Is kindness love?

I came across a small book in a shop at the weekend called 'congratulations by the way'. It's a transcript of a commencement speech, the sort of rousing, spirited call to go forth and conquer speech which American universities seem to love, to lap up. As do I.

You can read what I think is the whole speech on the New York Times website here: 

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

The author, George Saunders, talks about kindness being a by-product of ageing. He says someone once said "I'm nearly all love now" because they'd lived so long.

I was thinking about this as I stood in the bookshop reading it, taking a photograph of the cover so I'd remember to look it up later. I am seeking kindness. It's a major pillar of who I think I am going to become or want to become and the main reason for this blog, the search for losing myself, my selfish self, my boundaries and instead to try and merge with others and 'see' them. His book also got me wondering how many others are there trying to do this? And how can I meet some of them? Also I wondered is it true that we all come to this, to a step of trepidation towards kindness. I'd love to be able to say trying to be kind is easy or even a leap of faith, but it's definitely more like a small step for me, and one filled with doubt running in rivulets down its face, some of them eroding, exposing anything false which lies beneath. All the same, it's encouraging to read someone else stating the need, the inevitability of growing towards kindness so eloquently, stirringly.

So much is written about ageing, you'd be forgiven for thinking, if you were young, that it was all grim once you stepped past 40, 50. I'm very happy it isn't, not just for me, but for all of us. I wish my parents had lived long enough to see if this was as ubiquitous as it is now appearing to be. 

And then this...

Today I was looking for a book to read and from all the books on shelves and piles in my house I just pulled a random one out that I couldn't remember if I'd read and opened the pages, thinking I'd recognise it soon enough if I had. 

Just as I began to get into the story, out of the pages ahead a photo fell. It was of me, close up looking sideways from the lens. I am younger, not significantly but enough to recognise fewer wrinkles, better hair. The look on my face is one of utter joy. 

I knew then the book belonged to her, as did the photo. It was one of many relics she left behind which so far has included three dust covered mismatched socks behind the drier (she has a particluar love of socks and would have missed them), a brand new cashmere jumper she was given one Christmas by her aunt, still in its tissue and box, which I found in a small cupboard I thought was empty in a hard to reach corner behind the bath, and which I am guessing she left on purpose. There are numerous tiny, pretty hair clips that she wore scattered throughout her hair lying in wait for me when I do DIY or try to clean too close to the edges of carpets and behind radiators. The stash of them in my bathroom is faintly embarrassing given I will never wear them. There are some CDs and DVDs of course, and a photo of her aged about three, and once, I found a not-quite-empty bottle of her perfume which had special powers over my mind when she wore it and later, after she had gone, I took to walking round clutching it like a cigarette, taking a furtive sniff now and then. It took me weeks to throw that away. She also left many, possibly all the gifts I'd given her. I still feel the need to sit in the garden chair I bought for her because it reclined so deeply and she loved to lie back and sleep in it, pretending to read, ever watchful, no matter how exhausted, of the arrival of anything or anyone in the garden. When I sit in it for some reason I adopt the exact same pose she used, even though it feels, to me, unnatural. I've positioned it far from the house so it's only catches the sun for the last hour of the day, giving me barely any opportunity to sit there, conjuring up the same spirit of reclining while remaining alert. 

There are so many reminders of her, each arriving like fresh footsteps in the carpet or whispers of wings at the window, ghostly, supernatural, powerful and primitive. 

After I'd looked at the photo for a long time, trying to remember it being taken, trying to remember where I was and if I'd ever seen it before, trying to remember being that much younger, I noticed there, at the edge of the frame, her. It was just her nose and a bit of her forehead, barely in shot at all, barely there. But there she was kissing my neck and taking my photo and there was I as happy as I've ever in this world been. And I remembered.

Go to the edge, look out, report back

Had a weird day today. Drove almost right up to the door of my former lover (love-of-my-life lover who I called time on nearly two years ago when I realised the relationship was killing me, us both). Stopped short, in a lay-by, and went for a short walk in a field. The straw was lying in heavy damp piles, waiting for the sun to make it dry enough to store for the winter. I smoked a few pretend cigarettes (have been on e-cigarettes for nearly a year now) and sat in the shade of a tree hoping she would magically just come by. 

I longed to see her.

This is the text I wrote while I waited for her in the field, and which I didn't send:

Why won't the missing stop? I'm going to go to my grave missing you and not knowing if I'm a fool for loving you, a fool for losing you, a fool for wanting desperately to win you back. I know nothing at all except I can't seem to breathe when I think about you and to my surprise and endless frustration, I think about you every day. I am not sorry for texting. I am not sorry I love you still. I am only sorry I can't seem to find a way out of this hole no matter how I try. I asked God to stop me messaging you if it was the wrong thing to do (I ask him all sorts of crap, as you know) and so I half expect a sign like a bee to sting me or a wild horse to suddenly jump out of the hedgerows and trample me to stop me sending this. Half (at least) of me hopes I won't press send. I don't want to unleash more pain for you or for me. Heaven knows we've both had enough. But you are the only person in this whole world I can tell, I can't seem to get over this person I once knew and it breaks my heart anew every day. I hope you're better than me, better than this.  

Then I cried. 

Because she wouldn't come by. She'd be out living, doing something fun like captaining a boat or cycling too fast down a steep muddy hill or playing with someone else's puppy. She would also not come by because she is okay, doing well, surviving and definitely not driving around her neighbourhood on the off-chance I might be hiding in a field near her house with a great view of cow parsley. 

Obviously.

I knew my tears were pathetic and self-pitying and after a while I began to realise what I really needed.

I didn't need her exactly, though I'd have loved to see her, to put my face deep into the fold of her neck, to feel her narrow back enfolded in my arms and to find the words to tell her I've finally learned some things she needed me to learn and am, I hope, better at loving, at understanding. What I need and want and was crying about was having or, in this case, not having someone to love who loved me back. 

It's insulting to her or to anyone that I could assume a former love could slot back into my life to fill the hole of gaping need, just because they had filled it once before. 

Once I got a grip on myself I had a long think about this and about how many others must feel like this. We all want to love and be loved, we all hope someone will magically walk up to us in a deserted field or supermarket or office or footpath and look into our eyes and everything will suddenly be all right. Everything will suddenly make perfect sense. The world and our hearts will sing. 

But it won't. At least it probably won't. It does happen for some people but not very many.

Instead I realised I had to do more work, I had to live and live well and stop moping about hoping to be found, rescued.

I have to do what I'm here to do. And that, for me, is to go to the edge, look out and report back what I see. 

I'm not sure if I am supposed to report back in writing or painting or the way I live and offer friends whatever support I can, but I'll try all of those and see if any are useful to others. Underlying that most basic human need to be loved and seen and wanted, is, I think, an even greater desire to be useful, do something valuable, worthwhile and meaningful.