Shelves

I was in my native Sri Lanka a few weeks ago. Across a stretch of humid, languid days at my mother's house in Colombo, I turned my attention to these bookshelves. Much of it well preserved but in disarray since my father's passing over ten years ago.  Now poignantly reflective of the chaos of the time. In one sense, it is a shadow of a much larger library. An entire room that inspired awe across my childhood but splintered upon my grandfather's passing and the subsequent (stereotypical) drama of selling his house. The proverbial and literal dust having settled, these are storied reminders of him and his love of books. 

In another sense, it is a tapestry that is home to three generations. As I took care to empty the shelves and dust each book, I was often arrested by the unexpected treasures they'd yield . Many of the books across these shelves are far older than I am, some close upon a century. Old stamps, penned observations and (now iconic) newspaper cuttings among the unexpected treasures between their pages. Some penned by my grandfather in high school. Upon the shelves are the works of Aristotle, Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, Hemingway, numerous biographies, decades of National Geographics and books on Buddhism, to name but a few.
I spent hours cleaning and of course, pouring through their contents before I organised them back on to the shelves. Yet beyond the breadth and age of these books, what struck me was that the library has, by virtue of circumstance, expanded to house the books of three men that barely spoke to each other. My father had a poor relationship with my grandfather (his father-in-law), never feeling approved of, their few interactions were frigid and painful to bear witness to. This was punctuated by physical distance given that he worked overseas. Fortress-like with his emotions, my father and I had a largely transactional relationship, centered on functional pragmatism. My sister would likely attest to this as well. As for me and my grandfather, most of our time together was after my grandmother's passing. Undiagnosed, his ensuring struggle with depression was a gulf beyond my abilities as a young teenager. I was wrapped in my own angst.

Pouring through these books, I was as struck by how much these books revealed about us as it did the conversations we ought to have but never had. My father's cryptic notes on Krishnamurti's philosophical views or outlining the  spectre of neoliberalism with my grandfather (formerly an IMF economist) being but a few of the charged conversations I'd have liked to have had. More importantly, there was so much of our emotional landscapes that romaed across these pages but remained private isles, beyond the realm of cartography. 

Yet somehow, like cool embers after a raging fire, we find a certain peace across these shelves. Even if only through the opaque lens of the living, our interests, our conflicts, our wanderings, and our yearnings settle into comfortable grooves. All preserved by the woman who binds us together, my mother, who loved us all, even when we could afford little of it to ourselves. Here in this house, she wages daily battles against tropical humidity, ravenous insects and the encroaching dust to save these books and an array of paintings, trinkets and furniture. Not out of greed or reluctant obligation, but as part of  fulfilling her part in an elaborate  web of meaning.

Between Hope and Despair

2016 was bittersweet. It is a sentiment I have heard and read many people express over the last few days. I am admittedly not one that indulges in new year celebrations and resolutions, but I have felt a pull to reflect on what has been a defining year. For me, there was the joy of marrying my beautiful partner Sophie and being able to celebrate our union with family and friends. It was without question  the pinnacle of the year. Furthermore,  I've thoroughly enjoyed teaching, writing and playing an active part in supporting a range of community initiatives.  I feel I am acutely aware of how privleged I am and I hope I never lose sight of the responsibility that comes with it.

However there's no denying that events (and non-events) across the year have cast a long shadow across my heart. Between the dire lack of action on climate change, the growing tenctacles of trickle-down economics, the heinous violence in the Middle East,  the resurgence of overtly  racist politics and the debacle that was the U.S. Presidential Election (I felt the Bern), I was emotionally spent by the end of the year. I must admit that I underestimated the toll all of this had on my wellbeing. For the first time in years, I reached a point where I detected a sense of dread as I contemplated what was in store across 2017. Not simply because of the likes of Trump taking office, but because of the apparent trajetory humanity is charting. Perhaps this was punctuated as I watched 'Planet Earth II' towards the end of the year, soaking in the glory of our ecosystems. All the while knowing that virtually all of what I was marvelling at, is on track to be lost within a decade or two.  Unless of course, we change this flight path.

This year I have been reminded of how fast hope can evaporate. Particularly when the challenges to both people and planet require systems change. When you work at the grassroots but know that so much more could happen if policy and investment was driven by public interests. Not the greed of a morally unconscious few. When the levers of power appear to be tainted and tilted well beyond our grasp. When people succumb to triablism and other forms of divison. When you are sensitive to the injustices of the world and the cost of each backward step. Especially as many of our freedoms, though we are quick to forget, have been pried out of the hands of oppressors. There's the rub though. Our history as a species has been filled with struggles for progress. Filled with regressive marches backward that are only recognised for their depravity in the ensuing years. Filled with unlikely victories when destraction and division lose their hold.

Thankfully, over these last few weeks , I've  slowed down, settled into my bones and found a sense of calm again. I've been offered gentle reminders of my responsibility. To join waves of resistance against injustice in Australia and beyond.  To lend my voice to new ways of being in the world. To be among those who are creating and strengthening new stories for our species. I am not brimming with hope, nor am I huddled in the shadows of despair. I am somewhere between,  determined to champion  what I value. Not out of a sense of burdensome responsibility or the assurance of any success, but because I know of no other way to live.

In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.  - Jane Addams - Twenty Years at Hull House

These Streets

This evening as I walked along streets I've traced countless times before, a thought took hold. 'How wonderfully fragile and changeable the human mind is'. Years ago, upon these same streets I'd nurse tales of woe and be unkind to myself in the basement of my mind. As those streetlights glared back at me, I was a particle of dust , bereft of hope and significance. Even contribution was an act of existential guilt. All this heavy on my spine as I wearily trudged through the days. Yet through the days, the months and years that were to unfold... Came a new way of being. Seemingly through attrition, the roots of despair came to wither. Exposed by questions. Starved by the ascension of gratitude and choice. No longer frivolous intellectual notions but palpable truths of the day to day realities of living .As the grip of victimhood unraveled, there was space for new things to grow. New colours where there was only black and white. New layers above a greedy undertow. A life richer than binary choices. The capacity to receive love.

What contrast upon the same streets, within the same skin. What capacity we have to shape and shift our perceptions. But is not only human to forget this power we wield? How vigilant and compassionate we must be to ourselves and others as we scale the mountains and swim through the oceans of circumstance.

Beacons of the Present

In the depths of the haze I was in, I found solace in the strangest things. I was waiting for the reasons to dawn on me, reasons to persevere, to rejoice in the midst of my despondency. Not the reasons of intellect, those wisps of so called insight have never had the roots to survive within me. I was waiting for reasons that would reverberate through my very being. I was waiting as I would for the train at Central Station every evening ...for a timely means to get me home. And It was here that a peculiar habit started to form...

One day I rose from the catacombs of thought and my eyes chanced upon a group of pigeons roosting on the platform's rafters. Their breathing seemingly vigorous and brimming with vitality. Their movements like uninhibited expressions of every impulse swimming within them. I was captivated by this scene and thereafter, I would habitually scan the rafters and while away the wait. Days turned to weeks and then to months. I'd often feel the borders of a rare smile on my face upon each sighting.

I ask myself what it was that drew me to this seemingly unspectacular scene each day. Perhaps it was a sense of kinship I felt in their seemingly frantic ways, their apparent lack of direction and purpose. Their subservience to impulse. Their existence in the shadows of the lives of others, relegated and labelled rats of the skies , scavenging upon the scraps of those who truly lived.

Or was it very different? Was it that I perceived their manner as being reflective of an intensity of living I sought? A freedom from the shackles of thought. Did they encapsulate a vitality and innocence lost to the largely mechanical, discontent passengers below? Were they smiling at the useless smoke I was mired in? Was I smiling back because some part of me recognised this?

Alas it is the nature of the mind to examine all of this in hindsight. To vilify or to romanticize, to simplify or to add layers to what was. The truth is that it was likely a murky mixture of these reasons that swam in the sea that is my subconscious. What I do know is that the sight of those birds brought me to the present. Freeing me, if but for a series of moments, from the tentacle grip of the past. Immersing me in the vitality of living through the sheer contrast of their impulsive activity against my rare stillness. I am of the firm conviction that this in itself was instrumental in me transcending the smokey rooms that thought created within me... so I would wield my pen again.

As I walked along the platform this morning , I paid thanks to my old friends as they flew on to their daily adventures. For when I was waiting, they were beacons of the present.