Forgive Yourself (Drink To That)
Many lights, many shadows. A shucking of masks we wear year long.
Who knows what alchemy this time of year brings, with its cooler breezes, the moon on the charcoal sky, light filtering prettily, carols and cinnamon floating in the air.
It could be the underlying message of belief of miracles at Christmas, its attendant softness, the reprieve of letting our guard down, feeling everything at once, its warmth melting our frozen bits.
Shadows follow light. Ah here they come.
There is a reason we do this just once a year. When the shadows come, they come hard. They could arrive at Boxing Day as you collapse after a surfeit of festivities, or New Years Eve; fasten themselves on you as you zip up your glitzy dress forcing you to listen before you drown them in festive spirits; they are an avalanche of sooty regret. “Why am I feeling like this when tis the season?” I asked this of my friends, who said they were wondering the same.
I’m guessing when we unfurl our hearts, the shadows that we keep pressed down, emerge, take centre stage, and say, “Look at us. Here we are.” The shadows sit down with heavy boots, not looking like they will leave anytime soon enquiring, “What are you going to do about us.”
We all live with them. Nobody gets to be human and escape grief. It could be anything—bullying in the schoolyard, battling bills, early deaths of parents, the collapse of the body, accidents, a perpetual hunger, and abuse by the strong.
The permutations are unending.
Over Christmas I met a girl at a lunch that looked like she had it all. Sleek, everything designer on her, perfect hair and makeup, glittery eyes, glossy lips speaking of a dinner party for 40, cooked by a celebrity chef. All my assumptions about her, having a rich husband, with no need to work, were wrong.
Turned out she was around the hard hats, making big deals, working 16-hour days. She recently recovered from a massive tumour, slowly learning how to walk and live again.
She didn’t take walking for granted. To look at her tossing her hair, you would think she was protected. That was her mask. She may bawl over how hard it was to hold it together with someone she loves after three drinks.
We collect debris as we live no matter how we present. The worst shadows are the ones when things go wrong with other people. Isn’t that what they say, without sounding naff, that Christmas is about love? We mourn misunderstandings, are rueful about longstanding feuds with people once beloved, we stare down at our blind spots, regrets, of hurting others. Them saying ‘you did this to me’, us in shock, saying ‘we never meant to hurt you’.
What to do? We try forgiving ourselves, then others, recall the absent, those who loved us once. We gather our people about us tenderly fearing their loss to the shadows. We see it’s not the houses or the watches, the games or the dresses. One earthquake and they are all gone.
Its love that’s the strongest element damnit.
The late Raoul Pantin reached for poetry for immutable truths. This one, by Lorna Goodison, ‘Forgive Yourself’, was sent to me by a friend as we each wrestled with shadows in the spotlight of Christmas.
“Forgive yourself for loving the voodoo priest who drinks your blood at night through undermining tubes. Forgive yourself for loving the children of salt who left their brine on you so you dream always of waterfalls. Take the base betrayals stamped with deceit, throw them to the forgiving air and invoke transmutation. In time they will fall as rains of redemption . . .
All change (like yours) is light from within. All you can be is witness. And love yourself now enough to know that you are lit, and that light will draw more light to itself and that will be light enough for a start to new life and a self-forgiven heart. And being new just be.”
I’ll raise a glass to that with you dear reader, as we remember old acquaintances when ushering in 2019.