The Long Walk Home

Recently we’ve been mainlining the new series of Black Mirror on Netflix. It’s a delightfully disturbing dystopian view of the future. Or now. The genius of it lies in storylines which offer a take on where we are now as a society and follow that to a natural dark conclusion. Anyway. Watch it and report back.

The first story was a little too close to where we are now. Describing a world where people interact and then instantly offer a score on their phone, rating the interaction. It’s a simple enough premise with a dark undertone. Your score in life gets you certain places, if you have a low score you can’t access many services and people don’t want to be with you. If you have a high score the world appears to be your oyster. As the story unfolds we realise that there is no real connection, no honesty in conversation, what takes place is only what will boost ratings. The best scene is the last one when two people shout at each other, insult one another and are deeply joyful because at last they are able to say whatever they like, free from the demand for ratings.

Aside from it’s similarity to Max Lucado’s You’re Special story (a must read) it was a fascinating take on where we are heading as a society. 

Watching it I felt relieved that we aren’t there yet but as the days went on after seeing it I began to wonder. I had an excellent chat with an old friend on Skype where we both voiced opinions and asked questions that we couldn’t have online. We said things that would have got us shot down from all sides in a second on Twitter or Facebook. We asked some of the big faith questions of the moment. We proffered different opinions from accepted lines of thinking and were able to safely ask and ponder answers. These are things I just don’t want to write about online. I fear the overreaction of many, I fear nuance and relationship being lost along the way and I think I’m right to reserve talking about some things for the world of face to face, flesh and blood, interactions. 

But I wonder if we are ever asking big questions of each other? I wonder if we ever have space to say the stuff we are really thinking? I wonder if we are giving each other the gift of listening in the midst of that? I wonder if we are far too used to silencing part of our thoughts so we won’t cause offence or go against the norms and values of our tribe? I think this plays out in so many areas, faith, parenting, politics and more.

I wonder where are the safe places to consider opinions different to our own? Where can we say things that are different to the accepted norms of those around us and still know we are loved and valued? I wonder where the safe places are to have nuanced conversations where we try out different positions and don’t have our entire selves judged on what position we might hold on certain issues?

That’s a whole lot of wondering. Can anyone help me out? Do you self censor yourself? Do you feel a different person online to the one you are when you chat face to face? Are you talking about the areas you don’t always agree with your tribe on? (And if so how and where?) how do we disagree well? 

I would love some thoughts on this. 

Yours expectantly. 

Friday night. It’s time for the roundup of the week. It’s been an odd one and a reassuringly normal one all rolled in together. We headed back into blessedroutine. Son1 slowly got better from all the sickness and I remembered once more that sickness=grumpy sad children. No sickness=happy and delightful children (for some of the time at least). We enjoyed life together this week. The boys were mostly charmingly good company. We did all our normal things and we were glad. 

Intertwined with that lovely return to normality was the rest of the week. 

Husbandface’s health took a turn for the worse with him ending the week with a day off work. Depression is such a killer. There isn’t a nice neat cure, there is no way of really knowing how much to push through and how much to listen to your body not breathing properly and crashing each night. Hmm. Put like that it sounds simple. Listen to your body and stop. Put that thought in the mind of someone with crippling depression it’s suddenly not simple at all. Depression isn’t easily explained, it doesn’t look obvious like a plaster cast. It deceives the person suffering and the people around. The black dog is a suffocating menace and I wish it would leave my amazing man alone. 

It’s in these times that I miss our old church family with an aching heart. I miss being able to go to small group and tell people how it is and know that they care. I miss the love they showed us and I miss the safety of their love for husbandface. I miss our safety net. Life feels very vulnerable right now. It’s shot through with normality and good times but every now and again I get scared that we aren’t known as well as we used to be. It’s unsettling and strange. Not insurmountable. But I am noticing the weirdness. 

And then there is the world around. 2016 is a year that I will be highly glad to see the back of. Waking up at 5am to another unbelievable news story is not my idea of fun. The excellent Counselling Anywhere site wrote this piece on how to survive the world right now. It’s very helpful. http://counsellinganywhere.com/articles/2016/7-ways-to-survive-in-a-post-trump-post-brexit-world 

Leonard Cohens death today was another blow in an already pretty odd week. He was the most beautiful poet. Go read some of his lyrics and marvel at how he managed to encapsulate life, depression and cynicism so well. There are so many good lyrics but it is always the ones from ‘Anthem’ that I come back to. ‘Ring the bells that just won’t ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’. 

Tonight very good friends will arrive in our house and I hope for good times sharing life and the madness of small people together. It’s been a weird old week. We could do with some fun. 

I almost forgot. Christmas joy has started. The boys and I loved our first visit to Christmas fun at one of the many local garden centres around here. It’s the perfect thing for cold wet afternoons. Lots of space to run around, books and toys to play with, a free light show with the Christmas lights, a moving snowman and even some animals to look at. If things get worse around here I think I’ll just dedicate these weekly roundups to a review of garden centre Christmas displays. I think there would be take up for that. 

Oh and one more thing. Watch Black Mirror. Now. It’s genius. Unsettling and profound. I think Charlie Brooker might just be a prophet. There is so much I want to write about it but time is too short. Blog post a brewing though so watch this space. 

And that’s it. Enjoy your weekend. 

I tried to sit down and write something yesterday but all I had in my head were grumps, moaning and anger. I thought it might not be such a helpful reflection on the week to write in that state. It was a funny week. Husbandface had the first day back off work, son1 had an inset day with nursery and it wasn’t really the plunge back into routine we had all craved. Tuesday and Wednesday morning went more in the normal vein of things and then son1 was very sick and life took an interesting turn. Thursday we managed an awesome quiet day with lots of screen time, Lego time, extended nap times all round and lots of opportunity to sort things in the house for me. Very helpful. 

A veil is best drawn over Friday. Hormones, anger, illness and overexcitement/concern about family arriving from son1 led to a whole heap of bad choices from us all, many tears, lots of Tractor Ted and many apologies all round. Last night I could still see nothing good in the world beyond the glass of wine and peanut butter sandwich comforts in my hand. 

Thankfully some sleep, some fun playing with the boys in the early hours of this morning, fresh air, seaside beauty and really good times with family have meant my brain has settled down a bit. Life no longer seems so laden with doom. It’s been great to hang out with the in laws and nephew today. Other people around being extra pairs of hands with the boys is most welcome in these intense times. Husbandface is on the edge of sanity lots at the moment and it’s good to share the load of life. 

The best thing about this week has been the start of my new bullet journal. Google it if you want an explanation clearer than mine. Fundamentally it’s a place to collate all planning for life, to do lists, monthly events, weekly tasks, creative thoughts, menu planning and whatever else I feel like putting in it. I only discovered it was a thing when husbandface started doing it earlier in the year. It revolutionised his work planning and involvement in home life. It now functions as his brain and I’ve been lured in. 

I love that it’s pen on paper, anything to get me away from the phone. I love that it’s totally customisable. I love that even though the internet is full of totally beautiful ones I am very happy with my scraggy lists and crossed out mumblings. I’ve wanted some way to organise my life for a while and this helps me do it in a way that apps on the phone simply can’t manage. Also it’s bright pink, shiny and has numbered pages for ease of finding things with a contents page. All in all very satisfying. 

Oh and we laminated leaves. Seriously. So much fun, very quick and with awesomely beautiful results. I thought the leaves had lost their shiny colours from when we collected them last weekend but they just needed sunlight streaming through them again to light them up. Genius. Leaves are really the only craft thing I can bring myself to get excited by. I love autumn and it’s good to get into the beauty of this time of year with the small ones. 

Half term has come and gone. In some ways it seems like month ago that son1 finally had his party and we headed into a week out of routine. It was a tale of two weeks.

In the first tale we were both exhausted, the boys were tired and ill with coughs for much of the week. We were both desperate for space and I didn’t realise until the end of the week how low husbandface had become again. A full on half term plus a few other past memories led to him crashing but both of us too tired to understand how bad he was feeling until the end of the week. Once I worked it out and reined in the resentment things got a bit better over this last weekend. We had some family times with husbandface able to lie down and crash for a few hours in between the fun.

For lots of the week I was resentful and wiped out. I tried to remember that in this world of full on parenting that a change is really as good as a rest. However much last week didn’t look like a rest or feel like a rest it has enabled me to appreciate our normal weeks. Doing different things is good and in the midst of extreme tiredness we had some good times with each other and friends. 

The second tale is that we did have a lot of fun in the week. We enjoyed the vast amount of Lego son1 got for his birthday and the spare room in our house is now the inventing room. All of us love modelling together, a good way to wile away tired afternoons. We managed a day away from the boys visiting one of my best friends and her new tiny baby. It was great to be able to be a blessing in the madness of new baby land. 

Son1 had a brilliant birthday party thanks to husbandface’s child’s entertainer skills and at least two of us enjoyed going up the i360 on his actual birthday. He declared it a bit too high… I can’t believe we have a 4 year old and a 2 year old now. Crazy. We had a lovely weekend this last weekend with the last of the birthday parties for a while, some national trust joy, Snowdog finding and hanging out with our lovely Godfamily.

All in all it’s been a mixed bag and with proper routine not starting until tomorrow due to an inset day at son1’s nursery I am more than a little desperate for normality. It’s a seven week run to Christmas and I want to enjoy it, not just survive it. I want to build rest into our everyday life so we have a more sustainable holiday time where husbandface can rest and we aren’t all exhausted. That may be a pie in the sky dream but I can but try. 

Running tonight has reset my buttons a little and I’m hopeful that there is hope out there in the darkness of November. 

There is something in the air. As the low afternoon sun shines on our garden play. As the dark clouds on the horizon force the lights on in the house. As my body craves every ounce of sunlight it can get.

The darkness is coming. Soon the clocks will turn back. The nights will draw in. Dinner will be eaten when the sky outside is dark. The days will be short and I will run in the evenings to the backdrop of fireworks and fairy lights for a couple of months until January gloom hits. 

I’m hoping the SAD lamp we bought this year is helping. I’m hoping that I will enjoy this last week of light and soak every ray of delicious autumn sun. There is so much to delight in at this time of year. 

I love the crisp blue skies each morning at the moment. I love the feeling of change in the air. The cold on my arms and legs on morning runs. The smell of woodsmoke on sunny Saturday afternoons. I love the closeness of this time. The clocks going back brings candle time after dinner, stories read around flickering lights. I love cosy curling up under a blanket in the late afternoon with a cup of tea. I love shutting out the world and embracing the smallness of life. I love the hum of heating in the background and the contrast of cold to warm. 

Darkness is about to hit. But light still bursts holes in it. We are moving into winter but life, beauty and wonder will come with us.