Family time

My daughters are visiting at the moment and my Ex's sister and husband are visiting from Canada so there's been a flurry of activity over the past few days. One daughter returns to Paris on Monday so we are trying to prioritise and do the Really Important things.

But what are they? My daughters and I are in agreement that they are around seeing family and spending time in the Peak District. We don't have time to go to the seaside this week but Parisian Daughter stayed with Roman Daughter for a fortnight to help her pack for her new life, and they went to the beach while she was there.

Meanwhile here I am in my tiny ex-Council semi, loving having my family here but with very little space to move around in! Roman Daughter is moving to Maastricht to do an MSc, so we are learning a little Dutch before she goes. I almost drove off the road yesterday as we tried to get past our amusement at the word 'Winkel' for 'shop'. I've told her if she gets homesick all she has to do is enjoy hearing people speaking like the Swedish Chef all around her.

As a linguist, I've always been sad that people find German and Dutch 'ugly'. I love the deep, rich sounds and the way my brain has to think backwards in order to speak grammatically. Roman daughter's friends have told her Dutch is a 'Lingua brutta' - 'ugly language' - but she's excited about trying to learn it and hoping someone will let her try rather than speaking English.

So far we've spent the time talking, eating, walking and laughing. I'm the kind of person who thinks ahead, like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll, and usually the dread of them leaving would be weighing heavily on my soul, but I have decided that at 50 it's time I stopped being a ninny, and am determined to enjoy my time with them. Likewise with the Canadian (ex) relatives, who are lovely. We've met them only too rarely - usually at weddings or funerals, and never in Canada, although hopefully one day I'll get there.

Relating to people is one of my primary joys in life and yet... and yet I am also aware of an inter-connectedness which is so exquisitely tender that it's almost painful to me at times to walk along a street, so much do I feel I am part of everybody and everything. It's only just struck me that - just as synaesthetics rarely question their experience, assuming everyone is the same - perhaps I am not 'normal'. Ever since I was a little girl I have been moved by sudden emotions as I go past people... I remember once seeing an old man and his dog and crying for hours at the sadness of one of them being left behind one day. I used to be cross with myself and try to reframe such feelings ("They are happy right now because they have each other!") and indeed peace finally came as I learned more and more to live in the Now.

I am still far from expert. As a child I was tormented by fears and phobias, and I've come a long long way but still some days I struggle to maintain a peaceful equilibrium. But most of the time I am just content to Be. I love to go into the Peak District and feel a part of it all, almost as though I AM a hill. I love to sit in a cafe and feel a kind of spritual empathy with the other people around me; it feels like an active meditation as I quietly wish them peace and happiness in life.

Of course I may be gently going insane, but it feels like a spiritual journey, so that's what I'm going with for now. :) Family time for me encompasses my fellow humans, and when my daughters have left, I shall return to enjoying this feeling of kinship - and surreptitiously spreading a little peace, joy and love as I sip my Latte...