Refuge

I was born — and grew up till age 9 in a seaside village close to the southern
tip of Africa. At this tip, 2 oceans meet, the mighty Atlantic and the Indian.
This meeting caused mariners of old to call this place, The Cape of Storms.

When I was a child, a winter storm would sometimes tear an electrical,
overhead wire loose. This broken off wire would lie on the pavement and
was dangerous to approach because inner surges of electricity would cause it to jump unexpectedly and spew sparks. The force of its inner surges would cause it to twist and turn in unpredictable directions so that even if you had positioned yourself behind it, it could turn on you.

At this moment of writing, I can think of no better metaphor through which to express the feeling of growing up with my mother. Like electricity, she could bring good things but as a child my life was most shaped by her frightening aspects.

My father , robbed of his mother early in his and her life, by the great flu
epidemic, and then sent away to be brought up by relatives, had a hungry,
yearning heart. This was not the kind of presence that my mother needed in order for her inner burning to be contained . His loving could not make the world a safe place for her and so in the house that I lived in, the storms raged and the child that I was, was on constant guard — on constant alert for early storm warnings.

It was not just that thunder and lightning flew through the air between the 2 of them. My mother was impatient and disappointed with me. Many years later I understood that her own childhood had filled her with shame about who she was but she had not been gifted with the insight and consciousness of self which she might have employed to heal herself.

Time and again her unrecognised longing for me to be her beautiful, healing parent was frustrated by the fact that I was a child — her child — and then her red headed rage would overwhelm me like the tsunami in my recurrent nightmares.

It was only in my 30's that I realised that my anxious searching for the rules (so as not to break them and incur her anger) had been futile: there were not rules, there were her moods.

When I was 5, my mom sent me for elocution lessons so that I could learn to speak “the queen’s English” and not the colonial drawl into which I had been born. It was a frightened, shy, tense child who was sent to Miss Gladys Lazarus, the elocution teacher.

Miss Gladys Lazarus, tall and inclined slightly forward towards her pupil, wore a cardigan and had thick grey braids fastened in place over the top of her head. I entered her cool, dim, quiet house and became her pupil.

The experience of being gently welcomed, of being accepted, gave me, as a
child, an hour a week of a restfulness that has beckoned to me my whole life. It was not JUST that: my father also made me feel welcome, accepted and loved. In Miss Gladys Lazarus’ house there was a quiet that went beyond the presence or absence of sound; it spoke of 2 people living a life that was chosen by them because it suited who they were.

I am assuming now, because I never met her sister. I just know that the 2 sisters lived together. Miss Gladys Lazarus’ body posture, voice, movements, all expressed an inner peace and a compassion for the young, tense, unhappy child in front of her.

I loved this gentle teacher who encouraged me to be expressive in the way I
spoke the lines of the poem she taught me. Looking back, she gave me the
knowledge that the world could be a different place to the brittle, dangerous and exciting place I was growing up in. I loved everything about her, including her beautiful hands. It was many years before I realised that her hands were arthritic and bent. Bent and arthritic hands have always been beautiful to me.

Age, experience , understanding and compassion have given me a
rounder, softer picture of my mother. She could be kind to people outside of the immediate family and could sometimes use her competence and connections to fight a battle on behalf of a “bird with a broken wing” if that person had touched her heart.

One long summer holiday she woke me, my young brother and our cousins
and took us to the beach at 4 in the morning. There she made a fire and
cooked us porridge so that we could witness the sunrise and dip in the early
morning waves. She gave us the dawn.

Rarely but wonderfully, she could be fond or funny. I inherited from her the taste for fine food and fine objects — and also , an attentiveness and interest in almost everything.

If one has the strength to weather suffering, this too brings gifts:
understanding, empathy, acceptance, patience, a sense of proportion and an ability to swim in rough water.

I inherited from my father, a forgiving heart and I miss my mother. I would
not like her back as a permanent presence in my life but I would love to be
able to see her and converse with her once a week. I think I have grown strong enough to love her more than fear her.

Once in a therapy session, I envisioned her as a tiger and the therapist
suggested that I imagine cutting the connections between her and myself. I
refused, sat up and ended the guided imagery session. She might have been
a tiger, but she was MY tiger.

I guess this should be kept out of the “story”….
Yesterday when I showed you the distortion of the arthritic joint on my index finger, your face registered concern and I tried to reassure you that it is o.k. I started to tell you the story behind my acceptance of this finger but we were distracted by the interactions with Yahaloma and by the unfolding delights of our surroundings. This is how the story continues.

Thank you for your company yesterday. Your presence in my life is a
fulfillment of the dream awakened by Miss Gladys Lazarus. Your presence
brings me many other — and varied- gifts, but telling about those belong to
other stories I think.
Your Mama.