Spiral

I am not bothering to sleep very much at the moment..never have in fact and since lack of sleep is supposed to shorten your life I must be on borrowed time.  Last nigtht was no exception I stayed up ’til the early hours getting school unifrom washed..making little mincemeat cakes..Oh yes…and planning a small event for the toddler group children.  

Each year David and I make an advent spiral…….for those who don’t know what that is…..it is a spiral of greenery which the children walk. They carry an unlit candle and light it from a central flame then they walk out again, placing it somewhere amongst the greenery as they do….. so……David plays gentle sweet tunes on his octave mandola and everyone is transported..(only briefly for the 2 year olds).

I always gripe about doing it weeks before I start up to the minute before  I set it up ..and this year….because I stayed up making cakes and hanging up washing, my fuzzy brain blithly spent the morning preparing at a snails pace thinking I had all the time in the world……. …So I get there with only 30 minutes to do an hours work…..I’m spitting at everyone cursing under my breath until I pick up that first branch of greenery…..draw out the spiral…..light the pillar candle in the middle…..hear the music…then…I fall under the spell…the power of the trees brought indoors..the delight of the children carrying their light; one with his measured pace, like he is walking up an isle, one that steps over the walls to get back out..one that straightens the wick before she lights her candle….it works it’s magic on me and I’m planning next years before I’ve cleared it away.

Friends

So…..do you find that each of your friends brings out something different in you………….I’m starting to find this alarming.  Then there is the fact that my diverse friends don’t know each other..would not even bump into each other in the same shop ( well almost true)

How can this be?  Have I multiple personalities? or is friendship a kind of habit that you just don’t give up..you get sentimental about old friends just because you have had them so long..or you used to laugh about the same things or you once had a huge crush on them or they on you and now you are comfortably familiar..the reason you liked them has become a warm fuzzy feeling..comfortable and worn in..But at this moment as I start to feel that reassuring sensation of being  loved..I’m starting to wonder if this is all mutual….Do my friends think about me?….would they claim to love me…..Derrida said….. that when you love someone you are presented with the difference between the ‘Who’ and the ‘What’..do we love the essential person or what the person is, (meaning their qualities how they look, what they do)..when you no longer love .. it is because you no longer love the ‘What’ you find the object of your love is not  as you believed them to be…and so it follows you did not  love the ‘Who’…….Why did I start talking about love?…….Ah friends……an easier kind of love perhaps than the lover or life partner.. …once you have your friends for a decade you have seen quite a few changes..sometimes they barely resemble the person you first were attracted to…and it doesn’t usually make any difference….because in a way we more tolerant  of friends than we are of our lovers..it’s less about qualities, looks and behaviour I mean…..it is almost a prerequisite of friendship that we see each other through our life changes..these comings of age….so what is it then that binds us to a friend ..is it love of the individual, the ‘Who’ that despite all else endures?  But didn’t I say ….’each of my freinds brings out something different in me’….perhaps  that’s because they knew me as a different person..with qualities, behaviours, I have now lost or moved on from ..So I see the  ”What ‘of myself  mirrored by each of them…Kim at 20..Kim at 33…

OK…. too much like philosophy..and to call on Derrida again…apparently women can’t be philosophers…so there!