Breathing life into life: The Gift of Restorying
Remembrance of the Path carvers
Welcome Hedge Schoolers,
This week I've added a new element to the newsletter, which will come out as a second email to you. For your convenience, I have recorded an audio version of the newsletter and will do so for each in the future. In the first Hedge School podcast, I'll begin with a story dear to my heart.
He staggered, appearing to buckle under the weight of judgment. The scorn of heavy words whispered for earshot amplified by rolling eyes.
“He should be ashamed of himself”
“Look at the state of him, and at this time of the morning.”
Leaning on the wall, he breathed deeply through his nose. Watchful eyes convicted as he made his next step. His mouth closed, filled with coins. Boy, he hated the feeling of the metal against his teeth. But it was the only place she had said would work. We'd tried all the other ways. She always knew best.
The crisp Clonmore air made his nose run. Dripping, he attempted to reach for his handkerchief. The momentum nearly toppling him over. Staggering on the gravel driveway, he thought back to a time when he moved like the wind. His name revered across the County. A pure dazzler on the pitch. Now the 20 metre driveway slayed him.
In the distance, he could hear the bus making its way up the hill. He shuffled a few more steps forward. Brakes squealing, the bus pulled up at the edge of the driveway. The doors flung open. He staggered again.
“I'm a sight to behold” he thought to himself.
Finally, he reached the bus, leaning on the edge of the door for a rest. The snot now streaming amidst the cold air. His mouth filled with the fare.
“Y'alright there Aidan? Hard night?”
A head nod was all he could muster. As the Everest of bus steps was scaled, he opened his mouth and the coins fell with snot and saliva into the outstretched hanky of the bus driver.
His mouth finally free to speak.
“I'm not sure what’s come over me lately.”
As he took his seat, he looked back to the house, and there she was. Standing with strength, having observed his whole adventure. Boy, he loved that woman. Would be lost without her, especially now.
Restorying life
This story is a creative combination of two stories shared with me by my own father. They are the true experiences of life in 1960s rural Ireland for my Gaga, Aidan. My grandfather died when I was seven years old. I remember it as the first time I have ever seen my Mum cry. Watching her sobbing into the landline, I felt a deep sadness. A sadness for the sadness my mother felt. At the age of seven, I was too young to fully appreciate the magnitude of the man that was my Grandfather. To me, he was gentle Gaga. A quiet soul who gave you the room when you walked in. I remembered his wheelchair and his fragility. I remembered his oldness. He was only in his early 60s but had lived a hard life. A life I've been re-storying lately as my own father, his son, is in his 68th year of existence. While fit as a fiddle and sharp as a tack, I appreciate the impermanence of our time together. And I have been pestering him with requests for stories from his youth. Our conversations together are woven with remembrance. Woven with keeping alive the stories of those who came before us. The lessons learned by the paths carved by those who walked before us. Those who allow us the freedoms we enjoy but often take for granted.
Stories have a powerful way of situating us. We relate to them by embedding ourselves in the story. We can feel the feels of each character. Our incredible minds creating an ethereal landscape in which the story takes place.
My Grandfather had Multiple Sclerosis. In the 1960s, no one had a clue what that was. People believed he was a drunk. Once a football and hurling legend across the County of Wexford, he was reduced to a wheelchair once the MS fully kicked in. Judgment was delivered to him often through scorn and innuendo but my Grandfather was, ironically enough, a teetotaler. He even had a badge and a group of merry Teetotalers to honour that. His father had drunk their farms away and so he vowed never to drink a drop.
We rush to judge. Judge and Jury to those whose story we only see but a glimmer of. Behind every interaction is a collection of stories. Stories that lead us to where we are at. My Grandfather held his bus money in his mouth because it was the one place on his person that he had the most control over. He had spilled his bus money many times before trying to hold it in his non-conforming hands. But to the masses, that act, that story drops the guillotine of judgment hard and fast.
What is missing from the story you see unfurling is the love of a woman with three young kids who needed her husband. Her love was tough love. My Grandfather needed her strength and it came in all shapes and sizes. There was no room for pity. There was just purpose. My Grandfather lived to the age of 63, with most of that life being confined to a wheelchair. His death was eight months after my Grandmother left the earth. She had been his rock. And she saw him out. Loved to the end. But we don’t see that in the interaction.
The Narratives of how we got here.
Humans are deeply connected to story. Before the written word, cultures passed on wisdom orally through myth, folklore, and tale. We storied our lives alive with the air we breathed into them. We transported the younger generation through history. We situated them in the greater story of life. Helping them understand that they have a line to write in this book too.
What are the stories of how you came to be?
What are the stories of your ancestry?
Bring them back to life by conversation. Bring them back to life by sharing with those around you. Stories restore us. So restory your life.
Till next week,
Steve