SUBUD WRITERS CLUB MEMBERS
Grahame Pitts
For once in my life
I take the sledgehammer, slide my hands along the handle feeling the smooth ash from years of use by various people. Now the tool is balanced just right, just ready and I take a swing. All the physics are working and with a dull thud the head smacks into the wall making a satisfying dent in the pink plaster.
‘Are you sure Grahame, really sure, is it safe?’. Sue looks at me concerned and pulls baby Jack closer.
‘Yes, yes, absolutely. Right, you two, pack up your drawing and stand over there with mum or go into the lounge’. Joe & Rebecca’s faces have gone from ‘excited this is different’, to ‘slightly unsure but up for an adventure’, but still happy toddlers. I get ready to take another swing.
‘Stop, just let’s get the breakfast things cleared away at least’. I put down the hammer, leaning it against our sad looking rubber plant and together we clear the room. The kids carry pencils, paper, books, favourite toys into the other room. Then they help moving dishes and cereal packets, beakers into the kitchen.
‘Why today’?
‘What, not today? We’ve talked about this long enough’.
‘Don’t we need some professional help’.
‘No I’ve got this, stand back everyone’
‘Watch the dog’.
‘Come here Mr Saturday, get out, scram and stop that barking you’. I let the dog sniff the metal hammer head, a cautious unsure movement, his black nose sucking and blowing, with a suspicious growl he then retreats to his basket. The second blow sends a diagonal crack across the wall. “There told you it would be easy, we’’ll have this done in no time’
‘Are you sure this wall isn’t holding anything up? The house won’t collapse will it’? Sue looks at me alarmed.
‘No not a chance’. Except there may be a chance, although I don’t honestly think so. I’m pretty sure it will be okay, but maybe I should have pulled up carpets up in the bedroom to check. Ah well.
The third swing. I have momentum now and bricks with pink plaster attached shoot out crashing into the dining table. ‘Oops sorry about that, still it’s a just an old thing hey’. The table made from old bits of wood, a packing case for the top isn’t worth anything so I’m not worried. ‘It’ll be great when its done. Remember we’ve talked for ages about having an open plan kitchen diner. Back up kids, just in case’
All four squash against the cupboards and sink in the kitchen as far back as possible in our small house. With a wonderful sickening crash the old doorframe between the two rooms collapses and in just a few further ‘demolition derby’ minutes the wall is gone leaving jagged edges and raw brick.
“Look at the space, wonderful hey’. The two rooms are now one. We are all covered in dust, a fine sprinkling everywhere. The dining room is strewn with bricks, lumps of plaster and the door and mangled frame lean against another wall.
Sue and I both look up. Nothing sags, nothing creaks. ‘There see all’s fine, just as I thought’. She’s not so sure and won’t let the kids anywhere near and for the next week will look upwards every time she walks underneath.
‘We should have done this, months ago as soon as we moved in’ I say. Around us there is a definite transformation. There seems to be more space, well there is more space. Although we have to live in a mini building site for several months afterwards until we get a plasterer to tidy up the mess I’ve made. And it’s tricky switching on the dining room light which now, as it swings in open space, but hey.
‘Wow daddy that was great’ says Joe, smiling up at me and the children have a great morning helping to move the smaller bricks and plaster and building a castle in the back garden with the rubble on surprisingly mild December day.
‘You’re pleased I know you are, go on you can say it’. I smile a dusty smile at `Sue and then attempt a kiss, which is rejected with a firm hand to the chest’.
‘That’s good t shirt and you’ve still got your slippers on too’
‘No time like the present’.
‘It’s Boxing Day for goodness’ sake. Why today? And it’s 8.30 the morning.’ And in truth I haven’t got an answer. I was just sat eating my toast, feeding Jack in his highchair and thought yes let’s do it, so I did.
Now thirty, maybe forty years later I realise I miss those slightly cavalier days, when decision making seemed easy and the consequences further down the track, or not even thought about at all. Now, when I make a decision, everything gets considered, sudden urges to do things get reflected on, then thought through again, worried about at four in the morning. I always imagined age and experience would let me be more free but now maybe I know too much, I’ve listened to too many stories. Even going up a ladder now is fraught with tales of falls, but surely I’m only cleaning the gutters out, aren’t I?
Writing ‘once in my life’ about a Christmas demolition story made me smile and I know when I go to the garden shed next and pick up that heavy hammer, and it is heavy now, that Boxing Day will come flooding back. Lovely!
By Grahame Pitts
That’s When I Knew
I now know when it is time, well generally. The signs are in my mind, the words going through my head. I get jittery and lose energy, things seems a bit grey. Everything begins to build up and then a bit like those models you read about, I go through a set of emotions – denial, frustration, annoyance, hiatus, sadness, acceptance, action. My version of the Kubbler Ross curve. It’s happened to me on a regular basis throughout my life. And, every time it happens I think I’ve learnt and can move through it, but it always bites me in the bottom. Change is funny thing, but each time I’ve known (or maybe felt) early on something needs to shift. I’ve seen it most clearly in career steps, needing to move on, but an inner resistance. I’ve been less able to see it in personal relationships.
An example:
‘What’s going on Grahame, you’ve got yourself into a senior position, you’re well paid, the job is secure, you’re even having money put into a pension, not to mention the shares you might get. Suck it up. Yes it’s a corporate, no it’s not perfect, but you’ve got a mortgage and a young family’.
My head is buzzing – words, words, more words, arguments back and forth – and hurting, as I make my way on the third circuit of the cricket ground. How many people work in a business which has a playing field with a mown cricket square, pretty nice hey. So why am I out here again and most days this week? Yup the weather is nice, but yesterday I’d been here in the pouring rain, and I still managed a Ione trudging circuit before retiring to the pavilion to be morose. This is my thinking place, the place I used to come to for inspiration, when I was stuck on a business issue, sitting on the balcony, smelling varnish, leather, muscle cream. On some days in the pavilion looking at the photos – the teams from across the years, imagining what they did with their lives and how they dealt with problems or planned new strategies. I’m pretty sure most of them made it to forty years and carriage clocks. Good solid guys, loyal, committed. They don’t look flaky, not like me right now. My head starts to wind up again.
I know I’m stuck and the problem is me, not a business issue. Sue tells me I’m just not good with a boss and I think that’s true. Why so often do I see it differently from others. And all that process, project management that some love, all that detail. Isn’t their job about vision and leadership? Now that bit is exciting.
I’ve just been offered a move to another business. ‘You’ll make a great HR Director’ my boss says and he truly is making me a great offer. I’d be stupid to turn it down. The look on his face when I express doubt and want to think about it, is not good. Twenty five year corporate man invites fledgling novice manger of 5 years to commit to big organisation life for ever, or that’s what it feels like as I sit in his large smart office, his PA typing away next door. The golden handcuffs are there, why don’t I just slip them on. And actually, the work is mostly fun, I get quite a lot of freedom and all the support is in place (isn’t it great to have that IT help when you need it). Logically, rationally, it is a yes all the way, but instinctively I know I am going to turn it down. Well on a good day I do. Yesterday in the rain my ‘no stay put’ internal voice raged. Today in the sun, stretching my legs, breathing deeply I can see a different future. But the fight is on internally. I might think I know and am ready to step but a battle is still raging, making me grumpy, a poor team player an irritating boss. I should take the job, it makes sense. Sense is important right? Be sensible, its been drummed into me, be polite say thank you. It is a great offer after all. In my head I’m now watching my dad have a wild fun moment when I was young. A lovely hysterical whooping, singing howling moment when I want to join and yell too, but my mum cuts it short tells her husband to be sensible, be quiet. And sadly he does. Maybe it was just my mother having a bad day, I can’t remember the details. But now, years later my ‘be sensible’ driver pounds away at me. Yet my wild side is calling, maybe I should try howling at the moon, is that good way to make a decision?
By Grahame Pitts
Weather or Whether
The mileometer ticks over as the miles pass on the motorway heading home. It’s a long journey and now it is early morning. I search with tired eyes for the radio mast at the services, which tells me my turning is coming up within the next half an hour. The flashing lights will wake me up more I know, but currently I have the window wound down, the cold night air blasting over me. The radio is playing some old rock numbers with an old gravel throated presenter trying to gee up night-time listeners.
Why did I do it? I’d left the business, the residential outdoor centre, almost nine months ago, moved on to a new job and yet I’d gone back. The boss there was very charismatic and when he called and said they were very short staffed, could I help just this once, its only four days he said. And you know I missed that life, being outside, seeing the seasons pass, being with people who were trying out new things, testing themselves, then chatting about their achievements in the evening around the log fire. The four years I’d worked there were the best. Being part of a young dynamic team, we thought we were changing people’s lives and now I reflect we probably were, or at least giving opportunities to grow and change a little. I guess we all do a bit, if we dangle on the end of an abseil rope or squeeze through tight spots in a muddy damp cave.
Except going back had not been like that. I no longer felt part of the team, in fact the team had moved on, quite rightly. Now I was a ‘contract’ instructor, no longer a team leader, just there doing my job. And I did it well, I know how it all works, that’s why Harvey asked me to go back. Now though I wasn’t part of dinner on the last night with everyone excitedly chatted about the day and the whole programme, I felt remote and distant from it all. A lump of sadness growing in my stomach.
Now, catching myself breaking the speed limit to get home, I finally see the top of the tall mast with the red lights flashing in the distance, but that feeling won’t lift. How can something that had been so significant now feel so different now? I get to thinking, as I keep myself in the right lane – how do we know how to make good choices. Are there right ones? Having just joined Subud surely, I’d be shown how things work, how to make good decisions. Now, here in the night alone, I’m doubting everything, life, the latihan. Is this latihan really true? Yes it feels right, I always feel good afterwards and I’m thankful for the Subud people I met at the outdoor centre who I had endless discussions with before I said yes. Yet now in the darkness I hear myself asking for a sign, then catching myself and berating myself for my lack of faith, but still asking anyway.
I still remember to this day, as the service station passes asking ‘please if there is guidance please can I know in some way’. Nothing happens, I look around, studying passing cars, looking at lorries trying to decipher brand names, checking number plates. Then down the slip road and off the motorway still looking. Until I think, no that wasn’t right to ask, just get on, stuff happens Grahame, grow up. Slowing down going through our small town, I pass through the square, half expecting the statue of Alfred the Great to move in some way. He’s as solid as always. No one is about, just that night stillness as everyone sleeps in the early hours. Then as I turn into our street, a hill actually and we live about mid-way up, a rumbling starts and the rain begins to splatter on the windscreen. I turn off the ignition, the engine creaks and settles. Something holds me in the car. It’s not the rain,
I only have to take two steps to our front door, it’s something else. Then there is a crack and thunder and lightning fills the air in front and above me. Directly, not off to the right or left but fully in front of me. The next ten minutes is spectacular. The top of our road opens on to fields, so I have an uninterrupted view of the storm. It’s like being in a cinema, with surround sound included. But it’s not the rain I notice, it’s the lightning, it’s the noise, the deep clumps of the thunder. And it’s not just one or two flashes and bangs; everything goes on and on. I’m transfixed; I can’t move. The power and strength of the storm is amazing. My very own show, something just for me it seems like.
I can conjure it up that storm, in my mind, whenever I need to. I see the lightning as I write this almost forty years later. Was this all chance, some strange synchronistic thing. ? No surely not, not something that spectacular, not that focused, not that beautiful, not that dramatic …. those forks of light in the black sky, that rolling thunder, all directly over the road ahead. I got the message. Thank you God, whoever you are, or whatever you are. I know I can ask for help, I’ve read about it in Bapak’s talks, but wow what an answer.
I still doubt, I’m still impatient for the next message, more guidance. I wouldn’t have made a good disciple, wouldn’t have passed the interview. Or if I had, I’d have ended up next to Thomas. But what I am sure of is, there is more, much more. That thunderstorm was a gift. Thank you.
By Grahame Pitts