showing up

There I was, bobbing along with life, knowing just which way was up and which down, gravity and flight both behaving appropriately. Breakfast was at the usual time, a usual accord t’ween avocado, poached egg and ryvita with Pond Water. Coffee, already strong and lining my stomach like an entire defence corps of marine snipers, buzzed me and the morning. I swear, as I jounced outside barefoot to squash the wildflowers and to administer nourishment to sparrows, blackbirds, robins, Siskins, greenfinch, goldfinch and collared doves, that my soles were just off the ground. Could be tricky at my age but what with my rowing machine and my endless dancing around the kitchen, I am yet confident in the uprightness of me, body at least.

Pond Water begs an explanation. One of my sisters who is a top chef and who eats so healthy I barely recognise what’s on her plate, guided me towards this daily green drink. I adopted the habit after cancer and now this green stuff is an integral part of my morning. These days it is added to, thanks to my gorgeous nutritionist who is monitoring my elevation. Celery, carrot, root ginger, spinach, broccoli and apple form the basic. Add to that, for those, like me, short on protein and other complicated things, bring in pea protein powder, Brazil nuts or other nuts and pumpkin/sunflower/chia seeds. Whizz it all up with water, sieve, and there you have it. Pond Water. At first, with my sister, I wanted to spit the whole mouthful out. Now, it is a pleasant drink, not least because there is so much goodness in it.

The ordinary, the familiar, are easy walking mates. I know them and they know me. And so, on we go through the days without pause or cause for much thought. Then something happens, coming in like a dart, a sideswipe and the legs go out from under me. This thing didn’t happen directly to me, but to one of my children, and then not even directly to them. They are all well, alive and in the same place. But, for one, the windows have blown out, and they are rocked. I feel their pain, their turmoil and, being the mum I am, I know where I must be. And I will be there. Just working out the massive palaver of travel from the island, what with the ferries being dipsy at best, for now, and the timings of a bus, a plane.

During the daylight hours of this day, I have considered my knees. They jerk. A lot. Always have done. I respond in the immediate when my beloveds are in pain. I go to, regardless of where we ought to be in ten minutes, or whom we might upset with this go to thing which is often messy and always thoroughly inconvenient. We were all going left, bobbing along, muttering and grumbling and then ‘boom!’ a sudden slews in like a sparrowhawk and grabs someone by the wotnots and everything changes, for me anyway. I know where I need to be and will be, and all this I learned as a mum, a mum who has oftentimes refused to comply with what appears sensible and logical. I like myself for that. I know scrambledom, and we have worked together before, many times. What our children remember is not the material gifts from a parent, but that one time when they were broken and mum or dad just showed up.

Today I feel small, not insignificant, but small. It thinks me. Feeling small is good considering the smallness of me, of any of us, in the hugeness of the world. Okay, that’s the number of people. However, in a wider way, I am small. So, by the way, are you. It can humble us, this feeling small thingy, but it doesn’t mean we don’t matter, I don’t matter. I can think I don’t matter and I meet other septugenarians who also can think that way on days when effort is required just to show up, when a life-long-lived turns into a solo act with nobody in the stalls, no tickets sold; when children with all their noisy demands and angsts and troubles and growing pains are now living their own lives, to which I am an add-on. Loved, yes, cherished, yes, but an add-on nonetheless. How did that happen? Not so long ago I was so very big. Now I am small. I live on the edges of other lives, cheer their joys, comfort their sorrows and after that I am small again. Just me. Alone.

I look at life as an opportunity to learn and to adapt. On days when I feel small, I round on it, question it, investigate it, challenge it. Not as some others would, not saying, as in a pantomime, Oh No You’re Not! No, not that, because denying a feeling or pushing it into the shadows just creates a bigger shadow and it always returns, bigger, darker, stronger. That way danger lies and I have seen it, seen folk lose their foothold on what life has to offer, watched them give up, grow unkempt, uncaring for themselves, trudging. To hellikins with that. But, and I am very aware of this, t’is so easy to fold in, to shut off, to let the ‘small’ feeling define a man, a woman. In this state a person can start apologising for their voice, their choices, their very existence. It is a sad observation indeed.

But that is not me, and it needn’t be anyone else who questions and wonders and whose spirit, once effortlessly strong and which now needs CPR, is resurrected consciously. Rise you sleepy twit! Well, that’s what I say and loudly. It is definitely harder in the older and lonelier years, I agree, to make something of what’s next. It can be cranky-sore to show up. It can be a massive push through pain and loss. But (love that word) I have met such ‘small’ people over the years, those who still appeared for lunch in a colourful turban or a swishing skirt and emerald leather boots, men included. Those whose spirit refused to stop the party, who danced as best they could, who sparkled in the queue for the Sunday papers. I have seen them, I know. And, do you know what? The younger generation LOVE to see such a love for life because it tells them that growing older, feeling smaller, does not mean a miserable decline, not at all. And what better legacy can we leave those beautiful young people?

So there I was feeling small. It lasted an hour or so, the lonely, the emptiness, the wondering if this is it. Then I whacked up the music, wrote a prayer, went to church, read it, laughed and joshed with others, drove home, walked the wee dog among the wild primroses, violets, new larch green, the nesting birds, geese flying overhead, a sea-eagle half way to heaven. I’m still small in the bigness of things, but I am not insignificant, not at all. If I can show any young person how an old person can still dance, even if only in his or her mind, then I will show up, again and again and again.