I've been away for a while, off the island clearing the house my parents lived in for over 40 years. It was never my home but it was the place I returned to with child after child each of whom experienced my mother's cordon bleu magnificent cakes and later, much later, as her memory faltered and she gradually lapsed into confusion, her regular burnt offerings and unique, unlikely combinations of foodstuffs.
It's a strange thing to be in a house where your parents should be, to arrive at the door not to an embrace from a parent but to a key-safe and an empty hall. It is discombobulating. To walk from room to room still filled with their furniture, their photos, their memories is strangely discomforting because of their absence.
My father is very happily living in a really lovely care home surrounded by the photos he and my mother took. He has his desk and computer from which he ably manages his finances, photo editing and sends regular missives on life. It is a good place to be, he has become the care home character with whom all the staff hang out.
The house is almost sold and so it fell to my sister and I to clear it, there is something so poignant about holding a pen your father used to treasure or to find a scribbled note from your mother, to unearth a life they lived together and all the emotions that provokes, both good and bad.
For many of us, our 60s seem to be a time of loss, when adult kids have flown the nest, when menopause has finally departed, when we stand at a crossroads of ourselves. My mother died a few years ago and my father is now 95 and with the best will in the world, within the next few years it will just be myself, my sister and brother. We will become the next generation in line to shuffle off our mortal coils.
I find that a sobering thought. Certainly since my mother died, the desire to get on with my work has been felt so keenly. The need to reach as many people as I can, offering help and support for all manner of symptoms and states. It has driven me to make the Heartease and Menopause Tinctures, to expand the Therapeutic Balms and create the Sleep Ritual. It is fully embracing my purpose and I love it.
I think of all the skills I've honed over the decades and realise that they have all come together quite beautifully in Harris, and as long as I can, I'll be busily growing, making and creating here. To have purpose as we age seems so important, I can see in my father that endless curiosity has kept him positively sprightly, in mind at least. With the work we do here, there is not a day that goes by where I don't learn something new or twist my mind around solving some problem or other.
Plant based work is utterly fascinating, deeply rewarding and totally nurturing. It has been the best choice I could have made for myself and my family.
After 3 days, my parent’s house was cleared, my van was filled with cuttings from their garden, plant pots, boxes of old photos and a million things I don't need but couldn't quite bear to part with, plus an old penny I found in a drawer from 1916! I think the letting go of some of it, somehow needs to be a longer, gentle process so I'm glad to have it up here.
I like that all their old blankets went to the local dog's home, the mobility aids went to a charity for those who need, but can't afford them, the furniture went to people who are on benefits, their clothes to another charity and anything that could be recycled, was. I think my parent's had their use of them and now someone else will.
The house is being sold to a young couple, keen to start their own family and I love the thought that before long there will be other children learning to ride bikes on the lawn, climbing the trees and chasing each other with jets of icy water from the hose. It all moves on, a new generation to replace the old, the turning of the seasons and the comfort in that.
I found a Mary Oliver poem yesterday that I had forgotten about and it reminded me of why this place feels like home to me and I reflected on the fact that when my children come to clear my home (hopefully many years from now), they will find pebbles and leaves, flowers and feathers, the treasure that has been gathered on all my walks and wanderings.
Of What Surrounds Me
Whatever it is I am saying, I always
need a leaf or a flower, if not an
entire field. As for sky, I am so wildly
in love with each day’s inventions, cool blue
or cat grey or full
of the ships of clouds, I simply can’t
say whatever I am saying without
at least one skyful. That leaves water, a
creek or a well, river or ocean, it has to be
there. For the heart to be there. For the
pen
to be poised. For the idea to come