PLUM VILLAGE, 40 YEARS

 

From the first seed planted by Sister Loc Uyen to each and every aligned step, it felt as though Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh himself was pulling one of his sparrows home, after ten years. The last time I was in Plum Village, Bordeaux, was for the 30th anniversary. Incredibly I ended up in the same bed, in the same gite in New Hamlet, Dieulivol, looking out on hay bales, far from the croaking of the lotus pond frogs, close to the moon and sunflower fields.

I traveled with friends, met up with the two young nuns I teach English to and made new friends. I wrote a single poem and kept two diaries for my twin nieces, who cried the night I left. ‘We’ll never see you again!’ I’ll cry too, I told them. At some point. And I did. My friend Anh said I had cried a cup full of tears by my last day. Why the tears? Because of the hot French sun, fatigue, the desire to keep up with a monastic schedule far beyond my body’s limits, gratitude to be taken care of by loving friends when I was sick, and gratitude to have a monastic sister guide me to leave early because covid cases were spreading. People had arrived from all over the world for this first in person opening up of Thây’s practise centre, so of course the virus came along for the ride.

On my last day, June 9th, I managed to attend the 40 years celebration in Upper Hamlet, got a calligraphic signature from Brother Phap Huu, the abbot who was Thây’s attendant for seventeen years, met my friend Shantum Seth after ten years, fan girled over the sculptor Paz Perlman, ate cake and generally arrived, at home, fully present. The next morning, I was driven to tiny Bergerac airport by Zoe, a friend who offered her car and company, and the next thing I was outside our front door, with the twins not quite believing I was really real… ‘but you didn’t even tell us you were coming home!!’ 

I am writing this at 11:30am. In France it is 12:30pm. The sangha of 800 lay and monastics, are going as a river in Lower Hamlet, led by Sister Chan Khong, spreading the last of Thây's ashes into the home he created for thousands. Refuge continued. In England, I visited Mary's grave, with flowers, for what would have been her 106th birthday. Death is just a game of hide and seek. 

THE FINAL RESTING PLACE

After many bends in the road, some looked for, some hated (war), some simply endured, we laid our beloved Mary to rest beside her husband John in St Mary's Church, down the road from where Mary and John spent most of their married life. 

Mary was born June 11, 1916 and died on the 15th of December, 2020, and I have been not at all impatient to say formal goodbyes. I liked pretending that Mary had gone quiet in the room next door, quiet but for her piano, fingers practising her favourite pieces of Beethoven or reading Barbara Pym, her always comfort read. When I'd ask Mary what she was reading, she'd sometimes say, 'Oh it's not for you. It's too old-fashioned.' But occasionally she would want to share the 'not for me' books anyway, and my collection now includes some of her favourites from Kathleen Raine to Gervase Phinn.

In the end, there was nothing formal about it, and nor was there any goodbye. Just four poems, among them this one by me, a blackbird singing, and school children laughing next door. The trill of birds, the peals of laughter and her parents’ shared gravestone watching over a marriage blessed, in life and death.

Mary's hands. Mary's voice on the telephone. Mary saying 'darling' or even just my name, 'Oh Shaista...' These I hope never to forget. May I recall them a hundred years from now. 

MARY, MY LIGHTHOUSE

It is the winter solstice today. The shortest day of the year and also the special meeting after 800 years between Jupiter and Saturn. An astronomical event. I used to write almost immediately when a thing happened. An important, moving thing. A change to my story. Lately, I write less here. Lately, I let the waves wash over, and I go under, go quiet. 

On the 15th of December, a Tuesday, in the morning, my beloved friend, Mary Haybittle, died. See that last word? I never wanted to write that word. It still doesn't look right, or feel right. I feel heavy at the stopping point of that word. All the comforting clichés of continuation have not arrived at my doorstep yet. Mary instructed us not to be too sad. She wouldn't be far. She would be perched on our shoulder. Perhaps I need to let go of the heaviness before I can feel the lightness of that perch.

When her husband John died, three years ago, Dad began phoning Mary every single day. Occasionally, like when he fell and was operated on, the phonecalls temporarily ceased. But then, soon enough, the daily ritual would be picked up, and since Dad always used the speakerphone, Mary's voice filled our house. 'Lovely to hear from you, Chotu' and 'I've been so lucky. All my life, so lucky.' So lucky is what I have been. I was fifteen when I met Mary. I inherited her from Dad, who was already a soulmate of Mary's. I, more than sixty years her junior, knew in an instant that I had found my soulmate, too. And soulmate she stayed, decade after decade, until I almost began to believe Mary would be, forever. 

She was the one I needed when tears would gather at the base of my throat, when a storm threatened to capsize my little world. As a teenager then or as an aunt, now. Mary to the rescue, always, always. Once, as Mum likes to recall, I was very distressed and desperate for Mary after just coming home from hospital. It was 9pm, and only Mary would do. My mother, embarrassed, but too loving to argue with a sick daughter, rang Mary, and Mary came. 

On Saturday, I attended a lecture on Virginia Woolf by the artist, Kabe Wilson. 'To The Lighthouse' was Mary's first Woolfian gift to me at fifteen. Our handwritten or emailed letters to each other ran along Woolfian lines of stream of consciousness... her ellipses mirroring mine... And all through the years we marvelled at how 'that Bloomsbury lot' managed to enthral us, decades after their heyday. I, living in Cambridge, would have written to her about Kabe Wilson, sitting by the sea at eighteen, reading 'The Waves', and she would have been intrigued. And she, living in Chichester, by the sea, wrote to me of the waves, which I never see, hemmed in by the fens as I am. 

104 is a respectable age to leave the ones who love you, for being you, because you are special every day. But it isn't as though I had Mary for a hundred and four years, I think, still dissatisfied in the most childlike way. Perch on my shoulder, Mary. Never leave me, Mary. Come back, come back. This greedy child will wait.

(Paintings by Kabe Wilson and Clare Bowen)

A FAIRY WALK AND A TEDDY BEAR TRAIN RIDE (AUDLEY END MAGIC)

The heatwave has finally come to an end, we think. The rains are teasing us in fits and starts, but of course it is still mid August. It is my birthday month, and I have already done some very exciting things - like watch the Mamma Mia prequel/sequel with my friend Victoria, which I enjoyed more than the first - is that sacrilege? Even without Meryl Streep - and mostly because Lily James is a joyous actress (she was in 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society', in 'War and Peace', in 'Downton Abbey'...)

I went to a post wedding party at my old school, decked out in a salwar kameez, and tried to feel nostalgic, but couldn't. Time has passed and moved me along with her, and that's all there is to it. And yet... if my younger self could see me posing in the quad, what would she think?

My friends Dan and Kate are back from Zambia with two new additions, and where better to take in Englishness than the fairy walk at Audley End?

And the teddy bear picnic along the train ride? There were several tunnels, but Lewis, who like all children, knows what's what, said, 'Again?' as we submerged into tunnel number three...

Comings and goings... I am embarking on global travels myself tomorrow morning... quite ambitious ones for a person who spent the whole of last year battling infections of one sort or another. But I did mention it was my birthday month and it is always lovely to celebrate one's birthday surrounded with as much love as possible - and where I'm going, there are several small persons who have buckets of love to give!

But sometimes, even when you stand still, love comes to you in a German Peanuts box, with a wooden duck from Bosham.... I have named her Jemima, hoping Beatrix Potter won't mind, because she has a pair of pink spotted galoshes (galoshes or wellingtons? Dad says wellingtons are not for ducks, presumably because they are hunting gear?) I was tempted to take her with me, but Mary said, 'No!' I love you Mary Haybittle! Thankyou for Jemima - I shall look forward to being reunited with her on my return... 

THE BEND IN THE ROAD

We thought it would come quietly,
the final bend in the road;
we shored ourselves up, with
pots of tea, evening crackers
and Sunday nights in Downton Abbey.

Seventy-four years ago,
you walked down the aisle with me;
a pair of jaundiced eyes wouldn't keep
you from marrying me.

Sometimes the morning light
catches the emerald in my ring;
my fingers catch the chords of notes
you liked to hear me play.

Here we are, you and I,
a litte stuck today -
I, tucked up in our bed,
and you, in your room,
many miles away.

But the lamp is on,
and when tomorrow comes,
beside you, I will stay.

I wrote this poem last year for my beloved Mary on John's 95th birthday. These are wrenching times for Mary, because she is separated from John, who is too ill to live at home anymore. Five days after their wedding John left to be with the RAF, but then he came back, and then the children came, and then, and then... life... all of life. And then one day Mary met my father, who was a medical student of John's at Addenbrooke's, the same hospital I now haunt. And then years later she met my mother. More years passed. And then my brothers and I. I was fifteen and my life has been the richer, the more beautiful, the truer for her friendship. Lucky, lucky me. 

linked to dverse poets open night...

AUNT ALICE AND THE MARSHMALLOW FLOWERS

Dear Aunt Alice,

Somewhere, in other worldly places, you must surely know that I have inherited your perfect signet ring. Initials AJ carved in pretty curving script. I have been wearing your ring from the moment I received it from your niece Mary, because she thinks I am an aunt worthy enough to be in your mould. I thought of taking it off before a jaunt into London to keep it safe, but decided I wanted to take you with me since I suspect the last time you tripped around London as a young woman was, perhaps, a hundred years ago.

Liverpool Station was freezing cold, but once we were in London proper - Oxford Street proper - I warmed up. No snow to offer you this Christmas, but the lights! An assortment of charities paid towards these giant leaping angel figures. Beautiful for the crush of humans below to behold.

Shopping commenced. I'm not sure you would have approved of my purchases, but they were safe enough - a cosy camel turtle neck sweater, a leather bag and a pair of sunglasses. All on sale! Mind you, the prices, even on sale, would probably shock you. To ease the shock, my sister Angelina ordered cronuts and hot chocolate from a famous bakery called Dominique Ansel. Now this would have impressed you - a marshmallow cut like a crown was dropped into steaming hot chocolate, instantly blooming into a flower...

Later, on Great Marlborough Street, we stood outside Liberty and admired the Tudor Revival frontage. Did you know the timber was built from the ship HMS Hindustan? Or that in 1885, Liberty brought forty two villagers from India to stage a living village of Indian artisans? These handy facts are available from an extraordinary web of information us global villagers dive in and out of 'online'. I wonder what you would have made of Wikipedia? Here is something Wikipedia doesn't know: my father had three of his watercolours exhibited and sold by Liberty in the 1970s. Wikipedia you may have been on the fence about, but my father you would have loved.

I did feel a trifle faint in Liberty - so many people! - so was glad first to plop onto an inviting bed in Anthropologie, and then to mesh our way from Carnaby and Kingly Streets towards a Japanese restaurant, which also served my favourite Korean dishes, and to my delight, a delicious plum wine. For a nineteenth century Englishwoman, I suspect your gastronomic tastes possibly didn't stretch to the Orient, but maybe Mary will surprise me and tell me you loved experimenting with the new!

I got muttered at by a stranger for temporarily blocking the entrance to the tube - did I mention this was the day of the human crush? At these moments I am very much the hokey local from a tiny Cambridge village. By the time our train was hurrying us home, we were shattered and ready to slide, submerge and otherwise disappear into sleep. I hope you enjoyed the day out. Today is the last day of the year 2016. Soon 2017 will be upon us. 2016 has been a truly difficult year, for most of us, not least your beloved Mary. If you possess any magic, wield away. We need some magic. I can only be sure of one thing in the new year - I will continue to be the most loving and creative aunt it is possible to be. Keep your spirit beside me!

With love,
Your new friend-in-auntyhood across the century,
Shaista

Photos courtesy Debra Edward

FADED PATCHWORK

(for Mary Haybittle)

Sometimes you have to catch
the light, just where it falls

beyond the line of blue iris and purple clematis
to where the oak tree stands boundary.

Shade comes too soon, and the blanket
wrapped around your knees reminds you
of the ages yet to come.

An old knit, still holding true
everywhere, except for two

black squares eaten away,
which remind you
the knitter is gone too.

@Shaista Tayabali, 2014

My Maya Angelou collection on the blanket my grandmother knitted.

TAKING STRAWBERRY HIBISCUS TEA WITH STRANGERS

(for Mary Haybittle)

On a Tuesday afternoon,
in the only place to be,
tables must be shared, politely.

I join the ladies at Number 5
and flash a half-mast smile;
not the full-watt:
they have been here a while

they fall silent with a proprietary air
and watch me
settle.

The mug and saucer are mottled grey
ceramic, but surprisingly light
as I lift my fruit and flower
blush pink drink to my lips
and for once feel happy with my choice.

The Jackson Five count out the alphabet
behind cutlery
and the humming of refrigeration:
I keep my legs firmly crossed
lest they break out, break dance,
break the surface charm
of a genteel English deli.

But the coffee here is Italian
and my tea came from the hibiscus tree:

I remember the flowers falling
and my bare feet rushing
to catch them
before the monsoon floods did.


© Shaista Tayabali, 2014

Arrived in the post, this delicate tea cup, half the size of my thumb,
from my beloved friend Mary,
to whom I dedicate the poem. 

BEFORE CHRISTMAS TURNED INTO AFTER

The wind is a howlin' tonight and although snow might not greet me tomorrow morning, I wonder how the trees will fare… this year I don't feel properly Christmassy (whatever that ought to feel like when you are no longer a child and the news confronts us with climate change and animal welfare and human rights horrors), and it was only when my beloved friend Mary sent me the poem below, that I felt a little comfort…

       BC:AD

       This was the moment when Before

       Turned into After, and the future's

       Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

       

       This was the moment when nothing

       Happened. Only dull peace

       Sprawled boringly over the earth

       This was the moment when even energetic Romans

       Could find nothing better to do

       Than counting heads in remote provinces

          

       And this was the moment

       When a few farm workers and three

       Members of an obscure Persian sect

        

       Walked haphazard by starlight straight

       Into the kingdom of heaven

                                                      U. A. Fanthorpe

This was the year of the death of a great leader, and in my smaller world, births of a future. Christmas was meant to be about birth and those three members belonged to my people's obscure Persian sect - truly obscure, because nobody ever seems to know the Three Wise Men were Zoroastrians! I like to think of those obscure gentlemen, walking haphazardly, guided only by starlight, (and what else would one want to be guided by?) straight into the kingdom of heaven. Those last two lines? My idea of heaven...

IMAGES FROM THE MAG: The Ice Cutters, 1911, Natalia Goncharova
                                                 Madonna With the Milk Soup, 1510, Gerard David