psycho-bubble

The conversation

For days now, I have been working at what I love doing, what I am good at.

I stopped just now and realised that I am good at having good conversations, and that I love it when someone loves them too. I realise that the Hiut Denim guys are right and we should to ‘do one thing well’. This is what I should be doing.

Sometimes I get paid for this work, and then it is my job is to give the other person my full and generous attention. They have come to me to help them, because they believe I can do this for them. At these times I owe it to them to notice everything, and share with them what portion of this will help them move them forward.

Sometimes, however, conversations are a wider explorations: joinings and journeys. These takes me further than I have been before, and deeper into the world of now and then and me and us. There are written conversations too; in these I hope to speak to you.

And then sometimes the conversation just needs to stop. To pause for a while. To give space for the world to wash through. For the beach to be cleaned by the tide for the next conversation to etch its whorls and ridges into the sand.

And then we can talk on: not simply to be heard, but so the words bite into life. We roll them on our tongue, tasting sweetness, and tell new and surprising stories that blend and fashion new lives from old.  

The wild coast

North of the wild coast turn left towards the fire,

wait for the morning, head for the horizon,

take twenty five steps and dig for treasure.

Descend the waiting well of the world, fire up in the magma,

accelerate beyond earth, drift beyond gravity in the slipstream of angels.

Follow their deceptions to an empty heartbeat (inviting love).

Journey on until the most patient of you despairs (this we call hell).

Then there will be a change in the sun’s rising

and at the turn of the year, in January, we find a hint of place.

In frosted stillness birds peck for sustenance.

Clouded breath hints at a wasteland.

I locate shadows in the dance of notions and a necessary

death of hope in cruel endings. This is the new state of the world.

Our children must fend for themselves in the shadowland.

In our acceptance of this existence lies the homecoming and a song. 

From the new exhibition, Where are we going and pamphlet, The fixing of things - words by Steve Thorp and Images by Kim Major-George.

Half open - postscript

And now they are open, and now you look towards your father’s face, and now, each time we look at you, our happy tears fall.

Half open

Bright eyes, half open, today you were more again than yesterday. You spent a first night with your mother – more exhausted, happier than she has ever been.

I am her father; your grandpa. Almost imperceptively, I slide into a new transition. This precious place should be marked and noticed. Now I will always be your ancient soul-mate, and I commit myself to your emergence.

It is not often that we fall in love in a life; I must let this feeling in to crumple my heart.

Today it is joy, not despair, that sings in the air. The change coming has a bright, hopeful edge and a promise - and this is because of your birth. I want to rebuild a world bright enough for your spirit, so you will grow into it with fierce loving.

Your name means woman, speaks of strength and beauty. Your eyes, half open, have bright worlds within them, ready to explore… xxx

Small girl - a postscript

You are now 11 hours old and tonight I held you for the first time. There are things I do not love about this world, but holding you diminishes this perspective to the level of meaninglessness.

Your birth is the only occasion that matters. Your skin and the tentative opening of your eyes, and the helpless softness of yours that draw our love - these tell us something more about the world than any other. You, and all the other new souls, have a chance to teach us to start over.

The wonder of hope is that we are always given another chance by the birth of each small girl or boy. Of course you, Freya, are the special one; but there is promise in each arrival.

Welcome small girl

Welcome small girl. Your skin-pink newness has already charmed us; your firm, sure spirit already amused us as you hold tight to your mother, and have even lifted your head.

I have only met you once and am waiting to do so again when the clinical flurry is over, and your parents have whispered their lifelong promises to you.

Little beauty. You are now three hours old and your soul grows with each minute, and already fills the world with the prospects of your presence.

You sit in the arms of my girl, your mother, skin to skin, in the same room (or close by) that she was born in. That cycle is strange. Our lives grow out, yet sometimes loop back to remind us of where we began.

We have been waiting and now you are here. Welcome small girl. Now we await your naming.

(For Sam and Sarah and their small new beauty)

Shopping

I dreamed of a life in the corridors, and now I live there; if life is an accurate description for this place on the way to somewhere else.

The haggard dead wander this mall, seeking a deal not settled in hell. It’s purgatory for the masses.

As I walk the halls I catch glimpses of my life through portholes, hewn through rock. I imagine I could slide back alive through their slick openings.

Hope springs; though eventually I realise that is purgatory for real and not just shopping. So I shift my focus to moving on, and join the shifting sands, drift along.

No one gives instruction, no guidance exists. Only guesswork leads us to realise that if this wandering is to be transitional, there will need to be an epiphany. 

The patient hunter

A patient hunter, time stalks us. Fading and crumbling, our certainty is only a hindrance now.

We will stand before it, certain in the end. What if they’re all true; ALL the stories? All the theories? All the positions? What if the only thing that really mattered was the path we negotiated and the notice we took of what we saw on the way? Perhaps memory and hope are simply imposters?

For some people ‘achieve’ nothing of outward merit, yet have truly happy lives. Their calling is a quiet vocation, surrounded by simple words and devotion to the small needs of others. Sometimes they teach us how to BE small enough, just by living with us.

For others CALLING is a big CAPITAL LETTER word. It is driven through, ridden and shouted from the highest peaks. Happiness is in the very shining of the stars and reaching the heavens.

Whatever. A patient hunter, time cares not for our wishes, nor how brightly we shine, nor the places we might hide or the havens we strive to find.

We WILL be found. Then time will look calmly into our eyes, and I’d like to think that the end will be swift and merciful; that we will be dispatched with compassion.

Air flow

On the headland the stiff breeze blew away the waiting and the world was alive again. A stiff walk up and down the steep paths and gullies and my body was in touch with its animal. The turquoise sea was frilled with white and the gulls and crows soared and spiralled as if in play.

On the path, we nearly stepped on a small grass snake, barely moving in the sun. Further on, scattered feathers marked the spot where a bird had been prey. Around another turn, and the seasonal wildflowers twinkled in the sunlight. Bluebells, sea thrift, campion and quill.

Above, against the sun, I saw a dark mark flying. I thought it was a raven but it felt as ominous as a storm cloud. The gulls crowded around it, stabbing, and then the bird arced down; the wind seemed to still and the air hummed at the speed of it. It was a peregrine, nesting in the nearby cliffs, and it sent all the other birds into a spin at the mere twitch of a wing. 

I watched it soar effortlessly, then stoop through the squalling wind. The dark smudge in the sky became a tawny-brown speck of fearsome beauty travelling alone in its own airflow. 

Rewind

I wanted to rewind; just a little. Just enough to know you more cleanly when your mind was clear. Just enough to have touched some of the good years in your life.

There is no point in wishing; that life – like your mind – is gone now.

There was a moment a few days ago when your anguish was as keen as the sharpest blade. You looked at me and said I don’t know whats happening to me. Then it was gone, I held you and you cried. Then you lay down, exhausted by your insight.

You slept then, and when you woke later you had forgotten all about it. You were funny and forgetful – and funny about being forgetful. Then it was my turn for memories, and it was then I wanted to rewind, just a little.

I wanted to go back to a time when I could hug you and tell you that I loved you, and you would remember this and smile about it the next day.