confidence

I had three phone interviews yesterday about Island Wife, due to be published on March 28^th by Two Roads. I think there will be more to come over the next short while when I am new news as opposed to old news, which I will be by the second week of April. By then the sound of running feet will be receding, not coming closer – such is our quick-quick world. I will be standing here, open-mouthed and half way through the answer to a very personal question, laying down my words, one by considered one, only to find the room has cleared in a heartbeat.

So, it seems of the greatest importance that I use this platform with the respect it requires, for the legacy I leave behind will be the things I have said, that may be remembered, for life and death are in the power of the tongue. Words will leave me and attach themselves to the hems of departing coats only to be re-assembled through the filters of a very different person, using a different emphasis, perhaps, a different tone of voice. What I say may not be what is printed or spoken out. What I mean may not travel the distance.

And so it is in relationships, those ships that fascinate me most of all. Every one of us in one, like it or not. Some of us are crossing oceans, through angry storms, turning our faces into biting ice winds that threaten to tear off our very skin; some bob gently across a mirrored calm, the sun warming our bones, and some just putter up and down the same claggy-banked strip of canal on an ancient barge with rusty screws, a draggletail posy of wild flowers in an old jam jar on the cabin roof. But this is to stereotype and is not therefore the truth. The truth is that we all travel storm wards at some point in our lives, and at others we bob across the mirror and in between, we deadhead the draggletailed posy whilst the endless ordinary banks pass us by. And whilst we do all this, we bring that of ourselves to the table, to our relationships. We bring likes and dislikes, opinions and phobias, passions and failings, gifts and skills.

In an ideal relationship, such as the one my neighbour has, or my sister, or that woman I read about

in last weeks Sunday magazine who lives beside the sea with a loving man and who has enough money to spend on whatever she wants to spend it on, neither person fights to control. Neither person pulls rank, manipulates either by loud domination or weak dependency and neither wants anything less than to lift the Apple of their eye up to whatever light warms them. My opinion of what you should or should not do, has no place in our relationship. My only role is to love you, and to love you right I must remove myself. My……Self.

This doesn’t mean I am silent and fuming in the corners. It doesn’t mean I don’t tell you loud and clear when I am angry or upset with something you have done or said. What it does mean is that I can be honest, create my own boundaries, speak with my own voice, make my own choices and leave you to do the same for yourself. I expect nothing from you and you expect nothing from me, and both of us give and receive freely. It sounds like perfection, you say, too perfect to attain, but it’s not perfection. It is Love. Love for myself and Love for you.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and I am single-stepping right now as the Island Wife considers her response to another personal question. There are often two answers to that question, two directions. One choice. Mine.

Today I spent a happy time with 3 other women over lunch. We talked of many things, and sometimes all at the same time, but the theme that wound its way through all our conversations, was the ‘how’ of living. How we each manage it.

Some of us walk a steady, even path, although it wasn’t always so steady. Another is young, and she will take many paths, mainly out of youthful curiosity.

Do we lose that curiosity I wonder? Or have we found that it doesn’t only kill cats?

The way we germinate the seeds of our own personal existence, it seems to me, is decided by the choices we make as we live out our life. But if we felt we had no choice, or if choice was made on our behalf, does that mean that those seeds never grow and bloom?

There is a theory that we make our own choices, whether it looks like it or not. Actually, I do agree with that theory, but I also hate it at times. It is so much more pleasant to present myself as a victim of circumstances, or of some overbearing ‘other’ in my life. After all, I could have been this or that, had I been allowed to make my own choices.

Couldn’t I?

When you live like I do, on a daily roller coaster, you are allowed to cast envious glances to those marching steadily along their level path of choice. It’s fine when I am riding on point break, towering over the world and shouting ‘Woohoo, Look at Me!’ but quite another as I sink into the troughs and nearly drown. And I do it every single day. It is, in a word, exhausting to be me, but I am me and that’s that.

So, Me, how are we to accept that we made this choice very early on in life? Our sisters seem very sorted, our brother too, and we all came from the same nest. What, or who decided that we would think too much about every flaming thing, lifting up the carpet of life over and over again until the tacks give up and ping off into the unknown, leaving a permanent curl for everyone else to trip over?

Enough questions.

I have found that my first important decision each day lies not in what I do, or where I go, but in how I see what I see. This doesn’t mean I should spend all my time looking inward but quite the opposite. When I have heard that someone is off to find themselves, in India or some such place, I have to conceal an inner snigger. In order, it seems, to feel ok, no, better, good about being a volatile lunatic, like I am, is to look at the world of which I am an essential part. I know that sounds a bit cocky, but to be honest, it works for me. If I can tell myself that I am here for a specific purpose, just as I am, with my own seeds to nurture and grow, then my roller coaster begins to make some sense. After all, I can see higher and lower than the ones on the steady path. I can spin among the clouds and swim in the deeps and I can use those powers of observation to help another. I can take what looks like a heavy load and call it a gift. And I need to do this exactly where I am, because to flip off to India would be fine, but only if I could leave me behind.

Which I cannot.

If I am the one who has to surf the biggest waves, then let me learn how to surf. If it is I who must sink into those troughs, then I must learn to be a cork.

And then, let me have the presence, the absolute engagement with where and who I am, to find one who fears their own sinking, and to show them that they can do it too.