St Elmo's Fire

I guess I don’t keep up with all the news in the Sols.  It seems that earlier this month, film- maker John Hughes died and I never knew. 

Hughes wrote and directed a lot of the Molly Ringwald- led Brat Pack films of the 80’s like The Breakfast Club, 16 Candles and Pretty in Pink.  He also made a truck-load of other comedies like the Home Alone and National Lampoon syndicates; (On the cult success of The Breakfast Club, I guess he can be forgiven for those Chevy Chase aborations!)

Anyway, the whole John Hughes thing reminded me of my obsession with and love for the Brat Pack film St Elmo’s Fire.. which it seems wasn’t a John Hughes film at all but rather a made-in-the-mould Hughes-esque film about a group of reluctant-to-grow-up 20-something’s. 

For me, that movie resonated.  Some of the lines have become part of my everyday – but just in this last week, one of its ideas - in fact the central theme of self-created drama- has been in my mind a lot.

The climax of the film occurs when each of the main characters loses something or someone they had held as an ideal all through their college years.  Each displays a little crazy or self-destructive behaviour in their own way and each are surrounded by their friends who attempt to cajole them back from the edge and into a newer, more adult world.  The movie is pretty much built around this quote:

This isn't real. You know what it is? It's St. Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them... there was no fire. There wasn't even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you're making up all of this.

Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about this quote, particularly in relation to our ability as rational, adaptable, problem-solvers to create problems where there are none; to guide our own journeys by these self-conjured flashes of light that allow us to lurch from one issue to the next. Just like the quote- I think we sometimes believe our perpetual motion is driven forward by friction; though for me I think the scary part is that we do this not when times are tough, but rather when they seem too easy. 

It’s as if we get fearful riding on that serene sea in the sunshine, a light breeze at our backs.  We don’t trust ourselves that it isn’t all a deadly illusion.  We want waves and storms to battle against, monsters from beneath to buffer our boats – problems we can put our backs into; rescue ourselves from; rescue others from.  And when there aren’t any we get nervous, wondering when they’ll come and how we will cope with them – so, instead of enjoying our moment in the sun, we pitch ourselves out over the edge and swim for the shore.

In many ways, I feel as if I’m sailing out of storms and into the sun right now.  I’ve already felt the serenity of breezy patches of dappled light and I can see more in the direction I am sailing.  Of course there may be dragons in that direction too – of that I can never be sure – but my challenge is to enjoy the journey for what it is.  So I wonder if I will keep my hand on a steady till or if I’ll conjure St Elmo and rock the boat before its time.  And I wonder if my crewmates will stay, or if they’ll pitch; afraid of their own bright flashes in the sky.

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky


I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher


Gonna be a man in motion, all I need is a pair of wings


Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire   

Could be..

A few weeks ago – a song from West Side Story came into my head.  I was whistling and humming it a lot at work and the tune would catch me late in the evening as I was at my computer – or while I was doing the dishes.

All I could remember of the words was “Could be – who knows – something’s coming something good…” Finally, after a week or so of the tune persisting in my brain, I looked up these lyrics:

Could be!

Who knows?

There's something due any day;

I will know right away,

Soon as it shows.

It may come cannonballing down through the sky,

Gleam in its eye,

Bright as a rose!

Who knows?

It's only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Under a tree.

I got a feeling there's a miracle due,

Gonna come true,

Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.

Something's coming, something good,

If I can wait!

Something's coming, I don't know what it is,

But it is

Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,

Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,

Open the latch!

Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;

Catch the moon,

One-handed catch!

 

Around the corner,

Or whistling down the river,

Come on, deliver

To me!

Will it be? Yes, it will.

Maybe just by holding still,

It'll be there!

Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy,

Meet a guy,

Pull up a chair!

The air is humming,

And something great is coming!

Who knows?

It's only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Maybe tonight . . .

All I know is right now, maybe for the first time in a long time, I am refusing to analyse every little detail of my life; assign it meaning; force it into a place where I can name it and inspect it from every angle.  I am just experiencing it.  And you know what? More often than not, the experience is accompanied by a wide smile.  Maybe I’m smiling because that good thing isn’t so far around the corner.  Maybe it’s right here.

Could be, who knows?

365

What a difference 365 days can make.  This time last year, for one reason and another, I was so anxious I could barely breathe.  Life had taken a series of disastrous turns and I was clinging to some ill-conceived dream shadows like they were wreckage and I was drowning.

Of course I WAS drowning - in a sea of grief – pummelled by waves of self- doubt.

They say time heals all wounds and I don’t know about that; maybe some wounds never really heal – they just scar over so the part of you that’s been injured can still do its job – but bears the marks of paths you’ve trod and the obstacles that tripped you on the way. 

So time might not heal, but it certainly provides its own momentum that sees us through its days til some morning you wake up and another zodiac has swung around, and you can see into the distance, and what you see looks bright instead of bleak.

From this end of the 365 days stretched out behind me, I have a kaleidoscopic view of day 1; its reality is reduced.  I can’t grasp that day and yet not one day since has passed without its shadow.  Even in the days of brightest sun – I caught it lingering there – creeping up on the light. But here is time again, turning its perpetual hands. They work the flesh of my feelings til they’re warm and limber – ready once more for action.

365 times I’ve said I can.  And now, I finally believe it.

I look to the horizon all around me and I smile.  These days have not turned out the way I once planned, and yet they’ve turned out the way I always planned. Time brought me forwards to the place I was before.

So if I say that I’m happy and my life was always this, do you understand that it wasn’t never that? Because that was so much.  But now it’s a shiny scar and I love it because its always with me as a reminder and the even-better bit is that I don’t still feel its pain.

Happy for me

I saw a photo about 5 years ago that crysalised my vision of the direction I was heading in professionally.  I already knew I wanted to work overseas with Red Cross, and I already had an idea of doing development work in the Pacific – but this photo showed two Islander guys in a fibreglass boat with a Red Cross flag delivering relief supplies and I knew as soon as I saw it that one day, I wanted to be there, where they were, doing what they were doing.

Last week, I sat in that very boat (as it turns out) and I travelled to one of the most remote and rugged parts of this country to celebrate the achievements of a public health program that has made some amazing differences to life in villages scattered around the Solomon Islands.  If you’d seen me on that day we left, although the sea was a bit rough and it was pouring with rain and I was a little nervous of what lay ahead – you would have seen me grinning like a mad woman.

And it struck me that then, in that moment, I was happy for me.  And it’s a long time since I have felt that way. 

I’m in no way being a martyr when I say that the happiness of my friends and family is one of the most important things in my life; for me, my happiness is derived largely from the happiness of those I love.  If I can facilitate that happiness, even better.  But again, in that moment there on the water last week, I looked back over the last few years and realised that so much of the time I have been happy has been because I’ve been sharing the happiness of others.  Engagements, weddings, pregnancies, births, professional and personal achievements.  Hell, I even tried to be happy for the people I was IN love with when they decided to love someone else instead of me! (ok so that happiness might have been a little forced!)  But this moment was about me, about celebrating just for a short time the fact that I saw something through; that I persevered even when it looked like it may never happen; that I worked steadily towards something I wanted and finally achieved it; that I didn’t bail out or leave promises I’d made myself unfulfilled - and it felt great.

On our last morning away, as we were walking from the village where we’d spent the majority of our time away, to the sea side village we were to depart from, I told one of the guys the story of that photo and how happy I had been to make this trip and share their places, their people and this time with them.  He told me he knew exactly which photo I was talking about – because he was in it.  And then he took my hand, squeezed it and let it go.

About an hour into our journey home, the skipper who had been walking in front of me during that conversation I’d had on the road – asked one of the other guys to come and drive the boat for a while.  He climbed to the front cargo hold, found the Red Cross flag and tied it up behind me.  I nearly cried it was so sweet.

And that’s the story of my adventure in the jungle.  There are plenty of details I’ve missed that I just can’t do justice to in words or with photos – like what it was like to arrive in a croc infested river in the dark, walk 3 hours in the mud late at night, cross a 100m wide, chest-deep river at midnight, get my hair braided by young girls while sitting in the river and learning a traditional song, sit chatting with the women about their community, be supported through muddy walkabouts by beautiful, respectful men on either side, be appreciated and given warm and open friendship and feedback by the team… nope just can’t give any of that the full force of meaning it had for me.  But the story of the photo and of the boys’ response to my expression of happiness epitomises the essence of what I saw in that picture all that time ago.  Despite the rocky highs and lows of this job and the problematic cycle that is development work, its actually all about the exchange.  And as usual, this week I feel that I am receiving so much more than I will ever be able to give.