Signed, Sealed, and (Hopefully) Delivered

This week my thoughts, many of my conversations, and – most contentiously – my Facebook timeline, have been consumed by the unfolding refugee crisis. Simply the fact that I choose to use the term “refugee” there rather than ‘migrant’ will be enough to see some of you read no further, so discordant has the issue become. I don’t think British culture has been so divided on a matter of national identity since an American friend asked whether or not milk should be added first or last when making a proper cup of tea. (The answer was last, obviously.)

I’m not going to use this post to preach about to whom I feel we should provide shelter, or how. I have neither an exhaustive enough political education nor enough Neurofen to spend this evening trawling through the facts and figures to support my perspective, or refute those to which it is vehemently opposed.

The thing about which I do, passionately, feel we should remain united is helping people who are in desperate need. In recent years this has come in the form of the Rucksack Project, distributing kit to homeless people across the country to help them get through the winter, and before that it was Live Aid, Comic Relief, and every sponsored silence or Great South Run that we as a nation have thrown the full force of our support behind. So I was heartened when a group of local people, (the fabulous ‘Don’t Hate, Donate’) began collecting aid to distribute to those who have left behind their lives and belongings, and was keen to help out in the best way I knew how. Unfortunately, I swiftly realised that I’m not actually very useful. Until the day comes when a freshwater pearl demi parure is all that stands between life and death, I don’t really have the transferable skills required to pitch in and make a difference. (But if, in the inevitable zombie apocalypse, they discover that tiger’s eye really can soothe neurological ailments and lapis lazuli wards off the apocalyptic virus; I’m your girl.)

We made a few lists of things which would be useful for anyone who finds themselves displaced and without much assistance, and gratefully raided the various pound stores and charity shops for which our local High Street is so oft derided. Nineteen pairs of socks and thirty-three toothbrushes later, I could either help several refugees feel a bit more comfortable or keep just over a third of a monstrous, many-fanged centipede cosy-toed and minty-fresh. I was proud of how many boxes we’d filled with the basic necessities, but still didn’t feel as though I was really giving much of myself to the project. It didn’t feel personal, and it should.

Remembering back to the Boxing Day some years ago when I volunteered at a Christmas lunch for the homeless, elderly, and vulnerable, I recalled the difference it made to some of the guests when they were given one of the Christmas cards I’d spent the previous few days writing. For some of them, it was the only card they would get, and it seemed to matter to them to know that someone cared. That someone had thought of them, and taken a moment to show it. I decided to apply the same principle to those seeking shelter, asylum, and lives free from the chaos of conflict. So I reverted to doing the thing with which I am often most at ease, and started to write.

I wrote a handful of messages of support inside blank greetings cards. Nothing lengthy or exceptional, just a few lines of comfort to those for whom hope was proving hard to find. I asked my friends and family to contribute messages too, and slowly the pile began to grow. "Dear Friends, you have not been forgotten. Please keep going…"

Most were supportive, but a few were cynical. One asked why I was “writing to terrorists,” and how I felt about these missives being received by “our enemies”. As I began to answer that of course I didn’t want them to be read by murderous lunatics, I realised that – perhaps – I do. Whilst IS are unlikely to be thwarted by a postcard of a kitten and a sharpie-scrawled quote from Winnie the Pooh, they’re not the people who make up the majority of the refugees. (Whatever the Daily Mail may tell you.) Many of the people who are in those camps, however, are young men. Young men who are lost, and angry, and frightened, and being stripped of their dignity and humanity by successive nations who don’t want to help. If one, just one, of those vulnerable young people feels valued and supported for just a moment, then maybe that’s all it will take to help keep them on the right path as they complete their unimaginable journey in search of a better life. We’re all often just a heartbeat away from having our lives altered irrevocably, and sometimes it’s the smallest thing that tips the balance the right way.

Were it not for some happy accident of birth, I too could have been born into another culture in a less privileged land, and the chances are that if that were the case I wouldn’t still be here. My health, or lack thereof, has nearly bested me on several occasions during a lifetime that has only managed to continue this long because of the support systems which life in this country provide. On the 11^th of September 2014 – one year ago today, on a date already significant for so many – I had the most recent in a series of operations that have saved my life. Had they not operated when they did, the extensive infection which had spread through to my bones would almost certainly have overwhelmed a system compromised by years of illness and immunosuppressants. I was lucky, and I’ve been just as lucky before. I’m aware, perhaps more than many my age, at how many points our fragile lives rest on a knife-edge, ready to fall one way or another. Many of the scientists I admire believe that those moments translate to infinite parallel universes within which all the alternative options are explored. Perhaps there is one where a version of me, someone a little Kate-like – but not much – is healthy. And perhaps there are others where I wasn’t as fortunate as I have been; where I didn’t receive the necessary help on time, or where I was raised in a place that just didn’t have the resources to try. Considering the nature of my life’s complexities, I have to accept that – if there are multiple worlds co-existing alongside this one – then in most of them I’m probably dead.

So, you see, it’s more important than ever to make this life count. To help others if and when I possibly can, and to recognise that even the smallest gesture can make a big difference if it happens to come at the right time. If that means writing a letter to a potential terrorist, then so be it. Maybe if we can all send out a little more love, and hope, and courage into the world there will be fewer people who feel that the only way to make an impact upon it is to spread hatred and violence. After all, Bin Laden wouldn’t have looked half as threatening in those videos if he’d accompanied the long beard and flowing robes with a bit more tie-dye and a bit less TNT...

Wishing on a Star

This year, just before Christmas, with nothing wrapped and some things still unmade, I did something I'd never normally do at such a time: I bought myself a present. It seems a little selfish when it's a season dedicated to thinking of others, but there are some moments which call out to be marked and this was one of them.

Around this time last year, as we left 2013 behind and stepped cautiously into a fresh annum, I posted Neil Gaiman's New Year Wish. It was perfect, and summed up many of my hopes for my friends and family. I knew my year was going to be tumultuous to say the least, but adored this little wish and dared to claim its sentiments for myself, and for you.

                                                            

The post was from his blog, here. 

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

He added:

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think

there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."

And: 

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't

good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever." 

As I have already detailed in previous posts, one of Gaiman's books had  become particularly important to me during difficult times that year, so it seemed very fitting that I welcome the next with words of his instead of any other. Of course, I then forgot about them almost immediately as living took over from dreaming and was quite unrelenting in its dominance. 

That's not to say that 2014 was, for me, a bad one, just that it required an awful lot more determination than usual to think of it as good. It has been a year of extremes, and all that brings with it. Each moment of pain was matched with laughter, and for everything that came to an end something new began to grow and change. I had to learn to accept help and embrace the vulnerability that had made itself so unavoidable and left me unmasked and unsure.

And yet, in doing so I rediscovered my strength, and reconnected with who I am and  how I became what I think of as my self. I spent much of this year not feeling - or indeed looking - much like myself at all because of side affects from the medical treatment, but in many ways am more connected with my body than I have ever been before. As the fresh scars heal and I feel myself begin to re-emerge from the pudgier, pastier form in which I felt trapped for so long, I am much more aware of how I feel and how I move. I appreciate the battles - some won, others lost - which it has held fast throughout, and have a much deeper understanding of the ones yet to come. We are no longer enemies, my broken body and I. We are allies, brothers (or sisters) in arms, in a war that has ravaged us both.

As I wished you all a happy and healthy new year, I knew not to hope for the same things myself. Disappointment is not easily conquered, and I did not anticipate having the necessary time or energy to sulk properly. 

Then, one perfectly ordinary day, I spotted this on Facebook. The website Neverwear had collaborated with artist David Mack to produce a series of prints, bringing Neil's New Year's Wish to life. Re-reading and remembering it for the first time in nearly twelve months brought to my attention a quite magical and unexpected thing.

Despite all the twists and turns and darker days I, too, had managed all of the things on the lists of hopes and dreams I had for you. Many of them were only accomplished with the help of the people around me, and others I'd had to find it in myself to create or pursue.

At that moment, as the warm thrill of the realisation fluttered in my head and my heart, I cemented the final wish. I had, indeed, surprised myself.             

Several of the people dearest to me in the world already know their coming year will be a complicated one, and aren't sure how to greet so much uncertainty, or how they will begin to untangle it without unravelling themselves. Much as I would like to, I can't shield then from the tumult that awaits, but I can pledge to face it with them, and I do, so very faithfully. 

For you, as for them, I hope that 2015 brings each and every one of you the love and support I have been so fortunate to surround myself with when I needed it most. 

And I hope that you, too, manage to surprise yourself, by being kinder, stronger, happier, and braver than you believe you can be. Let's do it together.