by Biddy Wells
I sat quietly and tried to see what was hiding in the shadows. I found myself back at the same point: my darkest time. My dad has an adventurous spirit and a great deal of courage, and he admires these qualities, which I guess he saw manifesting in me when I took off on my single-handed adventure. All my life, I have had conflicting feelings around my relationship with my father – as do many daughters, not to mention sons. We were so inevitably and closely entwined, yet we came from entirely different worlds. I have never been able to fully appreciate the passion for adventure that drives people to achieve seemingly unnecessary feats. I was concerned with other areas of life, content merely to survive, to stay afloat emotionally and, hopefully, to create a stable family environment for my children. Competitive sport, adventure and ambition were outside of my field of understanding and beyond my capability.
Courage, however, is something I do understand, and I had been brave too, in an area that my dad might not easily recognise. I had faced and survived the disintegration of myself: a serious mental health event. At the time, I told him that I was unwell and couldn’t work, but I’m not sure if he could translate what I was telling him. His experience hadn’t given him anything he could use to understand or help me. I guess he could not cope with the idea that one of his children was suffering from a mental condition, steeped, as these things have always been, in stigma and shame. Perhaps it was easier for him to shut his mind to the possibility and ignore me until I pulled myself together. At the time, I felt angry and disappointed. I thought he didn’t care. Going on an adventure, on the other hand, has no stigma attached to it. It is something positive. I was a success – he could recognise that.
I survived almost by myself. I am not trying to be heroic; it’s just that it had to be that way. I now see that the only way I could reap meaning and reward from that experience was to go through it as an adult, alone and on my own terms, discovering what it really meant for me. To get rescued could have meant having my experience interpreted into something else, something that jarred with labels like ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’. I might have been cured of my illness and the process could have been cut short, forced back inside. My episode sprang from an unbearable dissatisfaction deep within me. The discomfort pushed me into a radical process of change. It was traumatic. It appeared that I was losing the plot – not a good look to the untrained eye.
Was that really illness, or can it be viewed differently? Not everyone survives such a breakdown. I think of my friend who took her own life, the one who I felt to be present after the clairvoyant meeting. Of those who do recover, some come back and rejoin life as they knew it. Others find themselves in a new place, viewing reality from a fresh perspective. I wonder if the ones who didn’t survive might have had more of a chance of recovery if their experience had been defined differently, and if they’d had support to help them walk through the fire.
In the event, out of absolute necessity, I found a well of strength and resource from deep within myself – even beyond myself. I dredged up all the courage and faith I could find there. I had to be still and trust that grace would bring me through.
Back then, I didn’t understand my dad and he didn’t understand me, and I made the assumption that this lack of understanding equated to a lack of love. At the time, that was another huge blow, which added to my feelings of distress. There was a war going on inside me. There was the love I had for my father versus the judgements I made about him. There was the love he had for me versus his actions and values. I now know that this equation was inaccurate. Despite miscommunication, differing world views, disappointment and other things that have periodically entered the frame over our lifetime together, beneath them all has been indestructible love. It is only now, as I look from this new place, that I can see that the love is undiminished. Love is the constant force that lived and lives, survived and survives, and finally surpasses all the other factors. Love is the only important thing – the only real thing. The rest is a bundle of thoughts about how it should have been. ‘Should’ is a dangerous word.
*
It is fascinating and fulfilling, this process of dissolving, of realising what I am not, what I am and what is simply happening. I guess I am trying to stay with the Truth and not to get distracted by thoughts, which, when I really look at them, seem to be random chatter about all sorts of things. My mind leaps from the past to the future, to worries, then to judgements about what I see and hear. One thought leads to another, often along vaguely logical lines, but it all seems fruitless. How much truth is contained in the running commentary of my mind? It’s frequently irritating and sometimes stressful. The Truth is, for me, the space that remains when all that chatter loses its grip. Truth is not opinion or belief, a concept or an idea: it is a state, and when I experience it, I see it – I know it. I don’t need further proof.
Growing up, I never wanted to immerse myself in news coverage or the stories of misery told by people around me, including teachers and other adults; yet I was all but commanded to listen. It felt like my duty – proof that I was good and caring. It was deemed a sign of intelligence, and there seemed to be a degree of nobility in suffering alongside fellow humans across the world who were experiencing horrendous things. I noticed that if I subjected myself to a daily bombardment of terror and misery, I became terrorised and miserable. And then what could I do to change anything, or to help?
Now, to an extent, I am off the hook. I am relatively free because I refuse to subject myself to repeated doses of distress. But does that mean I don’t care? Surprisingly, I am not out of touch. In fact, the less I am swamped by the horrors of the world, the more I feel connected to all life. I share the pain; I grieve; I cry. My mind tries to make sense, make judgements, and I see that it can hijack the situation, afraid of the powerlessness of not knowing what to do about atrocity and injustice. Can I save anyone? Can I change anything? What if I can’t? What if I can only love?
Trying to save the world from suffering would be like trying to empty the sea, possibly using a sieve. To end my own suffering would be a start. But that doesn’t mean changing outside circumstances, nor expunging myself of feeling. If I can stay quiet for a moment and stand apart from the mind’s commentary, I find that it is in the heart that we are all connected. The quality that I bring to the world when I am in a state of fear and suffering is not helpful to anyone or anything. A change in my own state of consciousness could be my greatest contribution to saving the world from suffering. It might seem small, and it might sound selfish, but it feels truthful to me. And it might be the best I can do.
For me, it seems, the first step is finding and cultivating peace – a space in which a sense of connection and empathy with all life naturally grows. From this compassion springs an impulse that feels positive, stable and genuine. It is a force that leads to actions which will not be thwarted by doubt or feelings of powerlessness.
*
My Swedish friends caught up with me here at the campsite next to the lovely, noisy animals. I spent some time with Ivan, as Maira was away for the week. He was good company; we went for walks and sometimes ate lunch together, sharing ideas and silence. Ivan challenged me with questions that were hard to answer. Perhaps this was because the questions were unanswerable – more Zen koans – and they invited a simple experience of truth rather than a lot of mental gymnastics. Ivan has been a great teacher, and when I told him that, he replied that I was a teacher for him, too. Everyone we meet is a teacher, it seems, in one way or another. I enjoyed our discussions and the sense of space and peace I experienced. I felt that, yet again, life had given me exactly what I needed. The phrase ‘I feel blessed’ seems to be rather overused these days, but that is how I felt: blessed.
One morning, Ivan invited me to join him for lunch – but not just any lunch. He wanted us to have what he called a ‘present moment lunch’. The idea was that we’d walk along the beach to a seafront cafe, eat something delicious and return back alone the shore without uttering a single
word that had to do with the past or the future. It sounded simple enough, and I agreed to go.
Off we went down the lane and along the the sand, as the sea sparkled and the clouds formed and reformed lazily against the deep blue sky.
‘It’s warm,’ Ivan said, breaking our long silence.
‘Yes,’ I agreed.
‘Nice clouds.’
‘Hmm.’
‘I’m quite hungry.’
‘Me too.’
There was nothing more to say. I liked this game. As we progressed along the edge of the sea, I didn’t even feel the need to comment out loud on the beauty of the scene. The mental chatter subsided and my mind emptied. Things just were. Walking and looking was more than enough. We arrived at the cafe.
‘This reminds me of… Oops!’ Ivan said. I laughed. The waitress arrived and we shared a bit of light-hearted banter with her while we ordered.
‘Once I was in a restaurant…Ah! I’ve gone to the past!’ I said. Ivan smiled.
We ate, we drank and we barely spoke. The silence was comfortable, enjoyable. It didn’t feel awkward, because we had agreed to take part in an exercise together. It struck me that a lot of conversation consists of appraisal of current circumstance, memories and speculation. There’s nothing wrong with any of it – it is through sharing stories of one sort or another that we connect – but sometimes we are just filling the space out of habit. The purpose of the present moment lunch experiment was to become aware of the mind and the way it operates, continually skipping through the data bank searching for relevant or even random snippets. It’s an exercise I had never done deliberately before, yet it felt familiar. It reminded me of being alone as a small child, rock pooling for hours.There must have been a time when I lost the ability to spend time deeply absorbed, complete and joyful like that. As an adult, swimming and pretend-surfing give glimpses of that same magical sense of being totally at one with the moment, present in the present.
I loved our silent lunch and I decided to use the idea again whenever I notice my mind goes off on one of its spins. And there I was again, projecting into the future.
*
It’s the coldest night yet and I am making tea at four in the morning, just to keep warm. Myfanwy is great as a runner and as a camper, but for a long trip that includes nights spent under clear winter skies, I probably need a better insulated van. Since the rain stopped, the atmosphere has been very dry: perfect for airing the bedding. Writing has been difficult, but my days are blissful, idle, warm and restful. My old sleeping pattern has returned, but I am very relaxed about it now. I notice a strange background noise. It must be the sea half a mile away; why is it roaring when there’s no wind? Why is it crashing when there are no waves?
Just before David left, something happened. It was as though a magic spell had been cast. In our last two weeks together we seemed to have found harmony and joy. It was a little surprising at first. Our final moment together in the airport felt like a frame from a slightly cheesy, romantic film. As he was about to board his plane, we just stood and stared at each other. Our edges had vanished – they sort of dissolved and for a moment we merged into one, everything else had disappeared. It was as though our hearts had opened and swallowed us up.
Since then I’ve not felt alone or separate. I feel complete and I enjoy him thoroughly, even without his physical presence. I love the fact that we’ve had such a journey together and I love having space for myself too. He told me on the phone that he feels transformed. I think we have both fallen in love! Love is the most wondrous thing to be in. This is not personal love, though. It’s as if we have fallen into Love itself – into our hearts.
*
It’s said that if you think you are enlightened, you should try spending a weekend with your family. Spending several months away from all things familiar has proved to be an opportunity to see everything differently. I don’t know about the mind, but travel does seem to broaden the vision. I was feeling frustrated, bored and stale before I left home. The stagnant life can be a breeding ground for all sorts of things – complacency, for example, and indeed contempt. I had a kind of road rage response to being stuck. I just wanted freedom. Freedom meant movement, motion, going. And then freedom came to mean stillness.
Even so, Saturday evenings can often feel tricky for me. There’s some old wiring at work that makes me expect to be at a party or some other social function on a Saturday night. Now the days are short, and today has been cold, wet and increasingly windy. This long Saturday evening has been a little lonely. I was expecting a call from David, but he didn’t phone. I had that annoying expectation/disappointment equation going on.
Yesterday I spent the whole day in silence, which I loved – in fact, I felt I could have spent all week in silence. Tonight, though, I have thoughts nagging at me, and I can’t make them stop – it comes and goes, the monkey mind. Where’s my mindfulness when I really need it? I am trying to use this discontent as grist to the mill: my challenge is to observe my silly thoughts, to try to watch and not get involved. Then I try to try without trying, which is tiring, so I stop trying anything and get into bed. Myfanwy is getting buffeted in the gale and it’s like being on a boat. I am cosy under my duvet, listening to the wind and the rain battering the van. Underneath it all, I am all right.
The storm has passed. Dark clouds move swiftly across the sky, which is surprisingly bright this morning. This reflects how I feel: there’s something steady and calm holding the clouds. There’s a sinking feeling in my body, but I am not sinking, not really. I finished reading a novel last night. The ending was never going to be happy; the protagonist drives off a cliff to his death. It was only a story, and, thank God, it’s not my story.
My own drama started where the book left off: David finally phoned, long after I had given up on him for the night. He was standing – swaying, I imagine – on a windy cliff, having enjoyed a large number of drinks at a party. That was a rather alarming image. He told me more about the cliff: it was the place where we had taken a walk among the crags and flowers last May, after which we had visited friends for a quick drink, when I was despondent about our impending homelessness and David drank too much and snapped.
Last night brought the whole episode right back into focus. Why was this horrible memory coming up now, just when we had found real harmony? Was I being tested somehow? Could I handle those difficult feelings now that I believed I had learned to love my own company and let go of so much old baggage? I decided that this was a golden opportunity to find out – I would simply go on with my day, trying to stay present and to trust that all is well.
I revisit Ivan’s question: ‘What would happen if you just accepted David exactly as he is?’ I see once again that it’s my judgements and ideas about how things should be that are making me uneasy. In fact, I am here doing what I am doing, and he is there, possibly at the bottom of the cliff, or perhaps just suffering a hangover. While there is behaviour that I choose not to put up with because it affects me directly, I also have to accept the things that are not my business. Relationships bring these into close proximity, and it can be hard to distinguish between one’s own genuine needs and boundaries and the tendency to manage other people based on judgements about how they should conduct themselves. What would happen if I stopped the judgements and the ‘shoulds’? Perhaps I would be relieved of the weight of inappropriate responsibility. It feels good to recognise this. The physical distance between us helps me to see this with greater clarity.
All that I can perceive around me is real: as real as it ever gets. Everything else is imagined, projected or remembered. When I stop concerning myself with what is possibly going on elsewhere, I no longer suffer. I find that all is well. I notice the uneasiness – I am watching it. The trick is to stay in this moment, right here, in this awareness – something we are not trained to do. My task now is to practise this way of seeing, and that is enough work for me. I try.
I remember something. On that dreadful May weeke
nd, when I was so disappointed, hurt and shocked, I longed to leave immediately. I wanted to get into a car and drive until I was far away. I didn’t know Portugal then, but I craved the distance and unfamiliarity it offered. Now the memory is revisiting me – or am I revisiting the memory? Anyway, here I am in Portugal. I am right here, in the place I longed to be. I try to focus on the cockerel crowing. My mind sneers: ‘How long can you keep that up? You can’t always stay in the present moment!’ That’s the mind: obsessed with time, projecting into the future, regurgitating the past. I guess I can listen to the cockerel as long as he is crowing, and the birds are singing now, too.
*
I spoke to David again this afternoon and he was fine; there had been no disaster. He too had revisited the bank holiday incident, which he found painful and shocking. It had been a wake-up call at the time, he said, and he felt that the person who behaved so destructively that night was long gone. There is no going back. We have moved on. Could it be that we have both come to terms with the fact that, for us, there is no ideal home with a beautiful little garden, but that something else has come our way?
*
The eastern Algarve is quite lovely. I am free camping near the fishing village of Santa Lucia for a few nights, waking to a beautiful, ever-changing view of salt marshes and creeks, sharing this delightful spot with friendly campervanners who, like me, are in love with Portugal. I ride my bicycle along the coast road each day in the warm sunshine under a deep blue December sky. I walk along the promenade lined with palm trees and look out at the blue, green and white fishing boats tied up along the shore. I feel very much at home here, chatting to cafe staff, drinking coffee at outdoor tables and watching life happen around me.
I swam in the sea yesterday, which was wonderful. The days are short and the nights are cold. I feel like a mermaid in my sleeping bag. It’s one of those shaped like a coffin, so my feet are close together, zipped in tight; my upper body is free under the huge duvet; my salty, sandy hair falls round the pillow. I am slipping under the surface, sinking into the darkness, into the depths of dreamland.
