompasses, of where and how it is grounded, where it finds settlement, sinks its big old flag and stakes its claim.

It has zip to do with place or time, with Mr or Mrs Right, with money or lack of it, new sofas, kitchens, bathrooms, or even the four stone walls that surround me, and everything to do with that airy fairy head of mine, and yours, although I won’t presume to know the percentage of airy, or fair,y in your head. We are taught, or do we just learn……..that the acquisition of a good education, of a good grounding in common sense or many worldy belongings should be our main aim as we walk through our life; that, if we haven’t succeeded in surrounding ourselves with all those things expected of us, that we ourselves expect of us, by a certain age, we are idlers, bad planners, twits. The odd thing, though, is that not one single one of us finds fulfillment or deep happiness in any Things and yet, still we seek them out, stack them up, protect them with a ferocious zeal, and then plan our next move to gather more in and more. In doing so, we imagine this Freedom thingy will come too, eventually. The more we own, the free-er we will become.

In a word, this is pants, because Freedom, real Freedom is all in the mind, all of it and it always was and ever will be till the sand runs out. I have read many tales on this, tales told by people who own nothing, who are locked up and enslaved, and they speak of Freedom. And yet, how can they? Just look at their lives lived, the restraints and fences that locked them behind another’s barricade! They were never free, were they?

Oh yes, they were. And all because they refused to allow the fences or the bars define their state of mind. They chose, in the face of extraordinary and unbelievable constraints, dished up daily for years, for a whole life, perhaps, not to see the mud, but to see the stars. Most of us, so I am told, live lives of quiet desperation, trapped in some way, or many ways, and we have no real tangible understanding of these lives lived in circumstances only ever described to us on the news or in newspapers. We ordinary folk, living however we live, may not imagine that Freedom is in our grasp. After all, aren’t we tied in to our work, doing a job that demands most of our allotted daylight hours, and don’t we have partners, children, homes, all of which require our devotion to varying degrees? By the time all those calls on our so called Freedom have been met to a good standard, what is left for us?

Well it all is, because Freedom is not limited unless we limit it. I know that it is considered selfish to take for ourselves when we ought to be giving everything to others, but I don’t agree with that concept, if, indeed, it ever was a real concept in the first place. We learn to love our neighbour as ourself. This meant nothing to me for many years, as I most definitely did not love anything about myself. So what does it mean? It means I must give to myself all that I give so readily to another, and that means an equal share of Freedom, not freedom from whatever my life requires of me, but Freedom to myself. Freedom to think, to love, to create, to consider my actions and their consequences. I may live inside another’s boundaries, but that person cannot control my thoughts, my times of reflection, my understanding, the passions that keep my heart beating, my hopes, my dreams…..in short, my self. No-one else can control these, and these together make me, and I am unique. I don’t need to step on anyone else to do this, nor put another soul down, for life is not a race, but a journey. Although we may sail alongside each other, we all sail alone.

So, when I feel controlled or constrained or forced or entrapped by another, let me understand this. I have chosen this domination and therefore I can bring to bear the same power to change it. And I don’t need to say one word out loud. All that squealing and whining, all those ‘how could you’s’ just tell me that it is now I who try to dominate, to change another’s way of being, to make them more like me, and this is merely a power struggle, one nobody ever wins.

If I want to be free, I just decide I am (and read good books on the subject) and get on with my day, my life. If I find chores dull and demanding, I can either sigh and moan or sing and laugh. There is fun, even in washing dishes and I can work up a great percussive concerto all by myself, my arms sud deep, my mind entirely my own. And my first step is to understand, and then decide, to believe that there is enough Freedom going, ad infinitum, to free every living soul.

Who out there can tell me I am wrong?

Freedom. It’s a way of being.

January 22, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 122 Follow your heart

I have done this all my life, wherever and whenever possible, and it isn’t always either. In situations where boundaries and expectations are set by a higher authority, I may not be able to go with my heart on every point, although there is room enough in each situation for me to choose my attitude. Attitude, however, shows itself in my outer behaviour, whereas my heart is deeply interior, and sometimes they argue. It’s an internal dialogue that can be unsettling, especially if I show a good attitude and plan murder.

So, if a disagreement betwen heart and attitude causes me indigestion, then I must work on what?…….not my attitude, for that may be learned behaviour, or just me being an ostrich, and is not good for my health. I can ‘copy’ my idea of a good attitude and bring it into the mix easily, if my acting skills are well honed, but it won’t do me any good and, after all, it is only me with whom I am primarily concerned. So what must I work on then? Of course, my heart. According to old wisdoms, to be found in the good book and all other good books, what is in my heart will ‘out’, whether I allow such an outing, or not, at a conscious level. We always know when someone is not being congruent, in sync with the essence of themselves. It is as clear as day and as silent as snow.

In life decisions there is often a third player in this game. It’s a three horse race and the third horse is called money. I once had a fascinating conversation with a wise man (not a member of the Magi, but wise, nonetheless) who asked me what decision I would make if money was removed from the dilemma. Oh goodness! I said, immediately knowing the right direction to take. A few seconds ago, I had been caught in a web of possibles, fixed and trapped by their sticky tendrils, sure there was no way out, and, in a flash, I could see my way ahead. I have employed this process ever since and it is surprising how often I need it, for money has many guises. For example, I might employ someone whose influence in my business is destructive to some degree. I might, for a long time, have been either avoiding this issue, or pretending it would go away without having to lose them, which I don’t really want to do as they are good at their job, very good, and if I lose them, I may lose……..money! I may even have explained my dilemma to others, which of course is what I will do in order to hear affirmation of the clever way I talk about the situation, without really mentioning the real problem, perhaps unsure of bringing anything as airy fairy as my heart into the conversation. All I have to do is hear from someone how brilliant this person is and how the business thrives thanks to his or her skills and work ethic. But I know more than that someone does, and if I speak it out, I will have to pull my own head out of the sand and face the music, which I absolutely don’t want to do. But, it niggles at me, night and day and I know I am being evasive and weak. And then another busy day comes along and I can forget it for a while, until I remember it all over again in the middle of the night, or whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, and there it is again nipping at the edges of my mind, and it will go on doing so until I take action.

These life lessons are a wondrous thing. It seems to me that there is a force always pushing us towards our best, towards inner peace, because the only way to find and keep that inner peace is to listen to what our hearts tell us. And hearts don’t need money, or cashflow, or a succesful business. Nor does it need to be better than another heart, nor top dog, nor cushioned against a stock market crash. It doesn’t ask for savings accounts or good investments, unless of course, the investment is of the kind you cannot see or limit or define.

So, full circle I have come. If I want to feel at peace with whatever life throws my way, the good and the bad, I must always seek cousel from my own heart. What is it I really feel about this dilemma? What is it I really want to do, or say to change it? If I have worked on opening up the highway to my heart, and kept that highway open and flowing, then my heart will speak clearly to me in a language I understand and then I can turn that decision into action. However well-versed I am in the world of literature or science, business or art, I am still just me, one person, one soul wanting to do and to be my very best.

I must begin with my heart. Begin, continue and end with it. After all, it is the only thing that keeps me alive.

January 19, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 121 Listen to your ears

When I hear something, I hear it. I may respond distractedly, or with intense concentration. I may not quite hear it for a few seconds, when a word or phrase yanks me back into the room, back beside the person who spoke and then I will ask them to say it all again. In domestic situations, taking into account familial or relational baggage, I may find myself in the blast of a dismissive retort.

You never listen to me! I’m not going to talk to you until you put down that mobile, laptop, dog,book, whatever! Then follows a doggy-type following around, an apology (if you’re lucky), a plead to say it again, an ‘I AM listening, honest’…….sort of drama, which, if I am very lucky, ends well, although by this time, having pattered about whimpering and wagging my tail, I am so not interested anymore, even supposing whatever I didn’t listen to, on first delivery, could get me to the ball after all.

I have read much on the difference between hearing and listening, and, to be honest, am none the wiser, confusing the two whenever I deliver said difference in an astonishing phrase of pure wisdom. Nobody has ever corrected me, confirming my suspicions that nobody else gets the difference either. But I do know how critical it is to listen to what our children say and really hear it. Really not hearing it is the root beginning of an immense baggage collection, guaranteed foreign holidays for psychiatrists, counsellors and mediums, and establishing once and for all that 90% of our troubles, self-doubts and hangups stem solely from our mother.

But what about those things I hear without actively listening? Those words far off, lifted at random from another conversation, over there somewhere, that can float all by themselves into my head to settle on a comfy sofa, feet up, just waiting for the chance to rise into my concious mind. I can read something in a book, or in the poetry of a hymn in church and, without consciously choosing to remember any of it, I find myself looking at it as I wake in the early morning, hearing it anew, and marvelling at the brilliance of my aging brain. Because our senses are all linked by millions of little byroads, I might watch the movement of the clouds across a darkling sky and find words in my mouth and I don’t mean ‘Wow, look at THAT!’ It might be a line in a letter (does anyone remember the last letter that came through the post, with a stamp, licked by the writer and handed over by Amy the Post?) or it might be a phrase from the book I’m reading, or something someone said, but I don’t remember the time or the context. Somehow, it fits in with the clouds and the darkling sky and again I am astonished at the incredible majesty of the human brain, even though we only ever tap into about a third of its potential. Just think what we could do and who we could be, if we only knew how to build a mental motorway or, even just how we might repair the byroads already in place. But we don’t, despite all that irritating knowledge that highlights our human lack. Why do we have this immense brain in the first place?

As we grow older we begin, everso gradually, to lose the byroads we do have. One by one, they give way to sprawling grasses, weeds and foliage that turns a shortcut into a wilderness. Ok, we know this. We might not like it much, losing our glasses ten times a day, forgetting an appointment made some time before, leaving the margarine out of the cake, and so on, but it a fact of life and we may as well find the dance in it.

My old granny, long dead but unforgettable, never lost her dance. When it could no longer be found in her strong and shapely legs, or her long elegant feet, it was there in her eyes for all to see. In a shop, at a bus stop, in her own little flat, she brought that dance forward at every encounter with every person from the Red Cross collector, shaking her bucket outside the door, to the doctor or the minister, although she was highly suspicious of the minister, to be honest. Even in hospital, dying, she lifted her smile to every nurse, every orderly without exception, and she was no goody-goody I can tell you, being overly full of mischief and with a keen eye for the caricature. It was for herself, she danced, not to be seen to be dancing, for she had little care for such vanities.

Listening to my ears is not really possible. It makes little sense, suggesting that my ears have ears and, with a few large-eared exceptions, this seems an unlikelyhood. But when my little grandson said it to me this morning as we walked through a lovely wild place, I realised I had heard what he said twice. First, effortlessly, in the normal way, and then, again, as if I was hearing myself hearing. It made me realise, as I considered this new phenomenon, that not only is there wisdom, beyond their understanding, falling from the mouths of babes, but that, if I really think it through, this is the only way to live. If I do practise listening to my ears, I distance myself from an instant response, one that might cause an injury to another’s heart. Words spoken in haste, fuelled by baggage, can wound and wound deep. Words written in anger can live for a lifetime and beyond. But if I can learn to close my trap (oh hallo mother) and to keep my ears (all of them) open, I not only allow words to settle in the sofas of my mind, gently; not only allow the moment to move beyond my clutches, however much my fingers itch to capture and internalise it, but, in those precious moments of mouth closed, ears open, I can hear, albeit distantly, the grace notes floating across the divide and find that my feet take up the dance.

January 14, 2014 by judyfairbairns

Island Blog 120 On Leadership

It’s a funny old chestnut, Leadership. It sounds so grand and important. In fact, as a youngster I wanted it for myself. Those, it appeared to me, who were given such a badge of honour, positively glowed with the warmest of light. They were lifted above us earthly girls, fixed to the ground with our lack of leadership skills, our heavy lace-up brogues and our triple-layered (for safety) regulation greys, and they never came back down again. I met them in corners with members of staff, or prefects, or team leaders, discussing something important in hushed tones, corners I rounded in an un-leaderly, and often late dash to the next fixture in my school diary. They would both stand in a conspiratorial silence, one that positively burgeoned with importance, as I hurtled by, knowing two things for sure – that I would meet some disgrace for running in passageways, and that my bottom jumped around way too much inside those earthly greys.

When they said to me that they were sorry I was leaving the school because, did I realise that they were going to ask me to be Music Prefect next school year……I knew what they were up to, asking me AFTER I had announced with barely concealed joy, that I had now collected my 7 O Levels and was abandoning my brogues for ever. If I had said……Oh, ok then, I will stay, they would all have fainted clean away and I would have finally become a leader, one they may well have regretted inviting into a corner.

A few minutes later, as a newly engaged farmer’s wife-to-be, I pondered leadership once more. This farmer with whom I was about to spend the rest of my life, needed some serious leadership. For a start, he didn’t want to be led at all and most certainly not by me. Well, ok, I can be patient. After all, look at how he does what his mummy says, albeit now and then, but ‘now and then’ looked promising to an over-zealous young woman (child, really) with a fat sapphire on her forever finger and plans already laid out in the loft of her mind. He argued with every plan I brought forward for discussion. He made all the ‘big’ decisions with automonic confidence. He dropped his clothes on the floor, the ones he deemed ready for washing, which was usually two weeks later than my deeming. He wore white crimpolene flares. There was a lot of work to be done.

Leadership isn’t nagging. Ok, ok, so what is leadership then and why can’t I lead him?

Answer……he doesn’t want it and, listen girlie, he is as determined as you on this matter.

Once this sank in, was resisted vehemently, caused endless rows and overly slammed doors, removal of priveleges and absolutely no cake for tea never mind the honey, I remember falling into a black depression. My mother, who also tried to lead my dad, who also had no intention of being led, had the advantage. Dad was away all week so that she could lead all five of us, the neighbours, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker to her heart’s delight. Then, when Dad came home at weekends, she could probably just about manage to shelve her leaderly urges for two days until she popped him once more on a plane to Dubai or Italy or Africa or wherever his veterinary consultant skills were currently in demand. But my husband was always at home rejecting leadership, so I had to think sideways.

43 years later I have a crick in my neck and still no husband running along behind. I ask myself, is that what I want? And the answer (quick learner, me) is absolutely not. What I want is actually just to lead myself, not to lead, and not to be led, although that bit is very much according to my current mood swing. There are times, many times, when I do want him to lead me, and love the feeling of safety and protection his leadership brings. When it goes wrong are those times I feel controlled, which is, of course, the same for him. My tutting over dropped clothes, or whatever, serves only to make him feel controlled, and therefore to resist.

Aha…….now we are getting somewhere!

So, if I can’t control him and don’t want him to control me, and he feels the same, why does this need to lead still raise it’s discordant cry? Because dear sweet daft woman, it is yourself you need to lead.

Well how can I lead me? I am me and me is me and that’s three of us already.

Yes, and you can lead all of them, all the mees, as much as you like, to your hearts desire, knock yourself out!

Thinking, reflecting on this bonkers truth, opens many doors to me, to all mees present. If, in an argument, I only consider my own voice and the content of my retorts, my behaviour, I am in control. I am leading. I don’t need to lead the other (the one who is so obviously wrong) in this situation. I only have to lead myself.

Yes, but, will you listen to what he is saying! It’s complete tripe and EVERYONE would ALWAYS agree that he NEVER gets it.

Hmmm……so many absolutes. But life and love isn’t about who is wrong or right, always or never. It isn’t about what happened in the past and the past is only a minute behind me. It is about leadership of myself, and if I can get that right, after a few, or many clumsy crashings through the thorn and thicket of life, then I just may find, to my eye-wide surprise that someone is following on behind.