When is a table not a table?

When it's a relationship

Someone told me the other day about an art MA where the project was 'A Table'. Initially I  scoffed (internally). But then I thought about it. If it were my project, would I explore the form of a table or its function? If its form, what would interest me, would be the relationship between the different geometric shapes; if function, the relationship between the object and the user or creator, in other words, us. I broke it down further and related one line of enquiry to the other and what became clear to me was that my interest is in relationship: I could be talking about a table. Or not.

Polarities

My life is primarily mediated through relationships and I don't think that's the case for everyone. For some people home is their primary concern, for others work, for others spirituality or.. or... So why, I asked myself, when I was in the early stages of grief, was I reclusive (and would have been more so had the dog not needed waking)? Was it that I had lost the relationship I most wanted and nothing else would do, so I'd go without, thank you very much? Or maybe it was that whatever is true the opposite is also true? Maybe my thinking takes a bit of explaining.

I think we have axes within our personality, traits which are really characteristic of us, and each axis has two poles; like we might be very dynamic but it will also be true at times that we are the opposite.  Having lost the deep, beautiful connection with a partner which I had longed for all of my life, was I seesawed into the opposite end of the axis of relationship– isolation and aloneness.

Expect nothing

I would go into the village to buy my food, the aisles in the Co-op not wide enough for me to avoid other people, and I wanted a dark forcefield around me so that people couldn't see or touch me. At the same time I wanted a sign on me saying, “Grieving person, expect noghting, treat gently”. I dreaded the things people would say:

“Time's a healer..” - No, it isn't.

“You must feel...” No, I mustn't.

“I know how you feel..” No, you don’t and it’s nothing like when your cat died!

“He's in your heart..” No, he's not, he's in ashes in a box in the shed and even if he was in my heart, that's not good enough, I want him here, now, with me.

I never did answer back, just smiled weakly and ran away, no energy to be feisty. And anyway, people were trying to be kind, It's not their fault our society is so inept at knowing how to be alongside grief.

Fury

Some days, in fact some recent days, the feistiness is around for me. No, let's be honest, it's closer to fury. And not towards 'people' generic, but towards my husband, who left me to carry on alone after all the promises and dreams, after the seemingly endless challenges we had faced and overcome - from homelessness and money worries to poor health and addiction – when we finally had a home of our own and the possibility to thrive: how could he decide that was a good time to make an exit?

Or am I more angry with my son who sucked me dry since he was an infant and diced with death (and a heroin needle) one too many times? Or is it Life, God, the Universe and all that, which deserves my wrath?

Following faithfully

Oh, I can leap over all the difficult feelings – said fury, self pity, disappointment (owch, that's a big one), a sense of inadequacy, blame, shame, regret, resentment - towards acceptance, understanding and the bigger picture. But what is harder, is to allow myself to sit in the difficult, messiness.  Why bother? Because those feelings are there. And because jumping over them doesn't actually make them go away, it covers them up with a nice, neat veneer of pseudo spirituality. When I have allowed feelings to be there, when I have felt what I need to feel – in 10 minutes or 10 days – and when the allowing and the acknowledging enables the pain to dissolve, those same compassionate perspectives may not be pseudo any more but for real. I don't tell grief what to do, grief asks me to follow it faithfully.

Messiness

I think we're not good at messiness. Or rather, I think we are brilliant at making terrible messes - look at the prevalence of domestic violence or the pervasiveness of addiction - but we are not good at owning up to being in a mess, being vulnerable. We build walls and defences to keep ourselves safe but it keeps others out and then where are authentic relationships? Yes, we have to take care of ourselves but how can any relationship that is not authentic, where we don't allow ourselves to be seen nor do we see the other, ever be nourishing, healing, deeply connecting?

So, there is my study of a table. Because wherever we go we take ourselves with us and all our stories come along for the ride. What I'd like, oh what I'd like so much, is that I don't assume the woman in the supermarket is rude and stand offish, but that perhaps today, tomorrow or even for the rest of her life, she needs me to give her space and respect and see her through a lens of kindness. And maybe some days, even now, that woman is me.

With love,

Nickie

Notes

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