Shared History

Since my mother died three years ago my family as it was known to me was blown apart. What that did was to accentuate a sense of aloneness in the world. I do not have any siblings nor do I have any children so I don’t feel I belong to any family unit as such. When I spoke with John about this, it brought home to me the critical difference between a family that I feel is ‘mine’ and a family that I feel is ‘other’. This difference is shared history. When I look at John’s family, I can see that he has had a great deal of shared routines and rituals with his children and wives. I think the birth and presence of children contribute significantly to a couple’s shared history and the development of shared routines and rituals. Though I have heard in many instances the phrase ‘…it’s for the children…’ in a sense, it’s also for the entire family unit. These shared day to day activities and patterns become the fabric of that family unit’s shared historical map- points of reference that bind the unit together and that also marks out the unique topography of one family as compared to another. From age 13 onwards, I have slipped in and out of other people’s family units- mainly through invitations at boarding school to spend exeats, half-term and holidays with friends and their families. They were kind and generous people who took me into their homes, and involved me in their routines and rituals. For me, I always felt like an outsider, keen to fit into their worlds and in that process, often feeling both welcomed and alienated at the same time. This morning, I realised that, unless I have been part of the ‘history making’ process within a family unit otherwise, I would never feel like part of the family nor could I- this is because a shared history and the bond that develops in that process is built up over time. Critical incidents can have the effect of accelerating this process. Ultimately, it is the mundane, the non-critical, the day to day decisions and activities that contribute to a family’s cultural bond. In this context, integration into another family means an immersion in that family in order that these routines and rituals can be learnt but also to be part of that family’s daily evolution. This thought brings to mind a chinese tradition- once married, the woman goes to live with the husbands’ family. In this day and age of independence, this scenario is truly antithetical to our present-day values. Yet revisiting this concept in the light of integration, it does not seem all that crazy. In fact, it seems sensible, even necessary for any person to become part of another’s family unit.

Since writing the passage above, I had a call from my aunt informing me that my uncle has been seriously ill with a rare form of Lymphoma. My sense of family has taken on a different shape.

Loss of Life

I was speaking to an old friend today and it came up in conversation, the phrase 'loss of life'. It is interesting to me how we normally use the phrase 'loss of life' when there's been a death. In my work, in coaching, in therapy, in consulting, it is quite often about breathing life back into life. A midlife crisis is often triggered by a realisation that someone has lived a partial life- that there has indeed been a loss of life- that a vital part of someone's being has been dormant and/ or, for whatever reason, has been 'switched off' to make way for economical survival or prosperity. In mid-life, we realise the cost of this on our soul but by that time, it is a bit difficult. We are entrapped in half-life we have created for and around ourselves. The price at this point is huge so, for many, there is a 'settling' and a surrendering to the inevitability of unfufilled potential. It is not my choice.

Meaning making

Apparently we are meaning making creatures- it is in our nature. Yet nature itself is without morality- it just is. Stuff happens not because of anything- why should this leaf fall instead of that leaf? Is it because this leaf is better or worse than the other? Of course not. Yet judgement and morality permeates every facet of our lives. It permeates this piece of writing. It may permeate your thoughts as you read this piece of text. My own personal history gives me a closer appreciation of the lack of morality in nature. My mum died relatively young- she was 71 at the time- perfectly healthy, internal organs of a 30 year old. Yet she died suddenly and without warning. Is it her 'karma'? Was it something she did? Did she live a life that 'deserved' a sudden death? I was not able to have successful pregnancies that resulted in a healthy birth of a child- was it right? Does it mean that it was 'probably a good thing' because I may not have been a good mother- that, somehow, it was 'for the best' that I couldn't have children?

Recently, I had a conversation with a great man, Len and in the course of that conversation I said to him 'it was a real pity that he did not take his talent further- that he gave up and never quite developed his immense potential as an artist' and Len's answer was 'it is not a moral question- whether he did or did not. A man has to earn a living. Pure and simple.'

It's a hard to really accept this fully. I have an intellectual understanding of this but I have not yet got to a place of letting go of my need to making meaning and come to true acceptance of the nature of nature.