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. 

THE BEGINNING OF IMAGINATION

Today is the last day of April 2021. Onwards to May, although the wisteria is already scenting our doorstep, framing our view of the outside world.

When this month began, I began an online meditation retreat with the nuns of Lower Hamlet, Plum Village. For a few days, although my body was in Cambridge, my spirit was one with six hundred retreatants from across the globe. Time sculpts itself differently when you follow the bell of engaged Buddhism in the practise of Thich Nhat Hanh.

After the retreat, my sangha nun, Sister Tea Cake, as she is affectionately known, asked if I would offer my teaching services to help the younger Vietnamese nuns with their spoken and written English. Of course, I said. Yes, I said. And from the very first session with my two lovely students, we have dived soul first into poetry. My own, and the poetry of so many others, whose words are birds, like Siegfried Sassoon and Teresa Wilder and Mary Oliver and... well, I’ve only just begun. 

In my last post, I wrote about what freedom from lockdown could look like for me, once I was no longer tethered to weekly sub cutaneous injections into my body. I never imagined this for myself. Even though this is exactly what I wanted for myself when lockdown first began. I wanted to teach. It took a year. And now, I am here. 

Inside of my breathing freedoms, I have been cooking every week, trying new recipes, making mistakes and making delicacies ... and still, with every evening’s end and night fall, a collective sigh of relief escapes the three of us. Because although the beginnings of imagination unfurl in some parts of the world, in other parts, not so far away, just my own country of birth, the oxygen is running out and every day is the end of imagination, just as Arundhati Roy predicted all those years ago. But even Roy plants new hope with new words, and so must we. Hope for those who cannot, so they, in turn, will one day hold the hope for us. 

WHAT FREEDOM LOOKS LIKE (POST LOCKDOWN 3)

This morning’s strange dreams were interrupted by a phone call. ‘I’m going to make you very happy,’ said my immunology nurse (after commenting on my sleep roused state). I knew what was coming. ‘You can go back to IVIg at the hospital in two weeks.’ 

Hurrah hurrah! This is what freedom might look like for me. I received the official government letter informing me that as a clinically extremely vulnerable patient, I could stop shielding. All the same, they said, please still take precautions. So it didn’t seem like freedom would look any different. But this ... release from weekly thigh infusions to monthly arm infusions - oh this might spark the cocoon to stretch and poke a wee wing out, test the currents of air, and who knows? Take a small merry flight. Where? Who knows? Tops of trees? How high do butterflies fly anyway? 

Meanwhile, my nephew turned TEN... 

Meanwhile, my friend Suramya sent me E. H. Gombrich’s ‘The Story of Art’, and I am up close and personal with Dürer (hare, 1502) and Rembrandt (1637)... 

Meanwhile, I am life drawing with my mother every week, attending classes on Feminism and Plants (Ecological Decline and the Rise of Witchcraft, anyone?) and this weekend, I shall be in France, in Plum Village, with the Zen Buddhist Nuns of Lower Hamlet, practising mindfulness and reconciliation. Ok, maybe not actual France... France/ Vietnam through a zoom window. We take our freedom where we can, right? 

LOCKDOWN ANNIVERSARY: WHAT IS THIS?

Today is exactly one year to the day when Boris J & Matt H decreed lockdown in the UK - doors closed, windows open a tiny crack to let the fresh air and birdsong in. That is, if you had fresh air and birdsong to begin with. 

We have had several slow and steady leaks throughout the year so today, in the perfect visual manifestation of lockdown, we have a home surrounded by scaffolding, a locked in grid made of metal.

I can’t really remember what I did with my first six months other than cope with incessant colonisations of bacteria and antibiotics and a nifty little steroid inhaler, but I do know that I have made the most of the past few months attending all sorts of classes and courses and cooking lots. This, in the face (or eyes) of a vitreous detachment that has not abated one iota. Some kind of hopeful determination that persists even as I am a walking duvet, longing to stay in bed, and feeling the most tender bliss when I arrive, at night, once more beside my bed. Navroze has come and gone ... we lit candles... friends have been lost to us... we lit candles... family have stayed far away from each other to prove the deepest love ... Zen Buddhist practise asks this question of us: ‘What is this?’ Breathe the question in, breathe the question out. A million different answers arise and fall away, every time. I prefer the Buddha’s question and answer in one: 'What has come to be.' It simultaneously accepts what is, while forcing us to acknowledge how it has come to be. Gratitude and anxiety in a single breath. What it means to be human.

Or, if you're seven years old, you can be more blunt about the good, bad and the wicked enemies of the world!!

THAT LONG AWAITED THING

I stumble on a root
as I pass the prettiest cottage,
the one that makes me look twice, anyway;
there's no one around
and then, suddenly, there are, 
hordes of us, out for the sun.

I am cosy enough, bobble hat

and turtle neck, winter boots and long black hair -

well, I say black - I mean tiger

striped, the covid Bengal look, 

plumped up by inertia,

endangered only by sleepy somnolence.

Past more roots and the London 50 sign,

ochre homes and ochre leaves,

leaves burning on the friendly wind,

banks of snowdrops,

blackbirds heralding

that long awaited thing. 

I park myself by the berry tree,

damping my book on a mossy wall - 

these are covid tricks,

for covid times,

when paths are lean, and 

not a mask in sight. 

The 'SHE' fell off the Shelford sign

at the Chinese take away - 

a mark of this year's wear and tear;

the mayor and the spy 

put up plaques of their own -

a mark of wealth and long roots sown. 

The poet snails by,

tithing her time,

she was grown when she arrived,

and though loved, unseen, unknown,

she became that awaited thing 

and SHE WROTE HERE will do. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2021

Photography by me, except for the blackbird in full throated song by Kathrin Swoboda. 

Linked to Dverse Poets for Thursday poetry night ...

JANUARY BOOK REVIEW IN FEBRUARY

‘A nightingale sang in Berkeley Squaaaare!' I've been burbling this song all day long, and I have no idea why... suddenly the line bursts off my tongue and into the vulnerable ears of whichever family member is around or on the phone... my grandmother used to sing with a tremulous treble she assigned to the throat operation which cured her of nodules. The operation destroyed the strength of her singing voice, she said, but I liked her trills and quivers. I like appropriating that quiver; it makes me feel very 1950s...

It is Mum's birthday today. Yesterday, I prepared the traditional Parsi celebratory dessert of rava, sweetened semolina and milk with rosewater and pistachios... I made some fresh milk bread to go with hot morning chai, and late this evening I cooked some figgy chicken with mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas (Dad loves the comfort of mashed potatoes) and on we shall go into the snowy depths of February. Meanwhile, I thought I'd share some of my readings from last month.

The Body Knows The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk has become one of those therapeutic classics along with Gabor Maté’s When The Body Says No. I found it a compelling read for the most part except where certain therapies were only available under almost laboratory type conditions. The last quarter of the book was therefore interrupted by my next reads, but Van der Kolk is so compassionate, I would absolutely recommend the book to anyone who has suffered trauma in any form.

Azadi by Arundhati Roy is a a very slim volume of essays, including ‘The Pandemic is a Portal’, the brilliant piece Roy wrote upon India being shut down with a four hour grace period. Can you call that grace? No, indeed. And while you’re reading Roy, take a look at Zadie Smith’s Intimations, another beautiful slim volume of essays - both writers are masters of their craft. 

Whenever I can’t put a book down, I am always amazed and gratified that my eyes can withstand the brief marathon. It is always a testament to the author - I felt this way about Deborah Levy‘s The Cost of Living, which is the second memoir in her living autobiography series. The memoir is a response to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, and is full of poetic energy, and the feminism of starting over after the failure of a long marriage.

Nikesh Shukla’s Brown Baby was also a memoir I did not want to put down. Writing against the grain of despair in Britain's divisive society, which regularly displays its prejudice, Shukla answers complex questions asked by his young daughters. Innocent enough questions, difficult to answer with ease and hope and the promise of joy. And yet, Shukla finds the vein to draw that hope from.

And lastly, my beloved Eva Ibbotson’s A Company of Swans and A Countess Below Stairs, rounded off my first month for the pandemic new year, with humour and a little dance in my step. 

ASTRA ZENECA ONE

This afternoon, I had my first vaccine jab. Twelve weeks to go before vaccine part two. Which means it will be May. Imagine that. Imagine wisteria. I’ve forgotten what May looks and feels like. This has seemed like the longest winter, bookended only by a mizzling spring. It is raining even now, as I type. 

Ever since Brigadier Phil Prosser took charge with military precision and strategy, millions of UK citizens are being vaccinated in a steady stream. I don’t think the scientists envisaged a twelve week gap between doses, but the covid narrative is a long one. This evening I have felt a bit grotty, with a headache and a slight flu like response. My arm feels a little heavy. But my mind was occupied with what my mother would describe as the last thing I ought to be watching: Russell T Davies’ five episode drama ‘It’s A Sin’ - his first determined effort to remember the young boys who faded fast and terrified from the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the eighties.

Watching a period drama, one ought to feel at least as though the subject is familiar and known to us after the passing of decades, but AIDS is still far removed from ordinary conversation. Lupus and HIV patients share many clinical similarities with weakened immune systems, but inhabit opposite ends of the spectrum  in terms of public scrutiny. The lupus patient is left alone, to her own devices and need not fear the cost of living as much. What we possess in abundance is the empathy of knowing what it is to fear one’s own body, obstinately dancing to a dissonant tune. Why does visibility take so long? Thank goodness for the writers and dancers and musicians who make art, make beauty, even when it hurts.

John Lam, Vietnamese-American ballet dancer

WINTERING

'A surprising cluster of novels and fairy tales are set in the snow. Our knowledge of winter is a fragment of  childhood, almost innate. All the careful preparations that animals make to endure the cold, foodless months, hibernation and migration, deciduous trees dropping leaves. This is no accident. The changes that take place in winter are a kind of alchemy, an enchantment performed by ordinary creatures to survive. Dormice laying on fat to hibernate, swallows navigating to South Africa, trees blazing out the final weeks of autumn. 

It is all very well to survive the abundant months of spring and summer, but in winter we witness the full glory of nature's flourishing in lean times. Plants and animals don't fight the winter. They don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight, but that's where the transformation occurs. 

Winter is not the death of the life cycle but its crucible. It's a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things - slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting - is a radical act now, but it is essential.' - Katherine May, 'Wintering'

I listen to a lot of podcasts, and one of the most gentle, meditative podcasts is 'On Being' by Krista Tippet, who believed many years ago, that despite a staunch move towards atheism, plenty of folk are connected to spiritual beliefs, religious or otherwise. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who died a few months ago, was a wonderful listen. Katherine May read from her latest book 'Wintering', and I found it of great comfort that my recent hibernating ways would not alarm a bear. To a human, sleeping through the morning and well into the afternoon would seem a waste, and perhaps even ring alarm bells of depression or an internal organ in trouble. I want to believe that I will come around to earlier waking and light filled days as spring and summer arrive. For now, I want only to sleep when I can, as much as I can. Sleeping through light does mean I have missed the heady photography options for yesterday's snow day, so I have filched (with permission) my friend Colette's morning photo shoot. Meanwhile, this evening I will stretch into a yoga class (bears stretch too - he wasn't called Yogi Bear for nothin') and later I will toast my parents' wedding anniversary. There's a candle of warmth to enjoy - love that endures, by wintering through. 

All photographs by Colette Barrere, except the last one, which was taken by Chris Boland

BY THE SHORE

It takes a long time.

I wander for hours, years, miles

through countries, continents.

Sometimes there is water,

sometimes sand.

I return to these, and finally

make my stand.

I am five. I am seven.

In the water, by the shore;

I hold a twig up, brandished sword.

Later, in the quiet play,

away from salt sea spray

and the camera recording our day,

I find myself alone - 

‘a prettyish sort of wilderness’

as Austen will describe it, later.

Everything, later, to come.

For now, crouched on brackish sand,

barefoot in shorts, planting

and uprooting joy.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2021

(recited at DVerse Poets Open Link night)

It's the new year, I think... although my Christmas tree is still up with all the little mice and the twinkling lights. I am redoing the six week yoga course I did at the end of last year, just so that my body doesn't forget how to move. Bed, which was always the most comfortable spot in the house, is an even more huggable place than ever. Especially in winter, under a cosy duvet, looking out at the bare limbs of our willow. There was a time when Mum was tempted to have it cut because the roots are tearing up the courtyard, but I am so glad no decision was made. It would have been lonely without the willow keeping me company. I attended a poetry and trauma workshop this weekend and after leading us through a visualisation meditation, the writing prompt was to remember a happy place and write about it... this is the memory that returned after much wandering through my mind... 

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)