The best part of this year has been Anna and Joe arriving to the house. There’s a list of Anna-isms on the fridge, a glut of tupperware in the freezer, and a growing mountain of compost to show for it. (As an aside: I think my favourite Anna-ism is “pifsquiffling” – when you spoil the end of the book for yourself by reading the last page).
Last week Kristin found a flask of tea on the side. Knowing Joe had intended to take it on a bike ride with him, Kristin did a spot-on impression of his imagined remembering. We had a good laugh about it when Joe and Anna returned.
I am finding a lot of joy in the knowing-and-being-known of living together. It’s a gift that has cushioned the blow of other friendships ending, and painful times at church.
I’ve heard it said that leaders are like lighthouses. The ships they save rarely come close, but all are led by their light or abandoned by their darkness. This year I’ve experienced working for someone whose leadership is like a guiding light. And I’ve also watched the fallout from others whose leadership has wreaked a quiet devastation. I’ve thought about the image of ships “abandoned by their darkness” many times.
The out-workings of these situations have helped me think about life’s solitude. Henri Nouwen writes about solitude as the need to become content with our own distinctness. Solitude is a positive thing, that helps us be with others. (Like in Gibran’s poem: “Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping / For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts”). The fallout from painful situations spins us out in different directions and reveals the responsibility we bear for our own decisions. And it can also be the foundation for togetherness. Rilke says it like this: “all companionship consists only in the strengthening of two solitudes.” When we’ve learned to stand alone in our pain, we can meet others not as a means to escape our aloneness, but as whole persons capable of genuine presence.
Embracing solitude means being grateful for friendships and relationships knowing that there will be departures as well as arrivals. This has been a wonderful first year of friendship with Sophie, of running with Charlotte, and praying with Anna. There have also been goodbyes: to Friday Club, to little Luna, to neighbours.
Reading is form of companionable solitude – living in conversation with writers across time and distance. This is now my third year of reading more, and it feels like a thought-fertiliser which enriches everything else. Of 60+ books from this year, these ones are the favourites (please tell me about your book recommendations for the coming year):
Some of my favourite books of the year have been about love: All About Love, Everything is Extraordinary, and Conversations on Love. bell hooks introduces All About Love with an acknowledgement that the topic of love is seen as somehow lesser, and yet it is central to the human experience.
Love is hard, but it’s a life’s work. And it’s something I want to be intentional about becoming better at. At one point, All About Love quotes Elizabeth Kübler-Ross:
“I can assure you that the greatest rewards in your whole life will come from opening your heart to those in need. The greatest blessings always come from helping”.
I’ve found that to be true.
And so it is that the year is drawing to a close. This has not felt like a straightforwardly good or easy year, but it has been a meaningful one. It’s been the ten-year marker of getting baptised, starting university, and many of my significant friendships. It’s also been a year where I’ve been afforded the privilege of travel to San Sebastian, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, and of obtaining a working cutlery drawer. And I am proud of the things I’ve worked towards, like running the Sheffield 10k in under an hour.
But mostly, I’m ending the year feeling grateful for the life I’m living and the extraordinary people accompanying me. I hope you end the year feeling the same.
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