Making friends with the dark side November 27, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a commentA couple of times lately I’ve been forced to admit openly, I have a shadow side. And it’s well and truly alive.
Nothing new about that concept.
However, this last week in particular has led me to ruminate why it is that some people have a genuinely sweeter nature than others. Kinder, thoughtful, empathetic – you know, all those qualities your parents and teachers tried to instill in you and those you and your therapist(s) tried to re-activate or even find!
One expects to find those qualities shining brightly in younger people – merely because life knocks most of it out of you the more years you stay walking on this planet. And of those older people – my peers and older - who still manage to hold onto the qualities, well they’re one step away from sainthood.
This week just gone, I farewelled one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known. No she didn’t die but she did change jobs and after 11 or so years it felt like a little death. We’d traversed so much landscape together, she was there for me at my nadir and I trust, in some small way I have been there for her at her lowest point.
I admired how she left. A lot of us would skulk away, shunning those who treated us badly and leaving the rest with a gaping hole (given that we are soooooo fabulous, they won’t realise what they’re missing till I’ve gone!). I know I would do just that. I couldn’t risk finding out how few people actually liked me. I couldn’t face the fact that only the die hard loyalists turned up to my farewell. I have tried it before, and there was only a handful – so I’m right on that score.
But in the case of my friend – there were all staff emails, there were enormous group bbq’s there were farewell afternoon teas, dinners; it was as fine a farewell as any of Nellie Melba’s. And she deserved every one of them.
When we are couragepous to mark significant moments like departures, we give ourselves a great gift – the gift of love. We acknowledge our own splendidness and we play it out on whatever stage we strut our stuff.
When we are not courageous, we remain skulking in the shadows. Afraid of rejection and afraid of love. And in that shadow we make friends with the dark. We believe, often erroneously that we belong there.
When you are there, though, it gives you a great chance to make peace with what you find there. Your own dark thoughts and bitchy behaviour, your limiting beliefs and fear. You also great a great view of the light - In its absence.
Whether you can step into that light, spotted at times of transition, is merely a matter of choice and courage. Friends like mine however model it well and give me a gift far beyond the norm. A lesson on living well.
All the best dearest s.t.g.
About Dad November 9, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a commentWe had a reunion yesterday. It was also Dad’s anniversary.
My brother gave us a gift of photos – scanned from a box of old slides he’d collected from the family home. Most of the slides, he reported, were mouldy and useless, but he had managed to salvage a collection that he was able to digitalise.
My brother is one of the kindest people you could meet. Unlike me, his older sister whose response to life is sharp (alas more acerbic than insightful), Chris has a gentle spirit that doubles as a spiritual balm. Don’t get me wrong, he’s no saint – he’s a soldier and a guardian of memories.
The photos are rich and loaded with such balm. As he showed us the show, from his laptop, amidst the glare of an overdue sunny day, we caught a glimpse of a past.
Some images were in shadow with only a hint to their identity – was that Marie? No that’s Gel – see on the left, what was her name? Others were so fragile and ethereal as if painted on rice paper, torn at the edges and only just able to hold their colour. And some, as if painted on a still wet canvas, pulsated redolent and vibrant, transporting us immediately to that shared place in time.
A time shared between us as an immediate family but also shared across our extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. So there we were gathered around a laptop in a sunny park on a picnic 40 years after most of the photos were taken.
The reunion was organised this year, 2 years after our inaugural one, by my cousin, also called Chris, an equally heart-centred person to my brother. She is mid way in a larger family, and the same age as my older sister. There was always a cousin who was the same age as someone else.
There were shared birthday parties, Christmas parties, picnics, and religious rites of passage. And there were shared and common Grandparents who were central to the concept of family; they were formidable, immovable and almost sacred in our collective identity.
Dad had clearly started photographing after the death of his wife, for we couldn’t find any photos our Mother. I can relate to his strategy – capture everything you see, try to figure out what it is you’re seeing and then figure out whether you want to be a part of it.
I’m glad he did. I’m glad he thought we were important enough to photograph. I’m glad he came back from the abyss that goes hand in hand with death, an abyss so beguiling so tempting you want to fall headlong into it. I’m glad he wanted to come back to us.
My brother is like my dad. They look like each other – so says my cousing Brian and he should know he’s a great observer of life and people. I agree with Brian. And I’ll go one step further and say my brother is like my dad in intention and drive. Attending to the bones he trawled through a record of life – our life – and brought back the pearl of great price. A testament to love.
I am profoundly grateful to you darling bro. I love you.
