David Johnson

I usually can’t start my day unless my bed is made. It is 7:45am on Sunday morning and the bed is made for today. I can now get on with my day. But yesterday was different…

I didn’t make my bed. No one reason - I felt unwell and so got up later, and went back to bed mid-afternoon - but I was also up and about doing things through out the day. In the evening I went out to see friends for dinner.

So last night I climbed into an unmade bed…and you know what? It felt kind of good.

…but I still plan on starting each day making my bed.

I stopped reading a book recently, and for some reason that process of putting the book down sits very uncomfortably with me. The book had been recommended to me by a friend a number of years back. I purchased it at the time, but ever since it has languished, other titles jumping the queue.

I finally picked the book up a month or so ago. I wanted to enjoy the story because it had been recommended to me, but I found the plot rambling, as though it was trying to keep going by padding itself out.

After a couple of weeks, where I was busy and distracted and did very little reading anyway, I decided to give up on the book. I picked up another one and have been consuming that and over the last forty eight hours. My change in reading patterns just by picking up a new book justifies to me the decision to leave the first book…..and at the same time that choice is still sitting uncomfortably with me. I’m not sure why?

I’d still like to know the outcome of the story. Maybe I’ll return to it once I have a couple more good reads under my belt? My sense though is that I won’t. The book is long and just the thought of picking it up to slog through it to find out what happens in the end, does not feel very appealing right now. The word ”slog” probably says it all?

I think that part of my disquiet is simply the enjoyment of reading different stories and wanting to enjoy this one. However, in doing so I am putting aside the fact that not every story is for everyone. Some movies or television series aren’t my cup of tea. My wife loves them, friends love them, but for me….meh. This is not for me. Why should books be any different? With time and reflection, my hope is that this sense of unease will come to sit more comfortably.

In central north Maui are two small hills. They are man made. They started life as massive holes in the ground, a third has been dug, those holes were slowly filled up and then stuff was continually piled on top of them. Dirt and grass create the facade of a hill. They are garbage dumps, filled with the unwanted products of life styles on Maui.

Someone once said to me words to the effect of,

You can’t throw things away. You can only put them where you don’t have to look at them.

Well what we throw away here in Maui is in daily site of everyone who drives through the central island, albeit covered in grass.

I don’t like going there, because in doing so I know that I am contributing to the growth of the next hill. I am contributing to a potential hazard for future generations. I don’t like putting my garbage bins out every Thursday, as I know that I am contributing to the growth of the next hill.

”Well, be more mindful of what you consume and throw out,” I hear people say, and I hear you. I am not saying this with any pride, or looking for solutions. Simply an observation and a feeling of overwhelm following a visit to the dump this morning. We are installing new doors due to the weather giving a beating to our old doors. Some material is being recycled, some is going to Habit for Humanity here on Maui, and some I took to the dump.

It is nice to have the mess off our property, to feel the cleanness and see a job done, and I can see the rubbish in the hills of central Maui.

Allow the vicissitudes of life smooth the hardness in your heart.

I have been tired through today after staying up until the early hours for The Queen’s funeral, but I am pleased that I made the effort to watch as much as I was able before succumbing to weary eyes. It meant a lot to me to see and be a part of the day as it happened, or as much as I could sitting the other side of the world, being in the solemnity of the moment, and saying goodbye to Her Majesty.

I have had the live stream of The Queen lying in state in Westminster Hall playing in the background as I do other things. Every so often I’ll come back and sit and watch people file past Her Majesty’s coffin. Every twenty minutes the flow of mourners is stopped as the there is a changing of the guards.

When I started watching it, the time would have been 3:00am in the morning in England. The flow of people paying their respects has not stopped. As I come back to watching the scene, I find myself pausing for reflection.

This last Wednesday was the first anniversary of my Dad passing away. I was blessed to be at home for the last two weeks of his life, helping to look after Dad and just sitting with him. I might not have used the word blessed as I dropped everything and made quick plans to return to Britain following a sudden turn for the worse with Dad’s health. I was really unsure what I was returning to, especially on an emotional level. However, I was at Dad’s bedside when he breathed his last. I won’t forget that moment. The time at home had been two weeks suffused with love.

I stayed on in the UK for another four weeks after that. In part to help my mother with the transition, but truth be told it was also to help myself start the grieving process for having just lost my father. Sitting chatting with mum, helping her around her flat, taking long walks around the city where I grew up and in many ways still consider as “home” was an important and nourishing time. If I had had to leave and fly home soon after Dad’s death, with the benefit of hindsight I don’t know how I would have managed it?

Dad and my relationship had not always been an easy, but the current of love I believe ran underneath it, or at the very least the wish to express more closely our love came from us both. I have much to thank my father for, something that I have understood more as the years have gone by. I know that I have struggled with some emotional aspects of my life because of those times when he was not present for me in my life. I have had wishes in my life for his being there, listening, talking, discussing. As I have grown older I have seen in Dad his own struggles, and raising someone who differed in his outlook on life was probably not the best place to have to live with those struggles. I’d like to think that through our differences and misunderstandings, love, respect and gratitude for being in each other’s lives was supreme.

This last year has been a reflection on and learning about grief. Not long after Dad passed away a friend here on Maui was killed while out cycling, knocked off his bicycle by a careless young driver. At Henry’s funeral one of the facilitators that morning said something like, “we are grief illiterate here in the West.” I won’t speak to the absolute truth of those words, but his words certainly rang true for me. What experience did I have of grief? Loosing pets as a kid. There was a period of upset, but my young life moved onto the next stage. Relatives had died, but no one as close to me as my father. This year has been learning about the waves of grief. That I don’t “get over it”, but with time learn to integrate it. That there is nothing wrong with me in how I am feeling in any given moment. That this is my grief, and there is no need to question or make excuses for it. A good friend texted me just after Dad has passed with a message which I have come to understand more deeply with the passage of time,

grief is pure love with no place to go

I feel that I have started to see mortality more clearly around me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming any profound change in how I show up in the world, but I am noticing some internal change in how I experience the world. Again, like learning to live with the waves of grief, I have found this to be about integration. It’s a learning and integrating experience, a process.

Even in his passing, Dad is giving me lessons to learn from.

I love you Dad and miss you. Thank you.

Summer has arrived here in Maui, at least a preview of what summer is to bring. The last few days have been devoid of wind, hot and muggy - and has included a well timed air conditioning breakdown (hopefully that is not a preview of summer as well!). By late afternoon the air is still and feels as though it is sitting waiting for something to happen.

Thankfully mornings are still cool. That will change as we go into summer, but for now I will take the fresh air.

While sitting doing my meditation practice this morning and then later out watering plants I was transported back to memories of time spent on the road in the way that sounds, senses and smells can do. One’s senses pick something up in the air and in an instant one is transported to a time and place of memory.

Today those memories took me back to India, traveling there by myself in the late ’80s and subsequent visits through the ’90s. I saw myself midway through a long train journey, the passengers now very much moved in and settled for the long haul. The heat of the day rendering the overhead fans almost useless unless you were sitting directly underneath them.

Sitting by the open door of the train, my feet resting on the footplate as the train clickerty clacks through the dry country side, a red sun hanging low in the sky.

Sitting in a small hotel room, the noise, dust and confusion of the town outside making its way into the background hum of my rest from the days travels. Smells of life in a foreign land touching me, making me feel at home.

Memories of the road. Fond memories. Happy memories. At ease with myself and the world, and bringing peace to my heart in this moment as well.

We arrived at the restaurant. A sign hanging from a rope in front of the door asked us to ring the doorbell. A waiter opened the door, greeted us, asked if we had a reservation, "no," we replied. This did not appear to matter as the rope was unclipped, we were gestured to enter and shown to a table. One couple was already seated and were perusing the menu. The other tables sat empty, awaiting the arrival of lunchtime customers.

The meal was not rushed. As we ate, people arrived, first ringing the doorbell as was required. Sounds of voices and mixed languages filled the room, comfortably. The waiters moved between tables, taking orders, placing plates, serving drinks, filling requests.

Nearing the end of our meal, we looked out over a full restaurant. In my mind`s eye I saw a time-lapse film showing the tables slowly fill.

We stood up, ready to leave, and put on our coats in readiness for the brisk weather outside. Customers chatted enthusiastically, the waiters thanked us for our custom. We headed out, satisfied and ready for the afternoon.

It was last year, 2021. I was back in Bristol, England. My dad was unwell, nearing the end of his life. I went to sit on The Downs, and area of public open space of 400 acres that looks out over the Avon Gorge. Wide open spaces, woodland, trees and bushes. I was blessed to grow up around The Downs. I’m at home when I am up there.

This time I went up there not to just get some air, but to take a break, to fluff the feathers after time spent indoors. I didn’t walk far. After a short distance I sat down. Nowhere in particular, I just sat. People were out walking dogs, jogging, playing games, picnicking. I just sat and looked at what was beneath me. Sometimes I get comfort from looking at the details, the small things, that which is beneath our feet and goes unnoticed. I looked into the grass, watched the ants, noticing the different shaped leaves down at this level, the small spiders.

Paradoxically maybe, this smaller, contracted world cleared my mind, opened my mind, exposing me to a world that don’t spend time in.

With evening approaching, I headed for home.