sandie zand

I went this bright sunny morning to the Shrewsbury Triratna Buddhist Centre for a meditation session – mettā bhāvanā – which cannot be literally translated but means something like ‘loving kindness’.

As I walked to the centre from my apartment – a lovely 15 min saunter up and past the castle, around the now defunct Dana prison (a glorious Victorian building, today offering ‘prison tours – £4.50’) on the high path following the river, in mid-morning sunshine – I already felt calm and content. But I recognise that deep inside, the waters are slightly more choppy and there’s a need to really unpick This Life and My Place In It.

There’s also a need to disengage. From digital distractions, from work, from worries and woes, and just feel.

The session was glorious – two meditations, with some talk in-between – with about 10 or 12 people attending. Shrewsbury Triratna Buddhist Centre is a gorgeous space, lovingly converted from an old church hall (?) which had been out of use for some time. Now, it provides a beautiful calm space, masses of natural light – just walking into the building felt right.

The mettā bhāvanā meditation is about loving oneself and others, without exception. We were asked to – one by one – introduce into our thoughts ourself, those we’re close to, those we’re indifferent to, and those we have issues with… ultimately, in the final stage of the meditation, all these people are brought together within ourselves. That was quite a powerful contemplation, and I’m still churning it over in my mind.

I think this world is currently a dark place – so much scary stuff going on, so much hatred, so much sadness and isolation and dissatisfaction and angst. We need light and love in our lives – and I firmly believe that collective thought is a powerful thing. This morning I sent out good vibes as wide and far as I could… small steps.

 

 

We two kept house, the Past and I,
The Past and I;
I tended while it hovered nigh,
Leaving me never alone.
It was a spectral housekeeping
Where fell no jarring tone,
As strange, as still a housekeeping
As ever has been known.

As daily I went up the stair,
And down the stair,
I did not mind the Bygone there --
The Present once to me;
Its moving meek companionship
I wished might ever be,
There was in that companionship
Something of ecstasy.

It dwelt with me just as it was,
Just as it was
When first its prospects gave me pause
In wayward wanderings,
Before the years had torn old troths
As they tear all sweet things,
Before gaunt griefs had torn old troths
And dulled old rapturings.

And then its form began to fade,
Began to fade,
Its gentle echoes faintlier played
At eves upon my ear
Than when the autumn's look embrowned
The lonely chambers here,
The autumn's settling shades embrowned
Nooks that it haunted near.

And so with time my vision less,
Yea, less and less
Makes of that Past my housemistress,
It dwindles in my eye;
It looms a far-off skeleton
And not a comrade nigh,
A fitful far-off skeleton
Dimming as days draw by.

~ The Ghost Of The Past, Thomas Hardy

To add a little spice to life – if in a ‘slightly in peril of becoming a cat woman’ kind of way – I switched my iPad’s Siri to a male French voice. 

He’s quite lovely, it makes things far less irritating when I accidentally conjure him up with a too-long key press, which happens regularly.

Je n’ai pas bien compris ce que vouz avez dit, Sandie, he’ll say.

Don’t worry, Siri. You’re not alone. 

Westminster abbey.

Morning sun scalds

tourists, flaying the

air with their selfie sticks and

accents, tones, hues unknown–

road heats, trembling with purpose,

progress, rumble rumble…

Click goes the stick.

Coffee done, the day begins.

22^nd September 2016

You reflect on my body,  

My body is my soul.

Waves repeat, blurred edges,

Where’s the start, the end?

Ripples shine, fog truth, blur.

What is becomes what may

have been. Reflections. This

is all a mirage, isn’t it?

I saw clarity, you know.

Saw strength where there

was only wavering.

Reflections.

Soggy foggy reflections.

Now I lie in water, still movement

with patience, stoic skill.

Still.

Now I reflect.

You have wounded me.

Those jagged edges softly distort

caressing my skin, lapping gently

against my flesh, my soul.

This was all harmless, right?

Idle moments, idly expressed.

Harmless. Soft. Blurred.

Who would have thought?

I reflect.

I see only reflections.

                             Sandie Zand, 20th September 2016

We drank and talked, as friends do, about stuff… stuff that cannot be altered or fixed, from long ago in fact – pre-dating said friendship by decades (and continents) – yet stuff that somehow curiously needed to surface right now, be discussed, be shared, be exorcised.

A strange thing: the talking over of stuff long past – school, upbringing, Larkin’s theory of parental error – and how this arises from a slight comment, a passing memory, taking over all conversation as each recalls significant moments, a growing crescendo of them… until two hours later the world has shrunk completely into those memories, their clarity, the sensory resurrection of emotional impact.

And we are little girls again.

For some curious reason, as I walked home – and I guess analysis will come in a dream, on waking, whatever – it put me in mind of this song by Amelia Curran, Tiny Glass Houses:

There’s a crack in my memory,

As if something has gone

And split the foundation

Of shadow, of song

And rattled the windows,

And the tiny regrets

And the tiny glasses houses

That I tried to forget

Lullaby – by Jenny Joseph
.

Only when we are in each other’s arms

Babies or lovers or the very ill

Are we content not to reach over the side;

To lie still.

To stay in the time we’ve settled in, that we’ve

      scooped

Like a gourd of its meat,

And not, like a sampling fly, as soon as landed

Start to our feet,

Pulling one box on another, Ossa on Pelion;

Getting the moment, only to strain away

And look each day for what each next day brings us:

Yet another day;

Pleased with the infant’s health and the strength of

      its frame

For the child it will grow to,

The house perfected, ready and swept, for the new

Abode we go to,

The town in order and settled down for the night

The sooner for the next day to be over,

The affair pushed straight away to its limit, to leave

      and notch up

Another lover.

Lie still, then, babies or lovers or the frail old who

In dreams we carry

Seeking a place of rest beyond the crowds

That claim and harry.

We are trying to reach that island for the festive

      evening

Where our love will stay –

Waylaid, prevented, we wake as that vivid country

Mists into day.

Stay on this side of the hill.

Sleep in my arms a bit longer.

This driving on will take you over the top

Beyond recall the sooner.

 

I wear the two, the mobile and the landline phones,

like guns, slung from the pockets on my hips. I’m all

alone. You ring, quickdraw, your voice a pellet

in my ear, and hear me groan.

 

You’ve wounded me.

Next time, you speak after the tone. I twirl the phone,

then squeeze the trigger of my tongue, wide of the mark.

You choose your spot, then blast me

 

through the heart.

And this is love, high noon, calamity, hard liquor

in the old Last Chance saloon. I show the mobile

to the Sheriff; in my boot, another one’s

 

concealed. You text them both at once. I reel.

Down on my knees, I fumble for the phone,

read the silver bullets of your kiss. Take this…

and this… and this… and this… and this…

 

~ Carol Ann Duffy, Quickdraw