Resolution and Remembrance

"Auld Lang Syne". Mairie Campbell (version) 

 

 

"Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future."
(Fulton Outsole)

"I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done."
(Lucille Ball)

"At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent."
(Barbara Bush)

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne;
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for the sake of auld lang syne."

(Robert Burns - adapted)

 

My mother said that there were always four things you could never get back in life; the harsh word after it was spoken, the stone after it was thrown, the occasion after it was missed, the time after it was lost. We set our lives to the ticking of clocks and the buzzing of alarms, dashing from one scrawled page entry to another. We tie ourselves into appointments and routines to make the most of the time we may have, then mourn the lack of time we've left ourselves simply To Be.

At New Year, we celebrate the opportunity to do all the things we've been meaning to do but  never found the time for. We immediately make lists, physically or mentally, and commit a whole new calendar to appointments and events. Yet we also encourage ourselves to look to times past; to reminisce and mourn. Memories, remembrance; this is how we mortals hold on to people, animals, places and events. It's how we hold on to ourselves in the passage of time.

I wasn't unduly surprised when a friend told me that the blog and I had missed New Year, even before the twelve days of Christmas 2014 were over. We pin our hopes and dreams on the big clock striking midnight; we link arms with inebriated strangers to call to mind sadly missed loved ones and opportunities. Then the first day of January stumbles into the second day, slips into the third and beyond... The truth is that this will be a "new" year until we embark on the next one, God willing. It's a fair assumption, based on personal experience, that the majority of resolutions earnestly embarked on ten days ago will be abandoned within weeks. Is it any less commendable if we restart the diet, finish the painting, join the gym or begin the Mandarin conversation course in May?

Mankind has not equipped itself well so far this new year: the news stories attest to revenge and aggression rather than remembrance and resolution. In the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, those who were so recently clearing away over-priced wrapping paper and cheap tinsel and vowing to give up smoking after that last packet are gone. Whoever they are, whatever they have done, their names may indeed be brought to mind for those who remain to link arms at midnight at the end of this year. And so it continues; until, one day, it stops.

All our days are numbered; the longest life may still be too short if it's heavy on regrets. I have learned at least one lesson in recent years; that time can scar as well as heal when it's mishandled. This year, I've resisted the urge to comfort myself with a list of resolutions that may become a testament of regrets. Instead, I've decided that, whatever I achieve or fail to do, getting through this year must be sweeter if I try to move forward with Grace, Grit and Gratitude in equal measure.

Instead of New Year's resolutions, I've included here some little guidelines to living well, applicable regardless of how old the year is, or indeed how old we are. I've also included a favourite version of "Auld Lang Syne", even though New Year's Eve really is old-long-since; possibly not that surprising, considering my Robbie Burns crush. Burns didn't intend to restrict his iconic anthem to one day of the year. Across the globe, it's sung on birthdays and anniversaries, at funerals and reunions. I often find myself humming it in my local Poundland (they're used to me). Which is just grand, because resolution and remembrance, like friendship and kindness, are for life, not just New Year x

 

 

;

 

 

 ("One Day Like This"  Elbow, with the BBC Concert Orchestra and choir Chantage)

 

"Drinking in the morning sun,
Blinking in the morning sun;
Shaking off a heavy one,
 Heavy like a loaded gun.
What made me behave that way,
Using words I never say?
I can only think it must be love:
Oh anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day.

 So throw those curtains wide;

One day like this a year will see me right."
(Garvey, Jupp, Potter, Potter and Turner)

 

God's tap on man's shoulder

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved: It is God's finger on man's shoulder." 

(Charles Morgan)

My friend Suzanne, who's known me for at least half of my life and cares about me deeply, called me a "singleton" last year. As a hopeless romantic, I was quite stung by this (affectionate) description: no-one who loves the idea of being in love and identifies themselves with loving others wants to be seen as unloved. She also told me I should have been born in medieval times, when princesses lived in ivory towers and knights were bold. I don't believe the flats that have sprung up at the end of my little street really qualify as an ivory tower, and although there are some very fine and bold men in hosiery and thigh-high boots around Brighton, my guess is they're not out to dally with a damsel.

St Valentine's Day is, of course, an exercise in canny consumerism, exploiting the poetry of flattery and the currency of insecurity.The Catholic Church doesn't even fully verify that there was indeed one saintly Valentine whose story peculiarly lends him to the patronage of romantic love. There have been several sainted Valentines in fact: today's feast day may be an amalgamated celebration of their kindly and chivalrous traits.
The Ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia was devoted to love and fertility and occurred around the middle of February. By all accounts, the festival could be a bit of a riot, sometime even involving sacrifices; it was abolished by Pope Gelasius in the fifth century. It's been claimed that during Lupercalia, men drew women's names out of a jar at random, then coupled with them, probably just as randomly. Hmm, not a whole lot of chivalrous love going on there then.The practice was reintroduced in the Middle Ages, but in a more modified way: names would be drawn to initiate courting couples; the origin of today's guess-who-it-is Valentine cards?
The earliest recorded association of today's date with romantic or courtly love is credited to one Geoffrey Chaucer in "The Parlement of Foules", in 1392. "Courtly love" applied the language of the law courts to the intrigues and rituals of attraction and romance; courtship. Around 1400, Princess Isabel of Bavaria established a "High Court of Love" in Paris, dealing with love contracts, betrayals and indiscretions and violence against women. The court was founded on 6th January, the feast day of a Bavarian saint named Valentin. Today, we have the Jeremy Kyle Show.
The medieval concept of courtly love was noble and chivalrous; although it was usually conducted in secret. And it wasn't expected to be practiced between husbands and wives: marriage was often a detached, contractual matter involving allegiances, land and titles. Essentially, courtly love embraced erotic desire and spiritual attainment; it was at once both illicit and morally idealistic. It was innocence, tenderness, devotion and passion. I agree Suzie; get me to an ivory tower and quick. And yet this evening, on a feast steeped in the traditions of erotic love at it's purest and most self-sacrificing, my local tavern is proudly advertising it's "Valentine's Day Speed Dating Massacre". With reduced booze. And scampi. Dear Lord. Such things can only have a kindly-hearted singleton running for the chamomile and honey, clutching "The Complete Robert Burns".
Whatever the origins and associations of the feast, whether there was one St Valentine or twenty, the truth is that love and romance can be very much alive today. Love isn't restricted to an era, a class or to dramatic situations. It lives in hearts and minds, in familiarity and the every-day, irrespective of ivory towers or high-rises. Like Kindness and Fidelity, two of it's offspring, it's often depicted as a weakness or feyness nowadays, particularly in men, but I agree with Gandhi that love is the prerogative of the brave. There's a feeling of kinship in romantic love that empowers and engenders a will to protect as much as to be supported. The bonds of true love may be imperceptible, but they can be inexorably binding.
Do I believe all this? Yes. Do I still want to be princess-lifted out of my own little ivory tower? Yep. Did I get any Valentine's cards today? Er...no. Suzanne would say I don't put myself "out there", although I dread to think where "there" may be. Certainly not my local boozer. And like most so-called singletons, there's a lot going on in here. I'm a bit in love with where I live, I love my friends and family, I'm soppy with next door's cat and Jonathan the Seagull (treats the back garden like a hotel); I love my faith in other people and in God. I rather like my blog. I still love the idea of being in love; I believe in marriage, not just as a social institution but as a sacrament. There are a lot of us about; intelligent, practical, independent people who believe that love is for every day, not just for 14th February.
Many wonderful people have spoken beautifully about love in all it's guises of course, infinitely more eloquently than I ever could. I've included a luxury selection of quotes here; like chocolates for the soul, the sort you should never give up for Lent. I've also included Van Morrison's lovesong "Have I Told you Lately"; he wrote it less than twenty five years ago, but it's rightly acclaimed alongside the works of Burns and Dante. Originally written as a prayer, it's just timeless; it will probably remain one of the most played wedding waltzes for the next few decades.
If love didn't appear to come through you front door today, or even pop up on your iPhone or laptop screen, may it find you in the pockets of wherever you call home, and may you greet it in the corners of your smile.

*Happy Valentine's Day, Ms Suzanne Pinkstone!*

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." 

(Lao Tzu) 

"Where there is Love there is Life." 

(Mahatma Gandhi) 

"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge." 

(Thomas Carlyle) 

"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit." 

(Khalil Gibran) 

"Love is a friendship set to music." 

(Joseph Campbell) 

"My love is like a red, red rose 

That's newly sprung in June: 

My love is like the melody 

That's sweetly played in tune." 

(Robert Burns) 

"Let no one who loves be unhappy, even love unreturned has its rainbow." 

(James M. Barrie) 

"Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat." 

(Ben Hecht) 

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier." 

(Mother Teresa) 

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." 

(Martin Luther King Jr) 

"Forgiveness is the final form of love." 

(Reinhold Niebuhr) 

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit." 

(Khalil Gibran) 

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another." 

(Thomas Merton) 

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." 

(Maya Angelou) 

"A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love." 

(St Basil) 

"For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to your self." 

(John O'Donohue) 

"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls." 

(Khalil Gibran)

"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair." 

(G K Chesterton) 

"Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age." 

(Anais Nin) 

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." 

(Aristotle) 

"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love." 

(St Francis of Assisi) 

"Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds." 

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) 

"Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition." 

(John O'Donohue) 

"Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds." 

(Will Shakespeare) 

"For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have."

(Antoine de Saint-Exupery) 

"The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others." 

(Vincent Van Gogh) 

"To love another person is to see the face of God."

(Victor Hugo) 

"Marriage is not a noun; it's a verb. It isn't something you get. It's something you do. It's the way you love your partner every day." 

(Barbara de Angelis) 

"Real intimacy is a sacred experience." 

(John ODonohue) 

"The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one." 

(Honore de Balzac) 

"Had we never lov'd sae kindly, 

Had we never lov'd sae blindly, 

Never met - or never parted - 

We had ne'er been broken hearted." 

(Robert Burns) 

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." 

(Dr Seuss) 

"Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail." 

(Kinky Friedman) 

"You are like nobody since I love you." 

(Pablo Neruda) 

"Have I Told You Lately" Van Morrison

"Oh the morning sun in all its glory 

Greets the day with hope and comfort too; 

And you fill my life with laughter, 

You can make it better, 

Ease my troubles, that's what you do. 

There's a love that's divine 

And it's yours and it's mine,

Like the sun; 

At the end of the day 

We should give thanks and pray 

To the One."

"Old long since" - The eve of a new year

"God said: “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years, and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth.” And so it happened: God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was. Evening came, and morning followed."

(The Book of Genesis 1:14)

I shall be working this New Year's Eve, until around 11pm - I'm grateful for it and would rather be earning than not, whatever the time of day or year! But I'm mindful of the significance of this evening, and tomorrow's dawn. I won't be one of the very hardy Brighton eccentrics who traditionally take to the sea in the January wind and rain on New Year's morning. But I am enough of a Brighton eccentric to want to walk down to the pier and along the pebble beach in wellies by myself tomorrow morning; it's one of the practical pleasures that drew me to this city in the first place.

Beyond that, I've resolved this year not to make New Year resolutions as such: I'd rather concentrate on what I need to do to enable what I want to happen in my life. Oscar Wilde said that resolutions at New Year are: "simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.” I've learnt a lot about myself and the people around me over the past year; some of it, I've even liked. I'm hoping to grow to be more accepting of the things I don't readily like or even acknowledge. At the end of any day, not everyone will or should like me; but then only I have to be comfortable in my skin as I settle down with my cup of Redbush and an unseemly large piece of treacle tart. For someone who's spent most of her adult life dreading criticism about their clothes, this is progress. 
I realise that since starting this blog in February, I've surfaced as a kind of hybrid of Anne of Green Gables and Mrs Doyle found reading The Guardian on a long train journey. Luckily, I'm partial to all of these ingredients. It may not have been quite what I was expecting, or indeed everybody's cup of Redbush, but I believe it could have been a lot worse.

"May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours, 

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow wind

 

Work these words of

 love around you,

An invisible cloak 

To mind your life." 

(From "Beannacht - A New Year's Blessing", by the late, wonderful John O'Donohue)

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

(Edith Lovejoy Pierce)

"The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul."

(G.K. Chesterton)

"Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right."

(Oprah Winfrey)

"New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

(Mark Twain) 

"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice."

(T.S. Elliot)

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"No one ever regarded the first of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam." 

(Charles Lamb)

As a longtime fan of Robbie Burns, I love "Auld Lang Syne". He wrote the poem and set it to a traditional folk tune in 1788, yet it endures today across the English speaking world; at funerals and memorials, graduations and farewells and of course on New Year's Eve. The Scots title translated into English is simply "Old Long Since"; days gone by.
I care not a jot that it's been done to near death by any performer with half a tonsil, nor that Burns probably plagiarised a couple of 16th century folk songs to construct it: it is remembrance and rekindling in all simplicity. Included below is probably my favourite version, sung as Burns would have wanted to hear it.

"And surely you’ll buy your pint cup

and surely I’ll buy mine! 

And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet, 

for auld lang syne. 

And there’s a hand my trusty friend 

and give us a hand o’ thine! 

And we’ll take a cup o' kindness yet, 

for auld lang syne."

"Auld Lang Syne"  Paolo Nutini

                                                                                                                                                                      

Personally, I wish you all everything that you would wish for yourselves, but also every blessing and good thing that you may not know you yet require. May you wake tomorrow knowing your own name and those of your truest friends. If  you cannot give a name to God, may you be at peace with those who do, whatever that name may be. Be as good as you can be on any day, believing that both you and the world can be better still tomorrow. I hope your journey this past year has brought you closer to yourself and shown you that you can allow yourself and others a little more kindness in the next one.                                                                                                     Slainte, Namaste and God Bless X