A Friend For All Seasons

Let me tell you about Christine.  My story with Christine goes back a long time.  Before I met Mary Oliver,       before I found my third self, before I formed the words opportunity and possibility in my mouth.  Christine is, and has always been , my friend for all seasons.

Many times those seasons have been all sunshine.  Meeting over surreptitious ante-natal scan photos in the pews at Park Road Baptist Church.  Skiing every year in Les Gets, with Tartipete and jigsaws, and always the next good reason for why we should stop for a coffee.  Infinite fireworks of infinite new years, and the Kapla towers that the boys would build and that Katy (Katy!) would knock down with her tail.

Sometimes those sunny seasons have had clouds appear.  The cloud of irritation when phoned at 42 weeks pregnant wit Nick to be told, “I beat you!” when Gerry arrived three weeks early.  The cloud of envy as C3      Imagine grew while my walk stalled and God felt a long way away.  A cloud of anger at a well-meant attempt to help when my husband and I felt a million miles apart.  Cloud of difference, because Christine and I are very different personalities.

Some seasons have been rainy.  The times of saying goodbye for another stretch of time as life goes on now on opposite sides of the world.  The times of missing big moments and key celebrations, and sometimes just the small everyday moments that you miss just as much.  The times of seeing other friends closer than you, in every sense of the word.  Although sometimes the tears are tears of laughter, talking so hard we walk straight through the film set of Sherlock in London, and behold, there is a rainbow.

There has definitely been fog.  I have not seen as well as I might the times of financial stretch, the times of grief, and the times when I have not realised the freedoms I have had, the forgivenesses I have received, the generosities I have enjoyed, the loyalties I have accepted. 

And some seasons have been enfolded in blankets of snow.  Colder seasons, seasons where you withdraw into your own warm houses and forget for a while the sun that shone not so very long ago.

I would dare to say that everyone needs a friend for all seasons.  I would risk saying that everyone needs a Christine in their lives.  Because I am out of love with the ordinary and Christine allows me to be me in every moment we share, choosing to see and be the safest of places.

Christine, I may fly away but you will always wonder where I have gone and will come to find me.  Sorry that I can’t be there to share the celebrations with you this month; thank you that it won’t change what we share.

Happy 60th birthday!

“It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found.”

DW Winnicott