Holding the space

Life has been too busy over the past couple of months for blogging. Reflection is a luxury when there are so many things to get done: it’s easier to ignore what’s going on inside. We’ve been fortunate enough to go travelling, which is a fine pre-occupation if you can do it.

At the beginning of May we had a date in Sicily to visit 4 wonderful families we’d not seen since 2019. They showered us with the love and hospitality we have come to know so well – and yet more happy memories, ceramica and wine to bring home. We leave part of our hearts there and feel the call to return, to continue to foster these strong and extraordinary connections with the people of the land. The ceramicist we first met in 2016, from whom all the owls have been bought (let the reader understand!) gave me the old black & white photograph which has been in his workshop from the very early days – such an honour!

One woman who has suffered a lot through the pandemic, was separated from her husband for 5 months while he was doing essential work in the north of Italy amongst all the devastation of Covid and they lost many friends to the virus. She is now working to support Ukrainian and other foreign refugee women – many single mothers – who end up in Sicily. She seemed quite exhausted and changed from her happy self as she grabbed my arm and made me promise to come back again. Why? What can I do? Just be her friend and love her, even though we can’t even speak the same language! How and when I don’t know, but I can’t ignore that cry.

But we return to Leicester to pick up the threads, get the car mended, the cellar renovation finished, the garden weeded. Martin has his constantly exciting cancer research work that holds us here and our friends and the Cathedral community in the city root us into the heart of England. The journeys to mainland Europe begin and end here, like a ship returning to home port. I hold on to the big picture for meaning and look after my home and garden. Before long it’s time to travel again – to the ‘ends of the earth,’ Finisterre – where we actually own a bit of Le Continent where France begins.

Our second home in Ile Tudy, Brittany, was never our idea: it was just the right thing to do when another English couple were selling their holiday house. We’ve been back and forth across the Channel regularly for 17 years and now have a whole other life there with even more deep friendships and connections to pursue – despite the language issues! This time we met another couple, from Paris, and felt an instant bond – and it turns out that his brother died of a brain tumour. Yet more Europeans for us to love and share life with! And what a gift it is to have somewhere 3 minutes walk from the beach, a place to rest and recover and to share with others. It’s a place to just BE – to walk, swim, read and relax before brushing the sand off and climbing back in the car to get the ferry back to Portsmouth. It’s always a wrench to leave, just as it’s a wrench to leave our Leicester home – like pulling up your very roots to transplant somewhere else.

So, back to the UK. Here life reasserts it’s patterns and I start wondering what I am doing with myself, what’s it all about, apart from keeping things going for the one who earns the money? For a long time I’ve been the queen of distractions, diving into my phone games for relief from the mundane. Bear in mind we don’t have a TV to slob in front of: I usually lie on the bed and get covered in kittens who seem fascinated by the movements on the small screen 😉 During lockdowns that sort of thing was a lifesaver, but I’m hopefully weaning myself off the addiction now, wanting to be more focussed on reality and direction – the ugly truth.

But I’m encountering an inner paralysis, a deep sadness, a lack of energy for life. My capacity for even knowing what I want to do, let alone doing it, has dissolved. I assume it’s depression -and I guess I’m not the only one with this kind of post-traumatic stress reaction in the wake of the past few years – it seems as if I’m always tired. Since returning from France I’ve done all the post-holiday jobs – food shopping, laundry, garden – I’m seeing friends and working my way through the ‘to do’ list but there’s an inner emptiness and purposelessness. Surely there’s more inside me than this? I’ll be 65 in a few weeks time.

I started blogging regularly this Spring for this very reason – digging round the roots to see what’s in there, to feed the source. So today I’m coming back to that, to sort my head out, get to the bottom of things. My poetry teacher, though I have left her group now, used to tell me to keep writing. An old art teacher the other day told me to keep doing it. It takes choice and courage and making the time, clearing the space – refusing to distract. If I can keep at the creativity that flows from a deeper place maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for. My photos are always a pleasurable start that’s why I’ve filled this post with them!

In the meantime I hear a voice saying ‘Hold the Space’. That big empty space in my chest that I avoid at all costs, fill with stuff, social media scrawling, whatever – if I look at it and let it be there, admit to it, feel it… Whenever someone talks about their kids or grandchildren, whenever I feel pointless and barren, whenever I just don’t know what to do next or simply don’t have the energy for the next right thing. When I’m serving the coffee at church and smiling at people and clearing up but wondering where my spiritual fervour has gone and if I’ve heard God speak at all today and holding onto the blessing of at least being part of a community who are holding me as one of them. Holding that SPACE and letting life lead, letting myself be small and nobody, waiting to see who might make contact or turn up without having to do anything about it, being so grateful for lovely Martin enjoying cooking the meals, hunting out the ingredients for him and doing an Ocado order on my phone. Letting the hole fill with acceptance and peace which keep out the confusion and distress.

Lord, Jesus, here is the space. It’s OK. It’s room for you to move.