Be Silent And See What Emerges...
It seems that Starbucks has become our home...!
We are currently in the Cobham services on the M25; the faint sound of Christmas carols, interspersed with the barrister calling people's names for their coffee and tea is in the background...
I feel peaceful and quiet; we arrived here at 12.30pm, the day stretching ahead...
My idea of bliss, no plans...
I stopped taking part in Christmas in a traditional way about twenty years ago, and instead it became a time of silence, a personal retreat, contemplation... Shutting the door behind me on Christmas Eve represented the beginning of renewal... Quiet aloneness for a couple of days...
A run on the downs on Christmas morn, listening to the carols on the bandstand from a distance, Sardines on toast for lunch... Some Christmases were shared with a soul wanting to celebrate similarly, some completely alone...
A few years ago, I emerged from my Christmas retreat and enjoyed memorable times when my auntie Helen was in a nursing home; those three years were spent having a 'funny type of Christmas lunch' with her, and then a beautiful solitary drive on the empty roads, stopping off to witness Stone Henge... Arriving later with my sister Rosy, her husband Nick and my niece and nephew Jess and Jamie for cold turkey salad, and the embrace and exchange of love, presents, sharing time together and a film...
Today Anadi and I woke in Ware...
It was Anadi's Sister Karen's, birthday yesterday, and we celebrated over a delicious italian meal with her husband Martin and Heidi and Grace... We sang Happy Birthday to her, and a restaurant full of Christmas revellers joined in resoundingly, we came back and slept in their lounge, creeping out once it was light this morning to run down to the river...
The water was gushing from the weir, ponies stamped in the field, and the ducks sped across the water towards us, maybe hopeful of bread...
We followed the river as it wound it's way around, watching the swans gliding gracefully; weeping willows brushed the water's surface with their now brown fronds...
We ran to Hertford... To the Barge Pub, the town centre suddenly there in front of us and so we turned for home...
We ate breakfast together... Scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice and toast a perfect Christmas meal, shared with love...
And then we headed off with all we own, down the motorway with the day stretching ahead....
The unknown moment and the next...
I love practising being silent and letting go of knowing...
Even within the plans I have made and the dates in the diary...
To be silent and wait and see what emerges..
A Christmas Day spent this way serves to deepen this commitment in me...
And for now we are happily settled in at the Cobham services...
And Anadi has just brought me my second Cappuccino.
