The truth

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I am acutely aware that when I sit down to write this each day, I want it to make some sense. I want it to be clear and clean on the page. I can't avoid the subject, but I don’t want to bang on and on and on about the melancholy facts of death. I must put, not exactly a brave face, but a presentable face on it. I do not want to alarm the horses.

I thought at first that it was because I never wanted this blog to be a glaring spotlight on my soul. You all have your own souls to be getting on with. I realise now that I am doing this here, because it is what I am mostly doing in life. It is not that I am not telling the truth, but I am not telling the whole truth.

Look at me, I am mostly saying, implicitly, I’m doing fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing difficult or messy or troublesome. Look, Ma, no hands. It's not quite as simple as that, as it turns out.

I cried last night, suddenly, viscerally, for my dog. Sometimes the tears are for all of them: the father, the cousin, the friend, the canine. Sometimes they are for one of them alone. I can’t tell when which version will arrive. Here is what happens: the wave of sorrow crashes, and for a moment, I let it. I feel it roar and rage through me. I arch my back and open my mouth very wide, as if I can let whatever it is out into the room. Then, quite quickly, my brain kicks into gear. I start to think: all right, this is what happens. This is just to be expected; this too will pass.

Then I think a variety of muddled things. I think it is a process and that is fine; that is what I should be going through now. I can’t just tick the box and move onto the next thing. (Although there is a part of me that wants so very much to do that.)

Then I tell myself, oh come on, pull yourself together. No point in dwelling on things. You are not living in the Congo. You are not the two environmental activists who were shot to death in Brazil yesterday. You are not living on the sixteenth floor of a sink estate, with crack dealers in the stairwell. I think: all right, that’s enough of that.

You see, in the nutty little part of my mind where the wrong constructions live, I am not allowed to be sad. It’s a glorious pincer action. First of all, I am British, so I was born in a culture of stoicism and stiff upper lip and people who got through the war and never talked about it. As I went to three funerals in three weeks, I thought, at one point, pah, this is nothing. Imagine those women in 1942 who got three telegrams in a one week. They managed, although I am still not sure how they did.

Second part of the pincer action is that I am so damn privileged. I live in a Western democracy, where I may vote and walk alone in the street and drive a car and not live in fear of the secret police. I am a woman of independent means. I was sent to the best bloody schools; I went to one of the finest universities in the entire world. I am surrounded by so much natural beauty that it hurts my eyes. I do a job I adore. I have utter freedom. I have a family whom I love. I have the old and dear friends, with the laughter and memories of twenty-five years. I have the Nieces and the Pigeon and the godchildren and all the little great nephews and nieces, who are so funny and sweet and golden. I have my garden and the hill and the ability to type. I have All This. How dare I be sad?

Someone I know and love said to me, the day after my Dad died: Well, at least it is not like losing a child. She was empirically correct, although at the time it was not necessarily what I expected to hear. (We worked out later that she does not do Death.) But it haunts me, that remark. She was right. It’s not a five year old with an incurable disease. I have been in a season of loss, but these are not the grievous, tearing ruptures which make a life almost impossible to live. I don’t know what people do when it is a child, or, oh I don’t know, the unimaginable things like an entire family wiped out, by the earthquake in New Zealand, or the tsunami in Japan, or those tornados in America, or the rampaging armies of the Congo.

There is a school of the good life which says the most egregious thing you can do is compare yourself up. If you are always trying to keep up with the Armstrong-Joneses, you will never be happy, because there will always be someone with a bigger house, a better job, shinier hair. I do the opposite. I compare myself down. I have a haunting belief that this is a moral imperative. I must, must, must count my blessings, which are so manifest, because otherwise what are blessings for?

In some ways this makes sense, but in others it leads to a stuttering stall. The wild griefs of life must be honoured, or they end up twisted in the craw, and come out later in dark tangents. I am afraid that I am papering over the cracks. I tell myself that I must be bonny and blithe because of all the fine things I have.

I once compared sorrow to a long tunnel, with a very faint light at the end of it. I wrote that when I was perfectly happy, and it was easy to type the words on the page. The thing I do know, I said, is that the light does come again.

I do have light. I can see the trees. I can make a conversation. I can laugh at a joke, although I notice that the laugh comes out much louder than normal, like a forced shout, as if to say: here I am, I am still alive. It is not what those friends of mine who have suffered depression describe, where everything is black and there is no point in getting out of bed in the morning.

But I am amazingly fragile. My skin is thin as paper. I have a fear of people I do not know very, very well. My bones ache and crack. The mortality attacks sometimes come in serried ranks, yelling at me. They say: we all die, everyone you know and love will die, there is no reason or rhyme to it, there is no grand plan, you will end up going to funerals for the rest of your life. This is objectively true; it is the thing that Philip Larkin once marvelled did not make us all scream when we awoke each morning. At the same time, it is the thing on which we must not linger. Come on, I say to myself, when that human condition artillery marches towards me, concentrate on the little things. You still have the trees, and the old, old friends who make you laugh from your stomach, and the swallows who are teaching their fledglings to fly, and the music of Bob Dylan. You have the novels of Scott Fitzgerald and the poems of Yeats and your eyesight to read them. Come on, I say to myself, raising a smile.

I miss them all, the departed, but just now, just at this very moment, I miss my dog. (Maybe, I think, in my crazy mind, I should write out a nice, neat schedule for it: miss Dad on Monday, miss cousin on Tuesday, take a day off on Wednesday; miss dog on Thursday; then the weekend is for rest and recreation.) Even though I feel it is almost not permitted, what with all the human funerals I have been to,  I miss my darling old Duchess. I have sudden panics that I shall forget her. I want to write down all her quirks and funniness and other glorious attributes, so that I can fold her into my heart and mind, and keep her there. I want to be able to take down that book, the one about the dog who truly believed that she was the Duchess of Devonshire, and slowly read.

 

Camera still hors de combat, so here are some old pictures of the old girl. Wasn't she fine?

In which nothing is charged

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The lovely Stepfather comes to collect me and takes me to the garden centre so I may buy plants. I feel it is important to be putting things in the earth. I am ready to spend stupid amounts of money, but the place is filled to the brim with horrors. An exotic theme seems to have permeated the buying remit, most unScottish plants of dubious longevity. Will that survive the first frost? I ask myself. For the rest, it seems a carnival of hideous variegated leaves and all the colours I do not like. I end up with a small collection of sage and marjoram and lavender, two tasteful shrubs with leaves the colour of verdigris, whose name I have already forgotten, and a Japanese cherry tree. I buy the tree for my dead dog. My stepfather still has the ashes; I cannot yet quite bring myself to ask for them. When I feel strong enough, I am going to bury them in the garden and plant the tree on top.

I start work again. It feels familiar and strange at the same time. My powers of concentration are not stellar, so I go slowly, trying not to castigate myself.

The Older Niece arrives with special vitamins for the Pigeon, as part of the keep her alive forever plan. I am absurdly touched. We walk up the beech avenue and throw sticks for our dogs and look at the lambs. Some have escaped their field, so we call the farmer, who arrives in his battered old Landrover. (We did try to guide them back in ourselves, but it turns out we have no talent for shepherding.) We have a most satisfying conversation about animal husbandry with him. Sometimes I think that one of the things I love most in the world is talking to a farming fellow about sheep.

For a tea-time treat, I listen to Martin Sixsmith's history of Russia on the iPlayer. I suddenly realise I have spent my whole life blithely talking of the Mongol hordes, without really knowing particularly what they did. They were the Tartars who conquered Russia in the 13th century, it turns out, and laid waste to every single thing in their path. The poor Russians; just as that party was over, they got Ivan the Terrible. Tomorrow, I shall see the start of the Romanovs.

I listen to the news coverage of Barack Obama's speech in the hall of Westminster. I find myself oddly embarrassed that no one, from the BBC newsreader to Mr Speaker Bercow, knows how to pronounce the President's name. It is Barack rhymes with park, not Barack rhymes with shack. It would be like David Cameron going to America to find everyone calling him Dahv-eed. Luckily Mr Obama has impeccable manners, and is probably too polite to correct the solecism.

I think: if I am getting bolshie about the pronunciation of names, then I must be moving back towards usualness. If my inner pedant is still alive and kicking, then all cannot be lost.

Yet, I cannot quite manage ordinary logistical tasks. The camera and the mobile telephone have both died because I have no clue where their chargers are. The Hoover has broken, and I must either get it repaired, or invest in a new one. This ordinary household imperative seems quite insurmountable.

Oh well, I think: I shall deal with it tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.

 

No pictures today, on account of the lack of camera charger, so here are some from the last few days:

Even though this one of my acer is all blurred, on account of it being taken in a gale force wind, I still rather love it:

The sheep:

The Pigeon:

Yesterday's hill:

An ordinary day

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There are wild gales all night, and equally wild insomnia. My boiler is broken and the house is so cold that I cannot sleep for shivering, even with the Pigeon bravely doing duty as hot water bottle.

In the morning, I stare with my spacey eyes at the fallen branches and ripped-off foliage which is littering the grass, as if cast about by some childish giant.

The Older Niece calls, and the Lovely Stepfather. They are filled with kindness. I speak to The Sister, who has opened a shop while I was away. It seems to be a great success. We talk for a moment about our father. We miss him.

I make spicy food, with lots of chilli and garlic and mint from the garden. I contemplate taking my library books back and decide that it is too great a task.

On the news, voices talk of President Obama and the Queen and the ash cloud in Iceland. Someone is very cross with the French, but I can't quite work out why.

I think: come on, normality, come back to me.

 

Pictures of the day are of all the things in the garden which have been growing while I was in the south:

There has not been a photograph of the wall for far too long:

The sun on the trees:

The sheep and the coos:

I got the focus on this all wrong; the sun was shining in my eyes and I just pointed and hoped. But I rather love it anyway. Even all blurry, The Pigeon still looks quite beautiful:

The hill:

Oh, and one more thing. There is one tremendous piece of GOOD NEWS. One of the dearest and most loyal of all the Dear Readers is HAVING A BABY. There are certain strict people who say that you should never, ever use capital letters if you want to be considered a serious writer. I agree with them in theory. But there are some things which are too important to go into lower case and this is one of them. It is a real life going on thing, and a lovely moment of joy. So here is to you, Anne. Bloody marvellous. I wish you all loveliness and delight.

Home

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I am sorry for no blog without a word of warning. On Saturday I was so tired I did not know what my name was, and could not lift my fingers to type, and on Sunday I was driving.

I rather madly thought: I'll do it all in one go. I left at half past six; I'll be home by three, I thought blithely. North of Barrow I smashed into a wall of exhaustion so thick it felt corporeal. I took two double espressos, some iron tonic, and half a fold of Pro Plus (those of you trained in nutrition, look away now). Then I felt slightly crazy in the head and wondered if they would find me, wandering by the side of the road, somewhere south of Perth, muttering about the end of the world.

At some point, I found myself listening to men on Radio Stoke (I love the local BBC stations) discussing whether or not heaven does exist. Oh yes, they all said, with utter conviction. Of course it does, they said, with a slight note of astonishment in their voices that anyone might think otherwise, a faint patronising slide for the poor boobies who have doubts.

They could not quite agree what it was. 'It's where Jesus is,' one said. I thought that was a bit unfair on all the people who worshipped Ganesh the elephant God, or Baiame the Sky Father, or Ahuru Mazda the supreme creator God.

'It's a different plane,' said another.

'It's where there is no more sorrow,' said a third.

I think someone mentioned this vale of tears. All right, I thought. Show your working. Give me your proofs.

'Stephen Hawking might be very clever,' said the heavenly men. Apparently it was he who had started this hare running by insisting that there almost certainly was no heaven, that it was just wish thinking. 'But he's talking absolute nonsense.'

'Well,' said another of the determined fellows, 'who can tell me that Stephen Hawking actually exists. I mean, I've never seen him.'

I almost drove off the road. Although I suppose it was quite a clever existentialist question, with a dash of Plato thrown in, and a shade of Bishop Berkeley. Perhaps it called for Descartes. Cogito ergo sum, I thought. And the gallant riposte of Dr Johnson: I refute it thus.

I wondered what it would be like to be so sure of something that cannot be seen, described, or even imagined, that no scientist can test, that philosophers and theologians have argued over for millennia. I have seen three people taken away in boxes, in the last three weeks. I have the ashes of my dog, waiting to be buried in the wild part of my garden, where I am going to plant a tree for her. I do not have any idea where those people are now. I have no conviction that they exist in a place where there is no sorrow. I know only that their memories rest in the hearts of those who loved them. I keep them in my heart. That's the best I can do.

At Errol, I shed sudden, violent tears. They come and go in waves. All I can do is let them. At Dundee, they stopped, equally suddenly, and I looked at the road ahead, still another eighty long miles to go, and wondered if I would make it. At Durris, there were pied wagtails, flirting in pairs over gorse the colour of canaries, and dark chestnut cows basking in the sun. The hills were a long indigo line on the horizon. The stately sinuous silver of the Dee slid under me, and I knew that I was home.

 

I have not taken any pictures for the last three days, but here are some from my Beloved Cousin's lovely garden. I might not be able to answer the profound questions of the mysteries of the universe, but I do believe in the flowers:

And the Pigeon, who remains a wonderful, sturdy, actual presence, real as all get out. I believe in her, too:

The third one

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

This was the one I was really not going to write about. Partly for all the reasons I was not going to write about the last one: not another bloody funeral; not another outing for the black coat; is there not another subject on this green earth that I could write about? Turns out: there is not. I hear the voice of Leonard Cohen in my head. It goes: sing another song boys, this one has grown old and bitter.

It was the third time in three weeks that I stood in a church and sang Oh Lord and Father of Mankind. The third time I thought: don't cry, don't make a fuss. It was the third time I thought: what is this bloody Plan that people speak of? It was the third time I looked out over a crowd of people standing very still and straight, in black suits. This time, the faces were stretched not just with loss and remembering, but with absolute disbelief.

I was not going to write about it because there really aren't any words left. I've run out. Words are my life, my work, my passion, but tonight I do not have any for you.

'Incomprehensible,' said one old friend, staring sadly out over the beautiful green fields of England.

But it must be marked. It feels important that it is recorded. She was a woman who had more life and kindness and funniness and good-heartedness in her little finger than most people have in their entire bodies. She gave so much joy. Her name was Victoria Potts. She was forty-two.

Here are the flowers we gathered last night from my cousin's garden, arranged, and laid outside the church:

The Day After

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I wanted to write yesterday, but in the end the Beloved Cousin and I did not get back to her house until after eleven. It was a long, long day, but in the sadness there was also a great deal of loveliness. Along with sorrow and regret, there is also something magnificent in a fine funeral for a fine man.

The sun shone, the choir sang, a mighty crowd gathered to remember. There was a lot of love. I don't mean easy, shallow, Hallmark card love. I mean the profound, fierce kind that comes out in adversity. I want to say: warrior love, although there is nothing martial in it. But still, that is the word that leaps into my mind.

The wake spilled out into the glorious sunshine, and I let the Pigeon out, where she was welcomed with rapture by the godchildren and the relations who know her. She wandered about, making friends, a talent at which she is a past mistress. By the end of the day, young cousins, many of whom I had not seen since they were tiny children, could be heard saying: 'Where is the Pigeon? Pigeon, come here. Is that Pigeon all right?' She was so showered with love from her new friends that I had to drag her back to the car. I know it's just an absurd dog thing, but there was something amazingly touching about it.

The thing on which I find myself focussing like a laser is the  idea that life goes on. (Because it must, it must.) That was the joy in seeing all the next generation gathered together. They are so funny and bright and vivid. I remember many of them from when they were chubby little laughing children; now they are grand coltish teenagers, antic and bright. There were tiny babies, too. A dear old friend of my brother's was there, holding in his arms his new son of one week, a most beautiful, serene fellow with a head of bright black hair. The little chap slept blissfully through the whole thing, as if dreaming of the Universal Why. I looked at him in awe, thinking: that is where our hope lives.

It is very still now. The swallows are swooping round the eaves. We spent the day cooking, playing with the children, looking at the garden. Here is some of the beauty in the garden of my cousin:

The evening light through the trees:

The Pigeon, amazingly perked up by having spent a whole day enchanting every single person she met:

Thanks as always for your most kind and generous comments. I know I am not replying at the moment, but I read and mark them all, with much gratitude.