Borrowed Light

5th May 2011 Thursday

After the Funeral

Driving back from the funeral - heart felt and moving - in Colchester last night, my husband decides to go south on the M25 in the rush hour. I think it is the longer route. The sat nav says in fifteen miles the traffic is stationary. I am insensed, dreading the prospect of hours and hours in the car. I feel helpless, trapped, not consulted. Powerless. My nephew sitting in the back is a model of diplomacy, reassuring and supportive of my husband who is feeling the lash of my anger.

Much later we miss the M & S services on the A303 and end up at a Little Chef where I refuse to buy anything to drink, nearly choking on my determination to be right - about everything.

Even later when home is no longer a distant point way in the future we play the game of Twenty Questions in the darkness of the car and laugh at how bad we all are at guessing that I am a runner bean or my nephew is a monkey. I feel so bad about my mood especially as I’m deeply grateful to my husband for driving us without complaining all the way there and back.

This morning I wake in a panic about my squished day and cry down the phone to my sister, who is gentle and supportive and reminds me that they will still love me on Saturday at the BBQ if I don’t cut the grass and leave the daisies spreading like a white rash between the fading bluebells under the apple tree.

In the market I buy fresh salmon, bags of salad leaves and new bunched carrots. While the rain falls softly on the pavements I sit in a cafe on the Cathedral Green with two dear and loving friends who hold my hand while I cry into my hot chocolate.

This afternoon I sit with another dear and loving friend in her living room with a cup of Earl Grey tea and I tell her about our journey home yesterday. She reminds me of what I already know that I’m not upset about my husband going another way around the motorway - I’m just having the same tantrum I had when I was a little girl - being whisked off, uprooted, moved around - feeling unsafe but helpless and powerless to do anything about it.

But now I know that although my life feels as if it’s crumbling under my feet, nothing certain any more, I can still choose the light I see it in - dull or bright. I can vote yes like I did tonight at the election. Fold my paper and post it in the ballot box. Trust that whatever happens you can’t change or destroy the Light - only borrow it - and let it shimmer or fade.