hope; change; family; world affairs; new year

Raising hope from Astonishing Kindness

The bleakness of the world goes on, as it ever has, and still we are here. Waiting.

We can wait for change, hunkered down with supplies, padded against the actions of the outside, but it brings us no further forward. We are not creatures who wait for things to happen, we are part of the world, part of its machinery of moving parts, ever progressing, even if it be to inevitable doom.

Kindness is change

Kindness, astonishing or not, is an agent of change. It attaches to people, brings them closer together. It makes bonds between people, in time and to place. It makes neighbours from strangers, associates into friends. Words of gentleness speak across the barriers of language, of culture, of faith and speak to something more fundamental. The need for safety, for understanding, for community.

It gives us hope that people might be better, that they can choose to be so. More is possible than simply making sure we are safe, we can make others safe too.

Sewing and sowing

I hope now, as I watch my children grow and feel the fluttering of new life within my belly, that each stitch of kindness I sew into the fabric of the world, becomes part of a colourful tapestry that I share in with millions.

Ready as I am for the worst, I will continue to put effort out into the world. I want to raise hope like a crop, harvesting sheaves of it to share and to re-plant.

Grow with me.

A Year To Save a Dream: Equally Cursed And Blessed

I’m finding myself often sitting and gazing at my now four month old twin daughters.

They already seem so big already. I am right there, close by each day and already I feel like I am missing out on so much. It is all passing by so quickly, their faces shifting in shape from newborn to the chubby faces of their age, almost between blinks. Every minute they seem to pick up fragments of personality, new skills, onwards towards the next stage. Sometimes I find myself, as they cry in my arms through no other cause than tiredness, looking at them warmly and steadily with rapt love, so aware that this stage will be over all too soon.

Their older siblings make things no easier. My biggest girl, my first born and for so long my little side-kick, is moving through the years at school at an alarming pace, becoming more and more independent and I’m painfully aware I’ve missed so much. Ever since my first period of maternity leave for her I have worked full time, often with overtime, to allow our life of the two of us to continue forward with security. I’ve missed school performances, despite my best efforts, and exhaustion has often meant I’ve not been entirely present for so much of our free time. That realisation, that admission, is devastating.

Recently, ever aware of time passing me by, I’ve started to fret that I’m not remembering enough. I find myself desperately trying to soak up the detail of each moment, trying to hold down every sensation – how the light falls across the babies smiles, how their skin feels on mine, the exact sound of their coos. These are the details of the times I will have to use to sustain me when I have to be away from them, as they put these early months behind them, develop and grow.

In this second maternity leave, I find myself dreading my return to work. I’m equally cursed and blessed you see. A well paying job but having to sacrifice time with my babies to make it work. All the security, but so little time to be with the very thing I am working for.

I know, it’s rare these days for anyone to have the luxury of staying at home to see their children grow up and it might as well be a pipe dream. It is what everyone would have, would that they could. But some people do – don’t they – they have the best of both worlds? Security and the time to make the most of precious moments?

This, surely, is something I can make work? I am creative, I seem to be able to write things people want to read. Would this be even possible? I have ideas for novels, for books, for projects. What would it take for me to advance this in a real way to try and make our dreams come true?

Message in a bottle: New beginnings

I am doing my own stepping forward, if only in trying to lead a more deliberate live of love and kindness…

Trite isn’t it. The idea of once every year the cliché of fresh starts. A barrage of fitness posts on social media, healthy eating tips and resolutions to effect change are abounds. Predictable, dull.

But in this world, this world that is so very different to the world at the start of 2016, normality is no longer predictable. In point of fact the world is becoming a darker and much more terrifying place. What we learned from 2017 was that in the war between good and evil is that a) evil is something that is contested and not agreed upon, no matter how similar it is to commonly accepted reference points from the past (I refer you to the ‘good folks’ mentality of the American right towards what ostensibly appear to be Nazis; and b) good will not always win, just because it should.

It is into this world that I have brought two new-born girls, alongside my eldest daughter and another son and a daughter I welcomed into my blended family. In these dark times I have to admit, I am afraid. I am afraid for my children. We appear to be at the precipice of epoch defining change and there are no apparent leaders stepping forward to contest that definition being written by those who would profit from it at the cost of all the precious attributes of humanity – kindness, humility, hope and shared progress. Who will stand to unite those who will not accept the sale of the world to the highest bidder?

But there is hope. There is always hope. From between the shadows there are quietly stepping forward thousands of men and women who are ready to make change. They are ready to lead – some in grand ways which might form governments – some of whom are willing to lead in the smallest of ways, making better choices at home and hearth – and neither of these types of leadership are of greater value – all world leaders begin with a home of whatever description and the better we make these homes, the stronger we make these families, the greater the chance we give the fight for good.

So, though the “New Year, New Starters” have previously been some sort of herd thought process, oft driven by consumer culture, perhaps we should see them as much, much more. These are the little manifestations of hope. Hope that we can all change and be better. Good has not yet lost.

So I apologise, with the launch of this new blog I am part of that wave of post-Christmas optimism. I am doing my own stepping forward, if only in trying to lead a more deliberate live of love and kindness, writing it out onto a message to stuff in a bottle and tossing that bottle out on to the turbulent waves of the present.

This is Just Real Ruby, filing my first post…