Back to the Start Line Again

A long time ago when my husband and I made music together, we wrote an album that we titled 'From the Start Line'. At the time when I wrote those words, I was describing that feeling of returning to something anew, of things being both old and new, of times past and present and of these things existing in tandem, all at once, all jumbled. Perhaps at the time it meant something different since memory is an ever growing, ever changing being but somehow each year as summer fades into the background and grey skies arrive with a chill in the air, as autumn rears her head, it is these words that I see her brandishing. They bob along held in the grey clouds and find their way back to me. 

I feel myself readying for a race. It is a race which is very much me against me and I think I feel differently all of the time about taking myself on. It makes sense to me, seen as the summer weeks are ones of rest, weeks in which we as a family have lots of time to spend with one another, weeks in which we learn to exist alongside one another without breaks, weeks in which we enjoy the perks of having a husband and a father who works in education which means the four of us have an entire summer together. This does not come without its challenges of course, especially as the house we live in becomes smaller and smaller by the day and the pockets of space become taken up by our offsprings equally enthusiastic acquisition of books and cd's and stones and drawings and keepsakes, habits that I see both parents and children mirroring. I found myself squeezing into small spaces around the house in search of quiet and mentally I discovered I was able to crawl into drawers and bury my thoughts in the softness of this space. So there was both quiet and fullness, togetherness and blissful solitariness with each family member understanding the need for each and every one of these, although perhaps this understanding had its degrees of clarity at different times.

One of the things that I think about even before summer has reached its end, is how much I will look back upon the time spent together. When time is more sparse, more precious and when it I can glance back and truly savour those weeks together, reliving both happy and fraught times. It is both utterly satisfying, utterly melancholic of me and I feed from this greedily in the darker, colder days and the darker, colder times. Often in these moments of reflection, I think of my mother and I hear her familiar notes. The ones that have played on my soundtrack forever and ever, the ones that I can name instantly, the ones that play quietly and those that scream at the top of their voice. They say things like, 'try your best, that's all you can do and all I expect', 'you'll get there in the end', 'you'll be the death of me' said with bright eyes and proud beaming crow's feet. I think of all that is passed down, through DNA, through experience, through the soul, through instinct. I think of the many that have gone before me, especially the women. I think of how I am catching up with them. I was thinking all of these thoughts as I walked the many corridors of the secondary school that my eldest boy and I were touring around this morning. Thinking of the ten years that he and I have shared, thinking of this boy who made me a mother and one of 'those' women, just like the ones that came before me. That's when I hear more of those notes and this one says 'money doesn't grow on trees you know', just like my mother told my siblings and I all those years ago and out of the clouds I hear my voice with undulating form and I say the words 'neither does time my friend, neither does time'. I carry on looking at the clouds doubting my good ear and that's when I see her. I see me. I am marking a line in the clouds and my finger is thick with marshmallow like fluff and when I can see both the start and the finish of the line, I know I am ready. I take one more glance at that finger and the fluff has disappeared into thin air and then quickly after, so do I. 

The End of the Summer Hiatus

Like most things with me, once I am out of the habit (of doing whatever it is) I find it so, so hard to resume the discipline. Then comes the over thinking whereby I convince myself that there is little point in repeating the words I have written here and perhaps elsewhere before. Sometimes my decisions are clouded with thinking that unless I have something outstanding to present or to say or write, that perhaps I should stay silent and sit tight and wait until the remarkable presents itself to me. Perhaps this is why I have saved my return here until today because today is a remarkable one. Today is mine and hubby's 18th wedding anniversary. This means that we have spent nearly half our lives together which really does seem remarkable, especially now when our lives are so thoroughly shaped by our identity as a family of four. And yet, as I explained to my boys just a few days ago, there was one year dating and ten years of marriage, of us before they arrived. This is something that is a new source of fascination for the eldest, as it has suddenly struck him that his parents married young. 'Twenty', he uttered in repetition when I answered his question as to my age when I married Dad. 

One of the poignant and touching memories from my wedding day were words spoken by my big sister to me. I can't remember them word for word but the gist was 'if it all falls apart, never feel that you can't come to me because it has all fallen apart'. As she said the words all I could focus on were her big brown eyes and furrowed brows, the familiar look of love, of concern, the look of a big sister. She was the only one to speak those kind of words to me on that day and ever since I have been extremely grateful. Through those rough patches that marriages go through, through those compromises that marriage demands, through those comments from folks that said we made marriage look easy, through those changing seasons and additions to our unit, through it all I thought of those words. These words were poignant words too since they were the kind of words I conjured a father speaking to his daughter and I of course had this father missing from my own wedding day. However, these were words spoken to me by another father who I believe destined for my hubby and I to be together. This too, I remember through the challenging times when it becomes easy to think simply of oneself and not as a unit. In these times, I remember the same kind of words uttered to me by my heavenly father, in relation not simply to marriage but to life itself 'if it all falls apart, never feel that you can't come to me because it has all fallen apart'. 

Now that I'm 38 and memories of being 20 feel distant and those memories as they do, become peppered with other things, I see clearly one thing. Faith. It was faith that joined us, faith that gave us the clarity to make a life changing decision, faith that protected us from other people's opinions and it is faith that keeps us together, through the good and the bad and the ugly. It is also the simple truth that we like each other, we like each others company. We are both ridiculously high strung and dramatic and opinionated, we both bark at one another like crazy old dogs trying to let the other one know whose boss, we both sometimes forget to show each other why we chose one another all those years ago but we also both know that nineteen years ago we each met our soul mate and after a week of knowing each other we said we were going to get married and you know we did and we were right on the money.

Out with the old, in with the new.

I am bidding 2011 farewell and still I have a smile on my face. I am pleased to say that I have achieved success in this last year and that success has been based on finally learning to manage my own expectations of ... myself. I started 2011 really wanting to find some old assemblage of myself, one that I could patch up, one that by the end of the year would look nearly as good as new. Starting a blog was very much part of the search both for the old and the new me and the re-defining of my Artist identity, my identity outside of being a wife and mother. Today marks a year since my first blog post and it has been nothing short of a cathartic adventure. I have felt cleansed by the freedom to express thoughts and feelings here without any real burden of what others might think.

Blogging has served as a regular ablution, a comfort, a focus. The blogging community at large has been a true inspiration. It is a community in which I have found other like-minded folks,friends, people up against the same problems or experiences, doubts, pressures that I regularly encounter. A community of people commenting on daily dips and triumphs, big and small, creative journeys and new ideas and above all a community thriving in sharing, offering support and solace to a huge and varied audience making it something very special to be a part of. All of this and all without you having to leave the house!

I will be taking a little time to reflect on this last year, it may take some time before I have any more words to share about it, if indeed there is more to say. I am looking forward to finding some words to talk about the two performances that I documented over the christmas period with the help of some very talented and generous friends, there is definitely more to say here.

In the mean time I am wishing you all a very happy new year, a very fulfilling 2012!!!