TONGLEN AND YUTORI

Have you heard of the Buddhist practise called Tonglen? It's a bodhicitta meditation of taking in dark energy, difficulty or despair and breathing out light, radiating beauty. No simple task! The likes of Zen master Pema Chodron are surely better able to know the size and depth of the darkness your own particular heart can hold before attempting alchemy. But I also think this is a practise most of us do every day in some small way.

It has been a tiring year. It is now three months since Dad went into hospital with sepsis and ear infections that made his life just that bit more challenging. I mean terrifying and confusing. And, in his typical fashion, though terror and confusion, still gracious, grateful, kind and wise. Home now, and a small channel of hearing has returned to one ear. New hearing aids with high tech capabilities must be adapted to. We, I mean us three, and it seems the world beyond, live on an edge much of the time, not fully understanding why. Taking small steps, oh so infinitesimal, to hold on to that tenuous and very human thing we call faith. What is faith? What is the sacred and good in us when the big evidence of who we are points so much to the contrary? 

Have you heard of the Japanese practise of Yutori? It is the art of spaciousness, of the unhurried walk through life (rather than the harried clambering up the ladder, or across the treadmill). Do you have a spaciousness in your life? I have spent my life in houses with many rooms which I fashion into complex worlds, but also am daunted by the gathering of 'stuff'. 'Stuff' can be a treasure trove, and that can be a dangerous slippy sliding ground into a nostalgic hoarding of possessions.

It’s a weird thing to ‘still’ be living with my parents, ‘still’ be stuck in illness, ‘still’ be ‘at home’ rather than… where? Sometimes very famous and influential people say, ‘If I can help one person…’ or ‘If I have made one life better…’ but isn’t this the truth of who we really are? That each of us in our small and vital ways have made one life better, have held faith, kindness and joy, for one other life than our own? At least once a day for a parent, a child. Even, once a week, for a little curly coated dog? Even that seems beyond us sometimes, stretched as we are by historical and present day personal suffering. And still we return, represent, remember, recover. And occasionally, rejoice. So I go on, so you probably do too. I hope we’ll be alright. Times is moving us on regardless, the calendar turns to 2025. Happy New Year? From our Moominvalley to yours, may we remember what is good in each other. 

Images of Fillyjonk, and Moominmamma by Tove Jansson)

A TIKTOK BARBIE SUMMER

I thought I hadn’t posted a thing since Christmas, but I have a couple of posts this year to redeem me. It gets  harder and harder to persist as long form creator when the young ‘uns are buzzing about us with TikTok reels, and YouTube shorts and everything is clipped and fleeting. My niece Bella made a first TikTok for me, and it’s fun, lively, catchy. My nephew Raf has an anime channel, and he checks the views and subscribers like a hawk. My nieces Eva and Ellie whip up comic series as an afterthought at breakfast, and the walls of Shaista land continue to be drawn and painted on, some done, some undone.

Yesterday at the infusion centre, I wore my ‘Je Suis Très Fatigué’ sweatshirt, and June (of the gold heels and immaculate fashion) advised me to never give up hope, keep the negative thoughts away, and surround myself with colour. Mostly I want to badger into the earth, and stay duvet-ed until… until when? It’s summer, and Barbie is in town.

What did I think of the movie? It was indeed berry pink, had a great soundtrack, Ryan Gosling and Kate McKinnon have fabulous comedic roles… but I stayed detached. Barbie and I were never particularly close - I preferred the softer touch of my grey worn teddy bear, my little cotton pillow, my dreams of authorship. There was something very hard and plastic about Barbie. A synthetic opacity. I did love America Ferrera’s speech about the expectations on women resulting in us never being or feeling enough. I love Greta Gerwig as writer and director… I liked being in the cinema with not only my niece, but also my brother and nephew (with him I discussed the film in great detail later that night on a doggy walk around the village). It’s ‘Both, And’ for me, to quote the extraordinary therapist, Esther Perel.

I am phenomenally tired after our family summertime together. Mentally and physically. And the beat goes on… What next? What lies undone? The desire to create, while knowing there are operations to come, an underlying infection that has not released its hold on me… and a birthday. I try to do something special, something memorable on my birthdays when there are few family and friends around… while knowing that staving off a hospital admission is really the focus of the next two weeks. Meanwhile, here's to watching the rain fall with best friends, through a looking glass... 

VIEW FROM BED

A week ago was an IVIg day. For a year, protocol has required me to have a covid test on the Thursday before the Sunday infusion, but rolling out across most lands today are ‘the end of covid restrictions’. These are words that do not inspire feelings of delight and freedom in the immuno suppressed person. For us, once again, the personal negotiations, with each situation, begin. 

And yet… something has changed, I think. Some deep understanding of fatigue, of the way an invisible source can derail your forward movement, has entered human consciousness. It hasn’t affected man’s desire for war, oil and nuclear arms. But between the two, I think a dialogue has begun. Or, at least, space has been created for dialogue. That’s progress. 

IVIg this month was sandwiched between two Rituximab doses. In the interim, I walk my bundle of cuddly fur and attempt to be fully in the present moment. Aware of wisteria and magnolia at their plumpest. Aware of sunshine and friendly dog related conversations. 

Two pairs of not so tiny hands have arrived from Malaysia and Papa has company shouting and screaming and jumping all over him. Games are being invented fast and furiously and bath time is once again a special English delight…

At the hospital, in between joys of dogs and nieces, I managed to catch up with my friend Daisy, who had a little cry when we wrapped our arms and masked cheeks around each other, and then proceeded to coolly sketch this masterpiece of Zadie Smith. Next commission: Ocean Vuong.

View from the bed, the faux blue chair… cloudy with a chance of sunshine. (How about your view?)

ON ST. PATRICK'S DAY, GRIEF AND JOY OBSERVED

I am surrounded by churches in the village where I live. Samwise and I turned right today, and walked down to the church past the railway line. It's a quick decision, and the sun seemed to be calling us thataway. We made a nifty getaway from his nemesis, a tiny dachshund with war on his mind, and made it to the church. Sitting outside on a bench with two crutches propped beside him, was a man eager for a chin wag. He was John, ex police officer, 57 years in England and still in possession of his County Kerry accent. "I'm Catholic,' he said, 'but I believe there's only one God and I come to this church for the peace.' His mobile phone was lying beside him - he'd been trying to get a hold of his sister to wish her a happy St. Patrick's Day. I asked him to explain the origins of the day, and we both commiserated over the tragedy befalling Ukraine.

Two days ago, I was approaching the other church (Sammy and I had turned left this time), and I saw a man praying his namaz on a prayer mat on the tiny triangle of green outside the church. He had stopped his car, and was observing the evening prayer. I couldn't believe it! At this very church, twenty-nine years ago, my father had been pointedly informed by the choice of words in the sermon that he would only be welcome if he converted from his unwelcome religion. And now, the namaz. I wanted to applaud the man for his... courage? Defiance? Simple observation of prayer? I wasn't sure. So I dawdled with Sammy until the man rolled up his mat, and I waved in a friendly fashion at the companion in his car. They waved back. And onwards we all went. If only it could always be this way.  

Grief, Observed

 

‘The act of living is different all through. Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.’

 

I settle into the graveyard with C.S. Lewis,

observing grief together.

 

All my childhood I was accused

of being too sensitive. 

And make no mistake, 

it is an accusation.

 

No one ever declares it worthy of praise. 

Not in a girl.

For how will she cook and clean and submit easily,

if her mind dissects and discerns?

 

When they say too sensitive,

they mean too knowing. 

 

It’s a Sunday and the church doors are open. 

I walk into the incense. 

Mary greets me, I like to think, 

and Jesus invites me closer. 

 

I approach. And see the candle tree, 

electric lighter awaiting me.

 

Every night we light a divo, my mother and I, 

keeping going the Zoroastrian fire. 

Here, the lights are blood red, not white. 

I place one like a star atop the pyramid wire.

 

I recite, out loud, a gatha and a surah,

binding myself to as many of the prophets 

as will have me. Come now rain! 

Come now thunder!

 

Why do I fear? The fire 

tree protects me. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2022 (linked to this evening's dVerse Poetry)

To end in hope then, with news of another mother and daughter, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her daughter Gabriella, finally united in freedom, back in England, thanks to the determined, relentless efforts of her husband Richard. A long road ahead, of course, but a little corner of peace begun.