Welcome to my blog – with extras! Extras like courses and events, cup of tea sessions, meditation recordings and podcasts, poetry and stories.
I am an elder woman: I’ve seen a lot of life and a lot of death, navigated many transitions and passed through numerous thresholds. I have worked in many different capacities but all of them are simply vehicles for my particular shape of love. This website is one way of offering my love and my gifts to you.
Please do feel invited to write to me, send poems, images and so on – I would love to hear from you.
I hope you will leave my site feeling warmer, comforted, smiling on the inside and in some way accompanied.
With love,
Nickie
“[Nickie is] like a magic porridge pot overflowing with love to give”. S.E.
- Random thoughts from the sofa…
I am reclined on my sofa, wrapped in a furry throw, the dog at my side and a cup of tea on the small table. Feeling horribly sick and giddy with an acute attack of a usually mild chronic condition. It announced its arrival at 5 o’clock this morning by almost flooring me when I got out of bed.
And I had so much to do: washing and cleaning, changing the bed, walking the dog, admin and sorting practicalities for going away; not to mention writing a blog and another for 2 weeks’ time when I’m away and preparing for Dying Matters Week when I’m back.
Busy
It’s been a busy week (month, however long). Friends tell me I do too much look tired, always seem fatigued, should take more breaks. Yes. And… This is not an easy world to live in. Keeping afloat financially and making sure the car, house, garden, dog and I are all maintained and legal is hard work. Especially alone.
So, it wasn’t my ‘fault’, that I had to squeeze in a trip to the optician between clients, and while I was in town took the opportunity to go to the printers to sort post cards for the choir and also popped in to the hiking shop for things I need for my holiday. I couldn’t help having to get up at 5am two days running because the dog urgently needed to go out and, though I sorted his toxic tummy with plain boiled rice, I woke at 5am the next days as well.
I don’t think it’s a flaw in my personality to be excited to collaborate on a project in a wood and so drove to Somerset to explore it and then whizzed to a nearby outlet village and finally found a backpack . It was unfortunate I had to stop for fuel and poured petrol on my foot so that the car smelt and that the slip road onto the M5 was closed necessitating a 40 minute detour. Clients, hospice, meetings, a film project, choir- these are all good things. And surely a holiday for the first time in years, albeit a relatively adventurous one, shouldn’t push me over the edge -should it?
Reflecting
As I lie here, I am reflecting on my week. I was talking to someone who knows that death is coming closer. (Actually it is coming closer for us all but few of us live with that awareness.) A part of me envied them. Not their coming death but the simplicity with which they now, to my eyes at least, live their life. Permission to say no, space to decide yes. The fact of their dying has brought a clarity about what is important and a focus which they sustain. It seems to me, they are respecting the life they have left and using it to live honestly, lovingly and authentically. I want that too. Why does it seem so hard to find it without death breathing down my neck?
The dog is looking at me accusatively. No, I haven’t walked you – I don’t want to fall over, our friend can do it later. He humphs and lays down across the room from me. Through my window I can see the house opposite down a little lane. There are lots of people coming and going. Has someone died? Or maybe they are 100 years old and have open house. Either way, I’m sorry not to have known them. A friend pops by with a pansy in a pot. The dog shows off. They both make me laugh. Now she’s gone and he slumps down on the rug and I listen to the silence.
In/ter/dependence
It strikes me yet again, how vulnerable we are. Especially alone. We set such store by independence in this society and it is a nonsense. Dependence conjures up associations of burden, weakness and loss of dignity. There was a time when my husband was organising care for some elderly people in our community. Despite their need they were resistant.
“If you don’t accept it,” he told one obstinate elderly lady, “you deprive someone of the joy they could have in giving.”
When it was his turn and we knew that he would lose every last bit of independence, he remembered his own words. It was with graciousness that he accepted my care and that of others and it was our privilege to offer it.
Today, and I hope only today, it is my turn. I can ask for help because of the dog; can I ask for me? The truth is, I, along with most of us, want to be the giver, not the receiver. And yet we are all interdependent. I need to think about this.
Hands to hold
I met someone this week who has recently been widowed. And I realised again that however different our griefs and relationships, there is so much common ground. When someone close to us dies, our world is irrevocably changed. There is no return to normal; there is no destination where the grief is done and dusted and we’re all sorted. That is a cruel untruth which makes us believe we’re somehow doing it wrong when we can’t achieve that goal.
What there is, is an achingly difficult landscape to traverse, one which we doubt our ability to navigate. Are we going round in circles or are we back where we began? Have we fallen down a pit – the same one we fell down last month? Did we really feel joy when we heard the black bird singing yesterday. Today it makes us weep.Many of us feel under resourced for the journey: nobody told us to bring a compass or a torch, let alone a shovel. Your landscape isn’t my landscape, but maybe I can lend you a torch. And when you are weary maybe I can whisper the story nature whispered to me as I sat leaning against the tree, troubled and lonely.
I wish we shared our vulnerabilities and our strengths, our fears and the radiance of our hearts. Because though we have to walk with our own two feet, we can hold each other’s hands as we do it.
With my love
Nickie
PS All being well, I am up and away. The next blog will come out while I’m still in Morocco. I’d love it if you feel like commenting on this one or the next one, but just to say that for much of the time I won’t have internet and there is no electricity for some of the time I am in the mountains. I will catch up here and there but please forgive me if I don’t reply until I’m back.
NEWS
DYING MATTERS WEEK IS 5TH – 11TH MAY
THE NATURE OF LOSS – Starting from Newton Abbot Library Tuesday 6th May -2-4pm
Hosted by Emma Capper and myself. We will offer resources and invitations to connect us to nature, as a guide for managing dying, grieving and loss of all sorts.
This event will be free of charge with tickets available from Eventbrite and on the day at Newton Abbot Library. More details to follow but if you are interested please email Annette here
WALKING WITH LOSS, TOGETHER – Ivybridge Wednesday 7th May- 11-4.30
Spend time with others who are managing loss, sharing, being in nature and letting the trees, the river, the earth and the season guide us. More details to follow but if you would like to join us, the booking form can be found on the events page here. You can also email me at the address on the poster for more information.
TBC: CREATING OUR FUNERAL CULTURE- Buckfastleigh MIC Centre Thursday 8th May time to be confirmed.
Conversation hosted by Sarah Bax of Heart & Soul Funerals and myself, about how we develop our personal culture around funerals. There will be a practical element to this session. More information to follow.
TOTNES Saturday May 10th – Birdwood House
A full day of events hosted by Sarah Parker of Dying with Grace. I will be holding a grief space. More information to follow. You can email Sarah here
Buy me a Coffee
I gift these blogs to you and I am very, very grateful to the many of you who have been gifting me coffees. Being gifted feels very different to being paid. Neither you nor I are obliged to one another, we choose an act of generosity. Thank you so much.
For those of you who would like to gift me regularly or every now and again, please know that every cup of coffee (£5) matters to me and I appreciate each one. You can do so here if you would like to at any time.
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