These old bones and tendons do not bend and stretch

I’m in Gatwick about to fly home to Malta after three weeks of being a granny to active grandsons in the UK. They filled every morning with hugs and smiles at my bedside. They ran with an abundance of energy that no 60-year-old could match.

At first, my plan was to exhaust all their energy by huge walks along the coast near Folkestone. Very quickly, I learned that however far we covered the boys once fed were good to go again almost immediately. Huge adventure playgrounds, I discovered, are heart-attack places for grannies. Your child, a toddler disappears into a labyrinth high above you jostled by millions of older children. 

You cannot follow. These old bones and tendons do not bend and stretch. The elder one returns in one piece but the smaller is crying in pain somewhere in this madhouse of children, parents, psychos with ladders and drops everywhere. I follow his distinct loud cry and find him roaring at the bottom of huge metallic snake-like slide. He holds out his arms to me for comfort and we sit hugging both his pain and my absolute mind-numbing fear of having lost my grandchild away. I decide playgrounds are not safe places. It seems that one in every ten children there is roaring because they’ve fallen, been pushed, have cut their knees or banged their head or are totally lost. I determined to exit this dreadful place with two under-fives and say never again. If I had to go through this once more I’d be in heart-attack country.

Instead, I learned to be wily and conserve my energy while using theirs. I would go to the huge green park behind their house and in encourage them to roll balls down steep hills. That way they would race down, again and again, staggering up steep slopes while I sat at the top conserving my limited reserves of energy.

When with small children you find yourself smiling a lot. They ask questions that take your breath away about dying, life, sweets, bullying and then off they go at top speed. I want to summon up the very best of me to meet this challenge. To banish meanness or deflection. To answer and engage honestly. But as energy levels bottom, the challenges become harder.

I fight the weariness and try to hold tight to good humour. They deserve to be safe and nurtured. It should be the very least I achieve. But being older at least give you experience and a certain kind of knowledge of what works for you and what doesn’t. What counts against you is the terrifying responsibility. The need for constant vigilance, watching where they are and what they do. Being older one sees potential dangers on all sides. A moment of absentmindedness or distraction, this must be fought at all costs. But this war of attrition wears you down. I watch their parents carry this load lightly. Wrestling, throwing them around wasting valuable energy. Putting on music and dancing with the children, exuberant with their love and time. I marshal energy resources as if it was my last breath. Determined to make it last until little heads are fast asleep, safe in bed with pyjamas and all snug. Then the edifice collapses I fold into bed as if clubbed. Desperate that my battery is recharged. A miracle of rejuvenation is necessary!  It comes early when just after 6 AM two little angels come to my bedside again. Then, drawing deep from hugs and kisses, granny emerges from her cocoon to fly for love again.

“Love is the cause of God’s revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things.  Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next.  Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul.”

Baha’is Writings

The Inner Critic just has to go!

I have a voice inside my head. A vicious critic who has only negative comments to contribute. In every situation it considers only the worst possible overcome. I used to tell myself this voice had a role. It prepared one for the unseen or unexpected. When or if a disaster happened at least I'd had a ‘heads up’ in advance. Then, this last trip to Northern Ireland I talked with a loved one and came to the conclusion this voice needs excised. Part of that process incorporates understanding where this voice came from. 

I think I've tracked it back to childhood. The moment I arrived in the in the isolated Sperrin mountains of Northern Ireland fresh from Sydney, Australia. It didn't help having a distinctly Australian accent. Nor did being introduced to a fifth year primary class who had been together since kindergarten. Cliques had already formed and alliances and friendships were cemented. There was I, as odd as you please. By the end of my first day at school blood had been drawn. I felt different in almost every way from the children around me and the voice articulated clearly that I was an outsider. Every time I failed to make a friend, join a game in the playground or sat alone at lunchtime, I heard it's rancid observations. “You'll never fit in”. “They don't like you.” “Don't you get it?” “They don't want you here!” ”Stupid, stupid why did you think you could fit in?” Even when things went okay the voice prepared me. “Okay, sure, it's fine this morning, just you wait until break time then things are going to really kick off.” 

Was it really how I thought about myself? Or some defensive reaction to cope with the new challenging environment? I'm not sure but even now in my 50s when someone compliments me in any shape or form I look at them to see if they are joking. Searching for the truth not this false missive. It is as if believing something nice about yourself would be the biggest flaw. Why do I need to excise this longtime companion in my thoughts? 

When we let such a negative voices  dominate we damage not only ourselves but those closest to us. They learn our habits and it's a fact of life the very worst characteristics to cope with are your own unique flaws. We can stand all kind of idiosyncrasies in others but not our own. Secondly, the negative backdrop to life drains energy. When we are happy our strengths come to the fore. Negativity does the opposite. Hard things become harder. And even simple tasks become draining. I've reached that age where I can no longer afford this brutal observer. They have to go! Ageing makes even mundane tasks trickier  so I certainly have no need of this disabling critic. Thirdly, I'm tired of the struggle. There is an growing awareness that other positive forces will come into play if I can only disentangle this intruder of mine. I know when it made an appearance. Understand why it felt protective in some ways but now I recognise its toxic influence and want change. How does one change the habit of a lifetime? Like how you change any other habit. One day at a time, with determination and the knowledge that one has been stuck in this harmful mode too long. When I re-read my writing so much of it is riddled with my inner critic. So I'm not sure if when excised totally, I will even be able to put pen to paper! In any event I shall need to find a new voice. One hopefully that is a good deal kinder and more gentle.  Watch this space!

Perhaps our negative voices act as really dark sunglasses changing the actual landscape around us. Instead of vibrant colours we see a poor shadowy image. This ultimately affects our brain which quickly and efficiently recalibrates the world into darker tones. We even forget that it could be different. We gradually own this darkened world and navigate within its limited hues.  Missing out on the kaleidoscope of colours we are bemused by those who see things differently. Their descriptions bewilder us and cause us to question their grasp on reality. When a pessimist listens to an optimist they can feel annoyance at the naïveté displayed. Their mindset repels at this alternative slant on reality. I'm beginning to suspect having a negative voice inside your head, like the sunglasses changes our view of everything within this world. The resulting impact on the brain restricts the actual wavelengths that should be picked up but aren't. Seeing is believing after a certain time. For example, if we wear glasses that invert our vision after a number of days the brain will recalibrate what we see and make the appropriate correction. In other words it turns everything the right way up again. 

Just as our eyesight deteriorates with age so does our ability to hear. In a study on Malta, one of my students science projects involved playing beats of increasing frequency. I was most perturbed when all the 17-year-old went on nodding that they could hear beats when all I heard was silence. We lose so many frequencies every year of our lives. Perhaps this parallels a spiritual truth. The young see and hear better. They have the capacity like young plants to adapt the environment quickly when older branches need the fire of test to alter them. If, as we age we become increasingly incapable of seeing and likewise restricted in our hearing then no wonder changing patterns of ingrained behaviour becomes much harder! But with focus and reflection we can make changes.  It is comforting to know this effect has a name, Perceptual adaptation.

Here’s an exercise to show how powerful it is. Click on the link. First you will see lilac circles moving but then focus on the cross in the middle you should be able to then see the green shape!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_adaptation#/media/File:Lilac-Chaser.gif

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” 

― Rumi

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached

I envy the young their sociability. Here in the shopping mall, they roam in herds chattering, pushing and laughing. At ease with their peers around them. Adults tend to be loan wolves or couples. Like the pair sitting beside me at the table with their Marks & Spencer's cups of coffee in front of them. 

Although sitting opposite he has his chair carefully positioned away from his wife. Occasionally, he points out someone passing and with a snigger nods at his wife. She is ripping a napkin into tiny minuscule pieces of confetti. Not in a random angry way but with slow methodical tidy strips equally broad and then dissecting these into smaller and smaller pieces. Folding carefully then tearing in half then folding again until her side of the table is covered in this patient display of inner turmoil while the husband carefully ignores her paperwork. 

He points out an obese woman waddling past and speaks a quick photo of her with his iPhone before nodding to his wife “Got her”, “I’ll add that to the collection”! She dips her head in acknowledgement of his smartness and then rips with violence the tender tissue between her fingers. She looks placid and contained. All her agitation focused in one monumental craft pursuit. He swings his coffee down and stares around. There is less to see. The shopping centre has emptied. His wife has completed her task. The array of equally sized tiny squares cover her side of the table. She takes them and one by one pushes them through the slit in her empty plastic coffee cup lid. Sometimes she needs to use the stick stirrer to push reluctant one through, but her fingers are fine and nimble. This is obviously a much practised art. It's harder for him to ignore her actions. There is less to take his attention. 

He glances down at her pile of little papers and says, “For shit’s sake, Beth”! In those muttered few words there is so much hatred and loathing. She sits back in her chair as if struck and drops the tiny squares, hands by her side she sits awkwardly before the table scanning all the confetti. Unable to put away her work. Yet captive before it, arms yearning to place them all into the calling slot. She fidgets restless and discontent, fingers scratching at her nail beds on opposite hands pulling, pushing digging. He spots the frantic activity and raises an inquisitive eyebrow mouth turned down in tight disapproval. She grips the arm rest of the plastic chair and with obvious effort is still at last. The concentration required has created a tense expectancy that radiates from her. I cannot take the atmosphere and beat a hasty retreat. Spinoza knew a thing or two when he said...

“All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. “                                                  

Baruch Spinoza