Coloured glasses

Mary was an ardent gardener. She worked hard on her Saturdays to prune and trim and tidy and weed and rake and tie and pick. She meticulous watered her gardens every Wednesday between 7 and 9am and every Sunday between 4 and 7pm with a hose with a trigger nozzle so as not to waste any water and with a watering can for those hard-to-reach plants.

Her roses were her pride. She never tired of visitors praising her roses as they came to her door and would lavish them on friends, family, colleagues, visitors and strangers alike. But from time to time she did get irritated at the thorns. Despite her thick gardening gloves, she often pricked or scratched or scored herself when pruning or picking or planting or weeding.

“Why do roses have to have thorns?!” she asks.

But the thing is, in a world where we focus on beauty, we presume that roses grow thorns as a defence. We believe that beauty is fragile and needs to be protected. We take it as an analogy that that which is lovely must develop barriers and that care must be taken in handling that which we love for it might hurt us.

Why do we never consider that maybe it’s not roses that have thorns, but thorns that have roses. Maybe the thorns, isolated, unloved, alienated, conceived of a flower so beautiful that all who saw it loved it and were momentarily distracted from the thorny stems leading to the blooms.

But if that’s the case, I doubt the thorns mind our preoccupation with the flowers, although they may blush with shame when we curse their own intrusion on our awareness.

Give me a sign

You want a sign. You grieve the fact you're disoriented. You cry out for direction. You want an obvious clear neon-lit sign.

And then when it comes you're not sure what it means.

It's green, it's arrow-shaped, it clearly points along a single pathway. The pathway is flagged with bright torches which light up in sequence like some runway signalling a plane to land. The sign says GO THIS WAY and has not only your name on it, but your middle and last names, your date of birth and the names your parents were considering giving you, every nickname anyone who's loved you has ever given you and even the nicknames that nobody called you but you gave yourself.

Yet still you cry, "What does this mean?!"

You don't want a sign. You want a tunnel. You want to be pressed in on all sides with only one possible escape. You want the path forward to be the only path. You don't want to have to choose. You want all choices to be made for you and to follow on in sweet ignorant enthusiastic bliss.

So I’ll tell you this one thing: Choice sucks. But it sucks more not to have it. To choose is to be responsible, to be an adult, to take control of your life and say I and I alone shall be accountable for my success and my failure, for my fortune and my mistakes; I have nobody to blame but myself from henceforth and I shall be my own strength. I shall endeavour to choose with logic, with heart, with generosity and with discipline. And if ever I cannot choose between two options, only the trusted few shall be my guide.

I’m cast adrift in a roiling sea but I am the captain of my destiny.

I tell you this: you do only have one choice: you must choose.

Find your flat place

For Kristen


Find your flat place. Everyone needs somewhere where the ground is flat beneath you. And it's not always home. For some people home is the least flat place you can be.


A flat place is somewhere where there are no slopes, no hills, no twists or turns. Somewhere where you can be stable and grounded and don't have to worry. You won't slide away, or have to climb uphill. The ground doesn't shift beneath your feet and make you stumble. 

Find somewhere where you can find your balance and catch your breath. Then, once you feel yourself again, move on and take on the world around you.


Find a flat place, and return there at need.

Lookouts

I want to be the sort of person who goes to a lookout and looks the wrong way, but still sees beauty. For what is life but the search for beauty where others don't see it? And that is why some search for beauty in ugliness; in music and in noise; in sights and in pictures; in smells and tastes; in heat and cold; in fabric and fashion; in life and in death; in structure and chaos; in maths and in emotions; in logic and intuition. Because we all want to discover beauty where others don't see it, so that we may have some small claim over it. We will share it with others who also see the beauty, but all the while, we remain convinced they don't see it like we see it. That's why people fall in love with the wrong people - they trick themselves into thinking only they see the diamond in the rough, even if mass popularity suggests otherwise. All the while, what they really want is someone to see the beauty in them that others don't see, that they don't see. All the while, what we really want is someone to see the beauty in us that others don't see, that even we don't see ourselves. For life is the search for beauty where others don't see it, but the greatest pleasure and the greatest surprise, for it is also our greatest doubt, is to be thought beautiful ourselves.

Finding a boy is like buying shoes

Finding a good boy, one to date and love and marry, is like finding the perfect pair of shoes. Let me explain.

I go shoe shopping rarely – as it takes a lot of effort and I can’t always face the disappointment. I see shoes I like which are currently very in fashion, but I don’t try them on because I know they won’t fit. Or sometimes I do try them on anyway and they don’t fit, or if they do, they’re too expensive, or I buy them only to find they stretch and don’t fit after two weeks. But usually one of three things happens:

1)      I can’t find any shoes I like, although I know exactly what I’m looking for.

2)      I can’t find any shoes to fit my feet.

3)      I can’t find shoes for the appropriate price.

At this point I start feeling a bit down. I start thinking maybe I’m being too picky in what I’m looking for and I should be realistic and content myself with the pair that looked alright. I start thinking my feet are a really unusual shape so I’m very unlikely to find anything that fits with the current fashions so I should get used to a little bit of pain, or try to buy accessories to make them more comfortable. I start thinking that good shoes cost a lot so I should be prepared to pay more.

And this is like finding a boy. You start thinking you’re too picky and too specific in what you’re looking for. You start thinking that nobody is going to suit you perfectly. And you make more and more compromises on what you will put up with – what cost you will bear – in order to find a companion.

Sometimes, this isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes people are looking for the perfect man instead of the man who is perfect for them. Sometimes they are not prepared to pay the cost for happiness.

But be aware of these things in your dealings with both shoes and men. Decide whether your requirements are ridiculous. Realise that a ‘good fit’ is possible. And know what price you’ll pay and reassess it constantly in case it creeps up to a point you never wanted to approach.

Boys are like shoes. Good ones make you feel confident, comfortable and good-looking. Bad ones gives you blisters and regrets.