by tashmcgill | Aug 18, 2016 | Bodies, Culture & Ideas
I’ll say it sometimes, dropped into the lull of a conversation about somebody’s graceful movement.
Or somebody might ask, ‘You know, what do you call it, that step?’ and I will answer without thinking, ‘that is the pas de basque’ or I will say, ‘that was a ballonné’ and keep to myself how the hands may have been more precise.
Then to quizzical and bemused faces, I will explain it quietly, ‘I was a dancer, once.‘
When I was a young girl I loved the feeling of my hip flexor stretched to pointed toe in a fluid, long movement. The smell of a new leather ballet shoe and the extension of my torso while my legs shifted into fifth position with hands at two; ready to leap into that old and elegant language of bone and body.
I craved the forward propulsion of movement that came from the pirouette and the barre exercises that dominated my classes. The discipline of dance taught me to prize technique in every aspect of my life. Everything I learn now starts the same way – the movement in completion, then breaking down the steps until I have mastered each technique before bringing it all together. Ballet taught me the strategy of moving artfully from one place to another, step by carefully selected step. Technique will take you places talent alone cannot, so now my fingers move over the keyboard as fast as my thoughts move and my knife can dance across a chopping board. In learning to dance, I learned how to learn and learned how to execute.
Then I learned at 5’2” with curved, wide hips and too busty for my height, I would never be a ballerina. So I turned my attention elsewhere, put my ballet shoes away and took two buses to music lessons instead. For a long time, if left to my own devices on an empty stage, the dance would erupt from within me, my body didn’t know I wasn’t a dancer anymore. I would shut myself in the living room at any chance, turning up the stereo to dance freely. I would commandeer the empty school assembly hall in the brief moments of early morning to practice the steps that were not yet faded from memory.
Last week, I found myself alone in the gym, looking at the open space and remembering I was a dancer, once. I did not resist the urge to cartwheel, leap, lift and spin my extended right leg into a twist and finish in a plié. No one saw or questioned, laughed or scoffed. I just danced, as I am prone to do.
As it turns out, I can still pirouette, precise and straight from east to west across the room, and land a leap with leg extended and toe arched into submission. I can still feel the fibre of muscle and definition that lies underneath the soft curves of my body that will bend when asked, into concave and convex shapes or spread into a split with ease. The difference is that now my body dances alone in the dark, unwatched.
In all my dancing, I danced alone. To dance together requires a shared language, an assented understanding between two parties. Regardless of whether you dance for an audience, if you dance with another, you must dance for them too. That is what I have wanted to learn.
The first time I was taken to the dance floor with a partner – my hips froze and my body found resolution. Resolution to not move, to not engage. I needed language that I had no words for and nothing to take the place of words. Words couldn’t tumble out of my lips to make sense of what I didn’t understand or the questions I couldn’t ask.
Alone in the room, with an empty floor and only my own rhythm to follow, I can effortlessly freestyle and push my body beyond imagined limits. I am unhindered by the thought of who is watching or with me. I can make my own steps and choose the most interesting ways to move across the floor.
When I am not alone in the room, each of my steps is a response and will be responded too. My breath must change to accommodate new rhythms. Patience and bravery is required in new ways. All of a sudden I am aware of my dance space and the space of another. My body is less willing to leap and spin so freely; for the first time I lose confidence in my technique. Technique that has never failed me before.
By now, you should know this is both a true story about dance and a metaphor. I am a paradox of confidence and innocence, sometimes imagining more quickly than I can learn and sometimes learning more than I can practice. But there are a few things I know to be true.
I am changed. Still insecure, wary of misstep, but also brave I step into rhythm; willing to try without the security of technique to guide me. I am intrepidly exploring trust that makes me brave.
In this moment of exploration and discovery, I realise how much I have missed being taught. I have missed instruction and the security of being guided to perfect technique. And my desire is perfection that bears creation, experimentation and re-creation. I want to move more than I ever have, but a new way of dancing.
These old moves have been my safety net, the trusted and known. Suddenly I am inspired to new rhythms. I want new language for my tongue to stumble over and finesse until I speak this language with ease. I find myself wanting to dance for another, to move beyond technique to intuition.
I want to practice as I have never practiced before, bending flesh to my will and making beauty from my sweat, strain and gasping breath.
A long time ago, I wrote a poem about learning to dance. I find myself here, nearly twenty years later still learning and wanting to learn.
there’s a peace coming for a time
we will listen to the air for a while
competing and combining in breath and gasp
from two sets of crimson lips
tarnished hips and bruises
from this dance you teach
teach me how to breathe
and move again
I will not run or hide
I will try a little harder
keep slightly closer,
follow you and watch myself
imitate and learn this rhythm
you already know
and i have yet to learn
but there is peace coming
neither will care who
knew what when we began
this will be our dance for a time
circling, entwined
i will learn the things you speak
and never speak
that from limb and soul
peace does grow
what is new to me
can be new again for you
i will make it so
a gift to another, my other
your gift to me new language
for one who knows a thousand words
a thousand more will rise and descend
in sweet and heavy songs
and the ghosts will go
leaving us to dance
speaking to only each other
by tashmcgill | May 2, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
It is Sunday afternoon and the song of tui has caught my attention. That is not unusual – I hear the tui every morning when I wake up. But to hear the tui chattering in the middle of the day instead of dawn or dusk is different. So I heard her singing and walked into the backyard to see what she had to show me. After all, a tui is a messenger and I am constantly on the lookout for signs.
“Time passes in moments… moments which, rushing past define the path of a life just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?” …… “What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to.” – Dana Scully, The X-Files, ‘All Things’.
Why look for signs? There are some people who don’t believe the world is a magic place anymore, if it ever was. It is all construction of our own will and coincidence. I prefer to believe there is an element of mystery. That we create from the hand we are dealt and the opportunities that come our way. Each choice is a signpost on the way and there are signs everywhere, if we choose to look and if we choose to see.
It’s a dance, I think. The more you look, the more you’ll see the language the universe is speaking in. It is no coincidence I have three messenger birds tattooed on my arm. The world is full of messages, if we will learn to tune in.
Some people say ‘when feathers appear, angels are near’, an assurance that someone is watching over them. I see feathers from time to time, almost always in the seasons of life that are challenging and chasing me. The first one I remember was in New York, when I needed someone to be watching over me perhaps more than I ever have before or since. That trip, I came to believe that no matter where I went in life or whatever happened next, I was going to make my own pathway through it.
And there were signs along the way to pay attention to.
Rolling down long stretches of American highway in the dark night, a green glow lights up in the distance. Eventually it comes barreling past me. The same destination written on the sign, just 50 miles closer than the last sign. 50 miles is a long way to drive in the dark without a single assurance that you’re still on the right road. Even though you haven’t met an intersection for hours, that road can be daunting and lonely. Fear and frustration like to turn up too, but all you need is another signpost to let you know you’re still heading in the right direction and therefore getting closer all the time.
I see a feather and my mind whispers to my soul, ‘You’re on the right path still, just keep going. Stay the course.’
Is it an angel, the universe or my desire to find evidence that supports what I believe to be true? It doesn’t matter. The meaning of the sign is for me and me alone. But I prefer a world with magic in it. I look and listen for the signs while I wait.
I’ve learned that things take time; these tiny fragments of life that rush past but when compressed together move like glaciers. I am never patient enough at first. Slowly, because time will teach you that slow is sometimes good I have realized the value in taking the long, dark road despite how lonely and daunting it appears. There are some things you can only learn on the slow road.
There are some dreams you simply can’t make happen yourself, you can only get ready for when the moment is right and the choice appears before you. I think there is a serendipity between getting ready and when the moment arrives. Few of us are born ready for the things we aspire to, let alone born with the vision to see the true possibilities. You have to learn how to learn what you discover you need along the way. And then learn to see the signs along the way so you don’t lose your path. In fact, some of us need to learn to see in entirely different ways.
A long time ago, I had a dream and I learned I needed to let it go – so my fragment of a vision could grow and become something new. I buried the seed and let it go. For a long time, I’ve been walking down the highway of that dream, realizing at times what the collection of moments have given me in wisdom, understanding and personal growth. So I am closer, but I have no idea where or if the road will end.
Today, the tui sang and I walked into the backyard to see it eating from the ripe, sweet fruit on the apple tree. It looked up at me and sang again. We share a moment and then a moment more. The tui flew into the tree behind the apple tree in the far back corner of the yard. I walked quietly and encountered the most amazing fragrance. It was sweet and tart and almost tangy. I looked at the tui, sitting in the tree that has never borne fruit in the 6 years I’ve lived in this house.
The fragrance was intoxicating and coming from the corner of earth littered with dark red fruit, the grass and dirt stained pink from the bursting skins. The tree itself was still heavy laden on every possible branch. The tui sang once more and took flight back to the apple tree, message delivered.
The winter is over. The tree that was bare has borne fruit. Stay the course, don’t give up.
Seeds buried might grow to trees and even then, you might wait another season before the tree bears fruit. But keep reading the signs along the way and you’ll be ready, when the moment comes. Pay attention.
by tashmcgill | Apr 27, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
‘You can read it, if you like.’
(The story written to explain the chapters of life before now, where we intersect.)
He said it with nonchalance and maybe because the words were light leaving his tongue but heavy by the time they landed in my ear, I was struck off-balance. I imagine at least, that the words were not heavy with meaning for him, because how would I imagine that those words leaving his lips are as costly for him as they are valuable to me on hearing them?
They landed in my ear and my hand at the same time, little stones dropped into a lake and their ripples sweeping out and down my limbs.
I do not trade in stories lightly, I want to tell him. I hold the stories of others as precious as I hold my stories close. Stories are secrets and trust and truth.
Truthfully, my stories are kept safe behind a tall, brick wall. Stories of my doing, they are like climbing roses on the outside of the wall. Pretty, sweet and sometimes funny I can tell these stories easy and only those who pay close attention will see the bricks behind the flowers.
Lately, I have been thinking about taking some of those bricks down.
Beyond the brick is a wild garden. It is fragrant and sweet, full of fruit and nut trees. There is a river through one corner and the sun falls nicely on the grove of trees. It is both wild and well-tended and it cannot be defined as one thing or another. It is not English nor tropical. It is all things, all being, all stories in their raw and imperfect state. Unfiltered, unrestrained.
Lately, I have been thinking about taking some of those bricks down.
It means something to me, this exchange of the wild, unbound stories. Stories are trust; credit in the bank of understanding. Not understanding as assurance of anything but acceptance and the safe bravery of being Known.
Grace and meaning come from trading stories in my world. Knowing your stories is one step closer to knowing you, the real you – outside the carefully polished mannequins we live inside. At least, I assume it is that way with others, as it is that way with me.
It is a precious thing to hold somebody’s story in your hand. And it is never one story but a collection of tales that weave together one and then the next and the one after. You can traverse sideways, backwards and forwards through the story of another; moments of history and glimpses of the future. So one story could mean all the stories, if you navigate well.
“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.” James Baldwin
I keep a rose garden, that grows on a brick wall. The roses thrive on the sun, strapped in obedient lines against a sturdy spine. Well-practiced stories chosen for each moment. A careful selection of which practiced line is safe to use.
Here is the secret, buried in the brick. If I say the wrong thing, tell the wrong story, express the wrong feeling or tell you what I think before I know what you expect, need or want for me to say – then you, whoever you are, will disappear. A terrifying fear that I am responsible for my aloneness by never being the right thing; good enough, funny enough, wise enough, sweet enough, fierce enough, never enough.
Not an uncommon secret, but mine nonetheless.
Beyond the brick, there is a garden I have come to love. I’ve been living in it, behind the wall my whole life. And lately, I have been thinking about taking down the bricks.
There are some brave and patient ones who have made it far beyond the bricks. They have found crevices through which to crawl. For them, the wild and untamed self delights uninhibited. The storytrader gives freely there and the garden is bountiful. People eat and find shelter and laugh and love is made the whole day long and into the night. The land is good. I peek over the wall and through the window in the gate I hid so well and wonder now, whether I dare wait for those intrepid enough to make their own way through the wall.
Life beyond the brick is good and sweet and sensual and gritty. Lately, I have been thinking about opening the gate or taking down the bricks.
by tashmcgill | Apr 20, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
I live according to a few basic guidelines. It’s a way of navigating through life, which is as complex as it is beautiful. More than mottos, these are principles that help guide my decision-making and my responses to what happens around me.
What’s for you will not pass you by.
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. (Henley)
There’s a lesson in everything.
There is something gold and loveable in everyone, even if you have to dig.
Actions speak louder than words, but if you speak let your words be true.
Don’t waste energy or thought on what can’t be changed.
Don’t waste energy or time on negativity.
Assume positive intent always.
Hurt and disappointment are the result of unmet expectations.
You have everything and everyone you need to solve the current problem.
Everything is working together for good.
They are a good way to live, but not perfect. Sometimes you learn a principle no longer works because you outgrew it or your circumstance changed; sometimes it ceases in relevance. Sometimes you add new ones, as you grow and face new challenges.
In 2015, I had a principle: true hair, true feelings. I’d been a redhead (again) for a year or so, but the more time wore on, the more the Ginger had a personality of her own. She helped me try a lot of new things, but I wasn’t entirely myself. I became brunette again, and concentrated on understanding what it is I really felt, really wanted, really desired. Confession: I miss the Ginger.
So here’s another confession: I didn’t just outgrow one of my biggest principles, I was dead wrong about it. There, I said it. I’ve been walking around with a false belief for almost my entire life.
You have to give people your trust first to let them prove it.
So very wrong and now you know I was, too. The map of how I got to that belief is not a story for here, but I have always thought the best way to discover if someone is trustworthy was to trust them first and see if they earn more trust. I always thought it was too much of a tough ask to earn trust from a blank canvas starting point. Call it a fatal weakness of my optimistic outlook, but I have hoped for the best in people. Hoped for the best in workmates, in friends, in people I admire and in relationships too. I was hoping they were trustworthy and hoping I wouldn’t be wrong about it.
I’m an idiot.
I have always taken a certain amount of pride in being to face any circumstance with ease. In business I’m adaptable, a fast and sure-footed decision-maker and as an empath, I can navigate the complexities of many social situations, putting people at ease with a little friendly conversation and banter. (When other people are at the center of my attention.)
I can make easy conversation with a stranger at a bar. I can walk into a variety of situations without fear. I have broken curfew in Haiti to buy rum from a gas station, the only woman within miles. I have used my kickboxing training to wrestle my way free from a late-night carpark attack. (I have the scars to prove it. Concealer is a miraculous thing, when you need it.)
But I have other scars too, ones that require a different kind of cover-up. The ones left behind from getting it wrong when it comes to trust, mistakenly vulnerable with those things I value most.
Sometimes you choose to trust someone and if they let you down, it doesn’t matter at all. There’s no high stakes and no skin in the game. Other times, you choose to trust but you’re not only trusting another person, you are also trusting yourself. Trusting your own intuition, your ability to judge the character of others but also to make your own wise choices and avoid poor assumptions. You trust yourself to hold yourself safely together while giving parts of yourself away at the same time. You have to trust yourself to be vulnerable, but to do so wisely and in safe places.
You can trust yourself until you make a mistake, until your intuition fails you. Until you realise maybe you can’t be trusted to choose wisely who to be vulnerable with. You become very afraid.
Within me the battle goes on; a child-like girl who opens her vulnerable heart to the world over and over against the terrified one who holds herself back at every turn. Most of the time, the child-like girl hopes and the fearful girl hides.
The result is I become a little bit vulnerable with everyone, but I don’t know how to move past fear of being truly vulnerable with those I know I can trust. There are, of course, exceptions – my childhood best friend, my trainer and those that have proven themselves over time.
I must choose to trust others again, but I must also learn to trust. Trust has a shape and a form, a sound and a fingerprint created over time. And this, the hardest thing to learn: trust doesn’t look like hope – hope is an altogether different thing. Hope is the belief that everything will work out in the end, but trust is the platform for vulnerability, the vital connection that helps us get there. Hope sustains us, but vulnerability strengthens us to have real connection.
I have confused hope and trust over and over again, because I am so drawn to hope. But trust is built and proven over time, earned in a series of small actions and intimacies that demonstrate what is safe and good and kind. Best summed up by Charles Feltman, who wrote The Thin Book of Trust, trust is “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.”
Brené Brown says that without trust there can be no meaningful connection between people. And people are the most important thing in my world, connection the only thing I long for. So in learning to trust myself again, I can trust others, which leads to true vulnerability and connection. Simple!
And this, the hardest thing to learn: trust doesn’t look like hope – hope is an altogether different thing.
Trust looks like unpacking those scars and reversing them. Trust looks like paying attention to the small things, making the calls and knocking on the door. Asking the questions and answering them too. Following through on the gritty conversations, letting your actions speak louder than words, but your words also being true. Trust is not accidental or insecure. Trust is persistent and optimistic.
Do you know what hasn’t changed? I still go looking for the gold in everyone. I still tend towards trusting more than distrusting. I am still an optimistic idealist and there is a lesson in everything, even the most painful mistakes I’ve made. What’s for me will not pass me by, whether by the fates or the winds I choose to sail by. I find myself in the waiting space, because trust takes time. It will take time to trust myself again, now I realise where to begin and I will keep digging up the gold within.
Hopeful, optimistic and willing to trust beyond fear.
by tashmcgill | Apr 7, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
I’m trying to make space in my life right now – space to have moments with people and in places, to have moments at home, because space demands to be filled. And I’ve learned where there is space demanding to be filled, something will come along to fill it. Space is what allows us to be open and to encounter the new in the everyday.
People. Ideas. Thoughts. Perceptions and patterns. Stories. Characters. Relationship and connection.
And this is why I always find new ideas or new perspectives while travelling. I’m open because travelling strips away the responsibility and burdens of everyday life, creating vast openness. I don’t have to decide anything but what to watch or when to sleep or where to explore in my rental car. The same principle works in retreating: an escape from the noise and clutter. A filtering and rebirth into wide open spaces.
It is universal; the artist will tell you without space, creativity cannot happen. And by creativity, I don’t mean the abstract state or the manner of being – I mean the gritty, raw practice of making. Making of words and songs, poems, ideas, new intentions, new ways of thinking and seeing the world. All of that is the product of making.
When I travel, the space clears for me. I am one of those clichéd writers that can produce great work on a plane or a train. I think and then I write, and thinking happens well in those metal tubes. I dictate story lines and sing melody lines into my phone, saving every drop of making that is in me. I have a habit of falling in love with fascinating ideas (and occasionally people) right before I travel anywhere. There’s something about leaving a place that makes me want to hold on to it, even if my return is imminent. A fragment of home that I can carry with me. What I’ve learned is that every journey leaves a mark on me this way, it carries its own theme and everything I see or touch or taste while I am travelling carries that mark on it.
So space happens in the movement, in the between, in the transitions between train stations on the way, on highways or in airport lounges. It is peace, to a busy mind. I retreat inward and while my smiles remain gracious, my words become few. The interior dialogue between alter-egos dominates all and ideas pour forth. Space happens on the long, twisting back roads of a foreign land and in days spent in silence because you do not have the language of the place.
Space, because the clutter of what you are used to seeing is stripped away. Your mind can wander freely and your eyes see things – new.
For example, there is a man in a well-cut suit drinking coffee at the cheap café in the center court of the transit lounge. He has status privileges but he hasn’t taken advantage of them. I can tell why. He has the look of a man who is thinking of home, his eyes fastened on the handbag store across the hall. He is thinking about how his wife, whose blue eyes look particularly weary and love-worn lately, might like the one in peach. It’s a practical but fashionable design and it would go with the dress she was wearing the last time he was home; which might have been last week or maybe last month. Maybe it was the second to last time he was home.
Either way, I wish I could tell him, yes – she would love the handbag but he should just send her a letter. A letter to tell her he is sitting in an airport on his way home and he is not thinking about how the meeting went or whether he thinks Rob will close the deal. No, he is simply thinking of her and whether he has done enough to keep her love this month, because he worries so that his absence is too much and too often. He fears becoming one of those men whose love fades away before his eyes because of inattention. He could simply write that and send it to her. Sign it ‘much love from Changi Airport, Singapore.’ And he could do it from the next airport too.
‘Dear Grace, I am thinking of you and that orange dress you were wearing. I like how you wear that dress and I am coming home soon. Please be there, because you are home to me. I am doing my best and I think you are doing yours; let’s carry on.’
There’s a story in that and some truth about how we relate to one another, how we long for one another. How we try and how we fear failure even in the midst of circumstances that should provide us with security and hope.
Or the young man in well-worn denim and faded t-shirt but brand new shoes. Shoes so pristine they must still be giving him blisters. He looks nervously at his travel wallet for the third time, lifting his phone to the horizon a couple of times and checking his watch. He is all coiled energy, anticipation and anxiety. His eyes are unable to stay in one place too long because his thoughts are stretched between here and there, wherever he’s headed to. His carry-on looks uncomfortably full and he has not one, but two hoodies wrapped around his waist. Ah, I see it now. He is travelling from home for the first time and doesn’t intend to return home anytime soon. He’s not just travelling, he’s planning on landing somewhere for a while. These shoes were one last splurge before he has to face the challenge of finding a job or making new friends and becoming accustomed to life away. Sure as the sun rising, he’s wondering if it’s too soon to let his parents know he’s made it this far.
The man sitting in the café, thinking about his wife.
The young man moving to a new country, alone for the first time.
The girl travelling to her sister’s wedding, feeling alone.
The child gazing out the airport window, beginning the first inkling of a dream to be a pilot.
The woman who hosts travellers every day, but has never left her island home.
Without distraction, the mind falls to thought more intentionally than you realise. If you pay attention, it is a wonderful way to discover what matters to you. First your happy thoughts will come to you, followed by your fears and then whatever is making you hopeful. Once you have worked through all of those things, then you might discover what sadness you are carrying. Go even further and you will find yourself at the deep, deep happiness, where you are completely yourself.
I discover myself, at the end of the silent-not silence and the travelling spaces; still myself. A storyteller. A poetry-lover, wanderer and mystical romantic. A hopeful idealist, pragmatic optimist. I am home; in my skin and my places. I have space now; I have made space for the new and whatever stories that will give me to tell. You live with yourself at the end of the day, no matter where you are. So be brave enough to be yourself – complex, simple, passionate, chilled out … Whoever you are, be unapologetically yourself. Be yourself as a friend, yourself as a lover. Be a fighter for that which you care about. Be a giver of whatever you have. Be you. Please. The world is better that way.
I have travelled all the way to here – home where I began, to begin again. Life is after all, beginning after beginning overlapping and colliding with each other.
by tashmcgill | Mar 23, 2016 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship, Relationships
I used to be sentimental about a lot of things, but I ran out of room in my heart and for keepsakes. Now, I only keep the most important things. I try to limit my sentimentality but it’s hard to put memories away, even when you no longer need them. We spend a lot of time making memories we don’t need. You only need to remember where you live when you are twelve while you are twelve. When you are 25 or 86, it matters less where you lived when you were 12, but where you live now.
By now I’ve learned what they don’t teach in school, but ought to. People and the unique connections we form with each other can be like seasons. Some pass and some always return. Some are life-long and with those people, I want to remember everything. Some people you meet and want to keep forever, to sear into memory each unique expression and turn of phrase; the way of walking and movement. How they enter a room and the sound of each sigh and laugh. Mostly, these are colours that bring stories to life and I want to remember each story of the most important people.
But whether it is transience, heartbreak, betrayal, injustice, death or simply the way the world turns from time to time; we are taught to hold nothing tightly; nothing is forever. People will come and go from your life but sometimes, taken by surprise, you will whisper to yourself the question of another, ‘Can I keep you?’
Can I keep you?
I remember the first time I met my friend Bethany. I’d known her husband for a couple of years but in meeting her, felt a kinship that was special. I found myself wondering after laughing together, will I get to keep her? ‘Can we always be friends?’ I whispered to myself. I store up all the memories of our visits together, because I never want to forget a moment of her magic and wonder in my life.
It’s like that with my nieces and nephews too; paying attention to remember the funny things they say and how they play, their favourite books. I want to keep them preserved in my mind from age 0 til .. well, forever.
All relationships change the brain – but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self. Diane Ackerman
What does it mean to keep someone?
Of course, I never set out in knowing someone to say goodbye; but sometimes it is unavoidable. Time and space dictate a mathematical impossibility in maintaining the intimacy and hum of relationship with all those we meet. You have to make choices about who to keep and who to let go of. Sometimes people will choose to let go of you and all of this is acceptable, until you have no choice in letting go. The problem with dementia isn’t keeping the memories at first, but finding them. My stepfather is losing his ability to make new memories so now he only has what he has, when he can find them.
Maybe if we keep less of the unimportant memories, we’ll make it easier to find the important ones. One step further, maybe if I only make the memories I know will count, then perhaps I can save myself some unnecessary grief and hold on to the important things, giving all my attention to those.
I meet a lot of people. But I confess I do not catalogue them all or commit each one to memory. I listen to stories, I pay attention, I am present with you and sometimes that is enough. Sometimes it has to be enough but it leaves me with a choice about who to remember, who to give the precious space of memory to, and that is harder than you might think. Once in a while, I meet a person that is too exquisite and interesting and I hear that small voice whisper again, ‘Please can I keep you?’
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories. George Eliot
Should I remember the way you said that, in case later it becomes important? Will I want to remember what that expression means? Should I make an effort to store away this particular feeling in case I want to one day say, this was the first time I knew I wanted to keep you. This was the first glass of wine I knew we would be friends. I am tired of collecting memories just in case; but I can’t help myself but make them.
Life would be simpler with caveats on how the end will come. If you could know when people would leave you or when you would need to leave people. You could administrate farewells and collect only the innocuous memories, the ones that bring no harm. No need then for memories that are so heavy, collecting too much weight in the mind or heart.
But a life of caveats leaves no room for surprise. No room to change the rules and I am, by nature, a rule changer. Not a breaker, as much as a changer. I like the flexibility to change the expectations. Who says some things are unforgivable or that things must go a certain way? Why must beginnings be dictated by their end, before a proper beginning is even begun?
Oh, it’s the weight of memory that we carry from the time before and the time before that. We forget to reach for the stars yet untouched. We neglect to imagine what is possible, what may yet be. We know what it’s like to let go of memories we made with the intention of keeping them forever.
But perhaps it’s perfectly acceptable to keep some memories forever, without keeping the people. Perhaps that one unforgettable season is worth holding on, no matter what happens.
I’ve never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don’t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now. Sophia Loren
When I see you now
there is room in my eyes to remember your eyes.
I have space under my fingertips
to remember the feel of your skin.
I remember now, the feeling expanding within
my chest cage is not sadness but space
– when did lightness become so heavy?
Oh, but it’s you, like an anchor within me.
An anchor in space
As light as the moon
Can we turn the moon upside down
Change the weight of gravity
Leaving nothing as it was
A star map to find everything again
When I see you now
there is room in my eyes to remember your eyes
I have space under my fingertips
I am only anchored to the sky
feet gently dangling on the earth
rewriting the stars.
