How to be stunned by life
While living in its uncertainty
I don’t quite know what has been happening to me since the year started, but my mind is a kind of frown, a raised eyebrow and a blue sky all rolled into one, and when I close my eyes I see a weird, swirling, mass of gold-tinted rubble, like a big bang is about to happen.
My body is absolutely burning through food at the moment, and I sometimes wake at 4am for no reason. I’m anticipating something, but I don’t know what it is. It is not an unpleasant anxiety, more of a wondrous one.
Last night (and tonight) there was a crescent Moon, and next to it, Venus. It was such a beautiful sight that people at my local train station were taking photos of it, as it shone over tower blocks, cranes and racks of railway lines. Humans can make their environments ugly but they can’t take away the stars.
Whenever I see a beautiful sky against the backdrop of that industrial landscape it reminds me that what is beautiful, and terrible, about life is that each tiny moment is unique and can never be experienced again.
When I saw that configuration of moon and planet it brought that whole momentary thing into stark relief. And it gave me hope when I saw people taking photos: even though we are attached to our phones to the point of distraction, we continue to be stunned by nature. And I think we can continue to be stunned by ourselves.
I have been volunteering in You Me Bum Bum Train, the secretive, immersive show that has had rave reviews in most of the national UK press. About once a week since early December, I have been heading into central London with several hundred others to become part of a magical community that gives audience members – known as ‘passengers,’ who go through it one by one - the time of their life.
They get to experience things they never could have imagined doing. They come out amazed by what they have done. And the reason is because of the hundreds of volunteers who are there to give them a unique (and sometimes life-changing) experience.
I can’t tell you more because I, like everyone who has volunteered or seen the show, have signed a confidentiality agreement. What can I say about it? Well, it has taught me that people have the capacity to be amazed by what they can do. By life.
I suggested a friend sign up to volunteer in the show. What is it? he asked. I can’t really explain it, I said, but it’s mind-blowing. Some celebrities have participated and loved it. A few hours later, he went to an introductory meeting in a packed room and signed up to help. Last night was his second night of volunteering.
On the train home he thanked me for introducing him to the show. I’m so happy I did – so happy for him. But I didn’t really do anything. All I did was show him a door that was ajar, and he pushed it open it himself.
Today I went to my local park. I put on my walking boots because I wanted to be able to get off the paths and through squishy mud. I sat for a while on a bench by a four-way crossroads next to a weather vane.
The sun had brought people out, and what came to me, as the dogs and scooters and cyclists and and footballs and joggers and roller-skaters swirled around, was a feeling that I’ll be old soon, (in the grand scheme of Earth’s existence, because we are a blink in the eye of its history), and how one day I’ll sit in the park of my life and notice a woman my age sitting alone on a bench.
And, as this older me, I’ll feel happy and content about all the beautiful things that unfolded for me in my life, and at the same time there will be a deep sadness for what I’ve lost. And I’ll look at the younger woman and feel joy about how those things are yet to unfold for her. And I’ll also have a deep sense of nurturing for her, because right now she is learning to sit in the middle of her uncertainty.
We mostly can’t control what happens in life. The future is uncertain by its nature, and somehow we have to live with that uncertainty. The best thing we can do is show up and be curious. And we might just amaze ourselves.
Poignant and poignanter. Lovely.
This is so lovely - thanks Lucy ☺️